Speak soft but carry a large stick: Hard power versus soft power

President Theodore Roosevelt’s advice regarding diplomacy was this: speak soft, but carry a large stick.

Of course, he was adding his own corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, posed by President James Monroe in 1823 and authored by the Secretary of State at the time, John Quincy Adams.

For those who do not know, a transcript of the Monroe Doctrine can be read here: http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=23&page=transcript. If English isn’t your first language, it might be a little difficult, because it’s older, more formal English. (As a former English teacher, I still recommend trying to see what you get out of it!) In short, it is one of the longest-enduring tenets of American foreign policy, stating that any European power that attempts to colonize North or South America will be viewed as an act of war against the U.S. that will result in U.S. (military) intervention.

But because of its association with a controversial aspect of U.S. foreign policy, I’m not sure if people realize just how insightful that President Roosevelt’s saying is.

What good ol’ Teddy was saying is that in approaching interactions and negotiations with other nations, soft power is needed at the forefront, with hard power to back it up.

What are hard and soft power? Heck, what is power?

Today’s discussion will be on the concept of power in international politics. Then these ideas of power will be applied to a real-life situation, so that you might understand and see better just how big of a role power has in both domestic and foreign politics.

What is power?

“Power” is a term we hear so often every day. But what is it, exactly?

There are tons and tons of definitions for it. I can’t possibly name them all here. Like sovereignty, it is such a big topic that numerous articles and even books have been written about it. Let’s name some examples of definitions that have been given for “power”: economic wealth, military might, inspiration, influence, respect…

These are all correct to a degree. But that doesn’t exactly tell us much, does it? It gives an idea of how power might manifest or be facilitated, but it doesn’t really say what it is.

Let’s take a moment to look at how physicists define power. A unit of power is equal to one joule per second. A joule is a unit of energy that measures how much energy is used or expended in applying a force of 1 newton. In turn, a newton is a unit of force, with 1 newton equal to 1 kg-m/second squared.

My physics background is limited (my science background mostly lies in chemistry and biology, as I started my college education as a biochemistry major), but I learned this in basic physics in high school.

So to make a long story short, power is energy transfer over time. And what is energy?

If you said something along the lines of “the capacity to do work”, give yourself a gold star.

Put another way, then, power is the ability to refocus energy in order to get work done.

I’d say this definition of power applies fairly well to international relations in a more abstract way. Those considered to be the most powerful nations are often seen to have the ability to accomplish their interests.

(At this point, I’ve decided I’m going to add a definitions page to this blog.)

But now the example definitions listed earlier make more sense; many confuse “power” with “instruments of power”.

What makes one state more “powerful” than another? What gives them that edge, that ability to refocus energy achieve their interests?

I’m not sure about the international relations experts in the academic world—do not get me wrong, I am not an expert (yet), that is a long time in coming and this blog is but a fun hobby for me—but in my humble opinion, I think it is due to the full set of “internal priorities” of a state, based on what I will call its “internal structure”—this is my definition of a state’s “position”. By internal structure, I mean a combination of geography, demographics, political/governmental type, form, and structure, and overall standard of living; it is what makes an individual state unique. Internal structure provides many choices for a country’s internal priorities. Of course, that does not mean that it will result in anything positive, useful or effective; in fact, it is often the case that states do not make such choices in priorities. In the study of political science in general, no matter what level you look at, the human element is often forgotten, overlooked, or simply underestimated. Governments are made by and of people; the psyche and personal circumstances of these individuals cause them to have their own priorities and interests, which frequently get reflected in a state’s priority set.

The priority set, according to my definition, of any one state is enormous: it is the aggregate of priorities of the state as a whole, not simply those of the government in authority. Of course, the government often influences the priorities of its constituents in one way or another.

The power of a state lies in the ability to redirect energy towards the use of any instrument of power in order to obtain a certain goal. These instruments include things like economic wealth, military might, social/interpersonal connections, information, technology, ideas, innovation, and education.

These things, in turn, are put into two classifications: hard and soft power.

Hard power is almost always the use of a tangible instrument of power, usually economic wealth or military might. It is visible, countable, measurable in some way. Soft power, on the other hand, is very different; generally, it is the use of intangible, more subtle instruments: good interpersonal connections that can result in favors, persuasion, the spread of ideas, general influence.

It isn’t always easy to determine whether an instrument is one of hard or soft power. Take information, for example. Because information can be recorded and is therefore tangible, some argue it is more of a hard power instrument. But information can also be hidden 0r used for persuasion, which would possibly put it in the soft power category.

Keep in mind, these are simplistic definitions; the study of power is much more complex and the lines aren’t always clear between hard and soft power.

When Teddy Roosevelt stated to “speak soft and carry a big stick”, he was using a reference to hard and soft power. Because soft power is not as tangible, states, in their appraisal of each other as help or hindrance in achieving their own interests, it is not considered as “important” or “effective” as hard power. Therefore, he advised backing soft power with hard power so that the intangible will be lent substance by something tangible, since the human mind tends to lend more importance to what is verifiable with the senses. (That’s a whole philosophical discussion in itself, one not to be held here. Not today.)

Power: There’s an app for that

Let’s take a look at the use of power and apply it to the real world. I came upon an article written back in February 2012 by current Russian president Vladimir Putin. He served as Russian president from 2000 – 2008, as prime minister from 2008 to 2012, and was elected as president again back in March of this year. I had the opportunity to view both parliamentary and presidential elections in Russia during my Fulbright grant. There were many very interesting developments. I hope to write about it sometime in another post.

The article is titled as “Быть сильными: гарантии национальной безопасности для России” [“Being Strong: Guarantees of National Security for Russia”].

In any case, here is the article in English. It is much, much shorter than the Russian version (even the title has been reduced to simply “Being Strong”), but it will give you enough to be able to see:

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/02/21/being_strong?page=0,0

The Russian version, for those of you who know the language, can be found here. If you can read Russian, I highly recommend it:

http://www.rg.ru/2012/02/20/putin-armiya.html

Right of the bat, you can tell a lot from the title. The use of the phrase “national security” indicates physical security and guarantees discussion of Russia’s military strength. So the focus is on hard power. By equating “being strong” with “national security”, it demonstrates Putin’s mentality that hard power is what makes a state strong, rather than soft power.

The second and third paragraphs on the first page of the English version are very revealing:

“It is no surprise that some are calling for resources of global significance to be freed from the exclusive sovereignty of a single nation. This cannot happen to Russia, not even hypothetically.

In other words, we should not tempt anyone by allowing ourselves to be weak. We will, under no circumstances, surrender our strategic deterrent capability. Indeed, we will strengthen it.”

Not surprising to have such fighting words from a veteran Russian leader and former KGB agent. Putin (Russians in general, for that matter) does not mince words. He is very clear: Russia will defend its physical resources in the interest of developing the economy as a whole by taking some of those resources, putting innovative minds to work, and using the two to strengthen Russia’s military to secure it.

It is hardly a surprise that the focus is on hard power and the tangible power instruments that go with its use. Russia is a resource-rich country that for many, many years has had an economic and political habit of concentrating resources to a few key players and forcing distribution. I’m talking even before the advent of communism and the rise of the USSR and certainly after the fall of the Soviet Union.  It has resulted in uneven economic development through the different regions of the country. When you look at a city like Moscow and compare it to a city in Siberia like Krasnoyarsk (admittedly, much smaller than Moscow with a population of about 1,000,000), the difference is clear. Krasnoyarsk is developing fairly rapidly, but it is nowhere near Moscow on that front. (Despite that, I am not a fan of Moscow. I love Krasnoyarsk, which I consider my Russian home.)

This is an example of what I mean when I am talking about how a state’s position is determined by the relationship between internal priorities and internal structure. Here is another one, from the Russian version of the article (not shown in the English version):

“Приоритет: Важно обеспечить встречные потоки инноваций, технологий между ‘оборонным’ и ‘гражданским’ секторами.” [“Priority: It is important to provide counter flows of innovations and technology between defense and civilian sectors.”]

This is a really interesting policy, putting a link between defense research and development (R&D) and civilian R&D. It is common for there to be a large time gap in between the advent of military technology and innovations and the time that they find some use in the public market. Assuming such a policy will truly be upheld, it will do a lot of good for Russia; it will mean that investment in one sector could lead to innovations in the other. Talk about getting more bang for your buck. Or, in this case, your ruble. (A ruble today is worth about $0.03.) On top of that, with Russia’s incentives built into the higher education system for getting students into science, engineering, and technology career fields, innovation may not be long in coming. (In the U.S., public universities are funded by the state governments; in Russia, the federal government does the funding.)

(And for the record, for those who might be wondering about the intellectual property rights implications of such a policy…Russia doesn’t care. Really. I found no music stores with newly released albums because everyone downloads music for free online. And academic plagiarism is rampant in the universities—at least, until the last year when they have to write a thesis. But that’s just the way it is.)

But think about this: with a link like that between the civilian and defense sectors, think of how easy it would be for Russia to shift focus from one to the other according to short-term and/or long-term need. Mobilization of the military, complete with advanced equipment, could be incredibly rapid (not a small feat for a country of that size). And then when the need for a larger military ends, it would be easy to redirect focus on the civilian sector.

That ability to refocus, ladies and gentlemen, is power. In this case, hard power.

Will the imbalance between hard and soft power work for Russia in the long term? There is no real telling at this point, but I do believe in a certain kind of balance. Intimidation in efforts to deter others from taking undesirable actions with overt uses of hard power do not generally make for many allies—and who knows when Russia will need allies in the future. Not to say Russia does not have allies now, but its always better to have more than less…

Universality of fear: Terrorist groups as transnational entities and a blow against realist theory

I’m not well-versed in psychology by any means. I know vaguely about a couple of the major concepts, but that’s about it.

However, I know enough that ALL humans experience and process at least one emotion in their lives: fear.

Fear has been used throughout human history for many purposes, not the least of which is to demonstrate power hierarchies. This could be applied to something as large as a national government or as small as an individual family unit.

There are many ways by which to induce fear in others, but all of them involve threatening something of importance for the target. This could be someone’s life, livelihood, well-being, security…anything the target or targets value.

Terrorist groups—and I mean ANY kind, not just the religious ones—tend to use a very powerful method in their efforts to induce fear. That method is the creation of uncertain circumstances.

I’ll start with a discussion on how terrorist groups of today tend to operate in carrying out their goals, then talk about why the nature and existence of terrorist groups is evidence against international relations realist theory. This is important to talk about, because it might give you more ideas about how to look at or approach the study of international relations.

Carrying out terrorism: Method to the madness

Uncertainty might well be the most powerful source of fear. Humans are very good at physically, mentally, and emotionally adapting to difficult life situations: extreme climates, low food availability, imprisonment. This is not to say that adaptation always has a positive effect (look at kidnap or hostage victims who develop Stockholm’s syndrome), but in most cases adaptation provides security. It is far more difficult to adapt to circumstances that are uncertain, because there is no real consistency to which to adapt. We adapt more easily when we are exposed to circumstances that have a certain consistency. In the process of adapting, we process information that tells us how to adapt.

With uncertainty, the information needed is either partially or fully incomplete. False information and rumors might be available, but with no way to verify it, it is still uncertain. Without proper information, people cannot make the right decisions for themselves.

Terrorist groups will carry out violent schemes to promote uncertainty and induce fear. That fear can be used as leverage to attain a particular goal.

Look at what happened on September 11th, 2001. (There are many examples I could use from around the world, but since I lived in the U.S. at the time, it is the one that I can explain best on a more personal level.) Four different passenger airliner jets were used as missiles to destroy important buildings (save for Flight 93, where the passengers fought back and crashed the plane into a remote field). In the end, thousands were dead and both the World Trade Center towers and part of the Pentagon (headquarters of the U.S. military) were destroyed.

I hate calling this brilliant, because I think it is disgusting (I really don’t have a strong enough word), but for what they were trying to achieve, it worked beautifully. Because of the uncertainty due to the inability to get accurate or verifiable information, many people were not fully aware of what was happening and were terrified. Were more attacks going to happen? If so, where? Who was dead or hurt? Who was behind it?

Most importantly and frequently: Why?

I was twelve at the time of the attacks. I was not fully aware of what was happening in the world and why there were people out there who hated us so much they wanted to kill us. Yes, I was scared. Scared because they could and did hurt people who, as far as I could tell, had never done anything to them, even to the point of destroying themselves in the process.

This is the most literal way to show that hatred often destroys the hater.

Among its achieved affects were the sweeping changes that followed. Security tightened at U.S. airports. Racial profiling, which was already fairly prevalent, became much worse. The Patriot Act was passed. (Don’t even get me started on that filthy piece of legislation!)

Watching the flurry of decisions made in fear in the aftermath probably increased the feeling of power that al-Qaeda had already from the attacks themselves. The U.S., one of the most militarily powerful countries in the world, had had its sense of security unsettled and uprooted by a relatively tiny group.

Since that time, there has been some academic study on terrorist groups and how they function. I once read an article that postulated that terrorist groups proliferate, grow, and strength much like deadly viruses: they often lie dormant for years, waiting for the right time to strike. Once they do, they are difficult to deal with and recover from. They spread through networks used as vectors created by appealing to and recruiting from those who are most likely to relate to and support their cause.

Transnational identity

Terrorist groups often have a goal. That goal, however, depends on the group’s developed identity. Those familiar with group and social psychology and sociology will know more about the logistics and mechanisms than I do, but I can explain in more general terms how these identities are created.

People often interact and develop close relationships with those they perceive as being like them, the perception based on a conceived notion of who they are and their position in the world (in other words, based on an identity). Groups form around these commonalities, with a particular goal based on the set of those commonalities, which could be called the “group identity”.

These groups use identity to appeal to possible followers, convincing them of the group’s importance and relevancy. With every person who joins and/or supports the group in some way lends to the appearance of strength and solidarity, lending more credence to the importance and perceived superiority of the identity.

(By the way, do not confuse “identity” and “ideology”. They are NOT the same! Ideology deals with approaches and perspectives of the world or some aspect of it; identity deals with characteristics of the self. Admittedly, however, the lines between identity and ideology can get blurred or overlap in some cases.)

One key point here is that identity is fluid in its construction. Groups can form around different types of commonalities; identity is created through the ones deemed most important or valuable. Nationality, ethnicity, religion, gender, country affiliation (I distinguish this because you might be of a particular “nationality” but live in a different country)…these are all characteristics that lend themselves in forming a group identity. And frequently they can combine to make the groups more exclusive.

I wish there was a way to study how identity in terrorist groups change over time, but that would be a dangerous and ethically-contentious undertaking, since the only real way to study that is to get involved.

In any case, here is where the “transnational” aspect comes in for terrorist groups.

Depending on the terrorist group’s chosen set of commonalities—that is, their identity—they can choose to appeal to people all over the world. The assumption is that people with these commonalities will have an interest in joining and/or supporting the group’s cause, whatever that may be.

If the group gathers enough supporters in a particular geographic area outside of the point of origin, they have made another nub for the network, another point to and through which supplies, money, and information can be passed.

So why is it “transnational” and not “international”?

“International” indicates different “nations” working together. It implies that people grouped together as a country or a nation are working for the country or nation’s interests. On the other hand,  “transnational” indicates a multi-national, multicultural entity that just happens to have different locations in different countries, working for a cause beyond national interests.

I think a major reason for the advent of transnational terrorist groups is globalization. People are more aware of the world than they were before. While this allows for greater understanding, it also has lead to sections of the world population to be angry and discontented with the status quo.

Against realist theory

What does this have to do with realist theory?

To be brief, realist theory stipulates that states are the main actors (for some, the only ones that matter) in the international arena. The world order is seen as tending towards anarchy, with states only looking out for themselves in a dog-eat-dog world. Any game played in the world arena is a zero-sum game, which means one country’s gain is another’s loss. It is an interest-driven theory, meaning that motivations for interaction rely on the desire to fulfill national interests. Interests can loosely be defined as goals and desires of a nation pursued within the framework of the international order.

That is a REALLY simplified way of describing realist theory, but that is the essence of it. (If you want to read more, read works by Kenneth Waltz.)

I do think that at one point, realist theory had a lot of merit; in some ways, it still does. It describes the modern beginnings of international relations as well. As I mentioned in the previous post when I discussed Westphalian sovereignty, the formalization of the concept through treaty established and reinforced the sanctity of the state as a legitimate, autonomous entity. This lends credence to realist theory for that time period.

But fast forward to today. States are no longer the only major players. You have a wealth of international institutions, such as INGOs, the UN, and the World Bank. To me, that alone is a blow to realist theory, though not enough to discredit it completely because although there is cooperation between states through these institutions, they still look out for their own interests most of all.

I may not be a realist, but I agree with the theory on the point that the world order is interest-driven.

But especially from the point of view of interests, the transnational nature of terrorist groups points to a trend of the growing importance of interests not entirely related to the state. It signals that there are issues that span beyond borders that must be dealt with.

And the difficulty in dealing with terrorist groups in today’s world order is that they are not tied down to one country in particular. They are effectively beyond any one state’s jurisdiction and the groups often use that to their advantage; they can easily travel to countries that support or sponsor them. Because of sovereignty, it is extremely difficult to get the hosting country to cooperate. That’s why the allowance of the extradition of criminals is widely varied among countries; it is an issue of sovereignty.

To extend this even further, it is because of sovereignty that the degree to which any one state participates in international agreements or treaties and follows international regulations is ultimately up the state itself. The state cannot really be forced to change behavior; there can be pressure or rearranging of incentives, but there is never a guarantee that behavioral changes will occur. In this way, the system set up continues to let states remain the main players. However, as I said before, they are no longer the only important players in the arena.

I believe the system of international order is going to continue to evolve as it has been doing since its inception; transnational issues will become more widely recognized and acknowledged as globalization progresses. Technology has played a huge role in this, allowing for the spread of ideas and making development of poorer countries simultaneously easier and harder.

Of course, there will always be those discontented with the status quo, those who will resort to violence to change it. It is, unfortunately, a part of the world we live in. Hopefully in the evolution of world order there will be developed new and better ways of improving the lives of those who are disadvantaged economically and/or socially.