Has Globalisation Made Soft Power More Important Than Hard Power - Coursework Example

Has globalisation made soft power more important than hard power in the conduct of international affairs? Student’s Name Course Tutor Date Question 4. Has globalisation made soft power more important than hard power in the conduct of international affairs? Introduction Soft power is in international relations used with reference to the ability by one state to exert one’s influence on others so that they may follow its lead or conform to what they want through co-option or diplomacy.1 Hard power on its part suggests the use of economic and military means in influencing the interests or behavior of others. 2Globalisation has had the effect of compelling states to re-examine the ways in which they put into practice both their soft power and hard power capabilities, with soft power becoming more prominent. This paper discusses the application of soft and hard power within the context of a globalised international community. Traditionally, power was centrally measured by assessing military capabilities either in defensive or offensive terms and hard power has for long been the main conventional way of ensuring the settlement of international disputes and its only means is the application of military might.3 Hard power remains the most visible and implies the greatest form of threat to international stability within the globalised world. For a state to use hard power, it does not have to be among the major players within the geopolitical scene as for instance to date, North Korea and Iran remain to be some of the threats to peace not just due to being powerful nations but due to their attempts at amassing military power and the possibility of its reckless use.4 On its part, soft power often acts as a more time consuming though effective approach as it requires the usage of words in convincing others and therefore avoiding usage of conventional force. Within the globalised world, soft power is generally considered to be beneficial because it leads to minimization of both financial and human costs as diplomacy is the prime political tool that is used.5 According to Illgen, globalisation refers to the establishment of various trans-boundary mechanisms that result in interaction and which reflect and have the effect of accelerating security, political and economic interdependence.6 Globalisation has not caused much change in international relations, but instead modified the means that security relationships have been channeled through at the international level. The search for security within the twenty first century has for instance been modified through the nature with which power flows in it. It has the effect of facilitating a new sort of political transparency, global culture and economic openness. It has offered a chance for advancement of common equality norms, rules and human standards across the world. The global proximity has fostered cooperation and raised the levels of security. 7 Globalisation has had the effect of enabling hegemonic states to exercise their economic domination while ignoring labour standards, human rights or environmental issues. States find themselves needing to defend themselves against the threat posed by globalization itself. 8Globalisation has forced states to re-evaluate the meaning of power. Current realists have sought this through an emphasis on both material gains which states acquire internationally and also their relative capabilities. Having educated populations, economic development and high levels of technological advancement are at times counted as measures of power which raise a state’s capacity of transferring its latent capabilities to real military power. 9 According to the neo-liberal approach to international relations, conditions such as the interdependence that has arisen due to globalisation usually have the tendency to make power more diffuse. Power ends up working in multiple channels, includes several other new actors, takes away existing hierarchies in and lowers the value of military force. Globalisation has therefore given rise to a pattern of transnational networks and linkage strategies while power has ended up being a result of states’ abilities to work within the procedures and rules prescribed by international institutions.10 In the constructivist perspective on the other hand, globalisation has had the effect of providing for multiple communication channels in addition to those which were in the past generally under the control or domination by the state. Because of this, power has naturally tended to take a more diffuse form to the extent that it is now possible for one individual to effectively change the structure or form of global politics. For instance, Osama Bin Laden. The leader of the al-Qaeda terror network was able to reshape the entire agenda and pattern of global politics by carrying out a one-day attack on Washington and New York in 2001.11 Generally, the trend in the globalised world has been towards softer measures of power. The recent action on Iraq by the US is a possible illustration that hard power has lost value in the new global environment. The application of military power succeeded in removing Saddam’s government from power. However, several years later, its goal has not really been achieved. If the objective was to remove him from power and ensure that democratic elections were conducted, then it was accomplished. However, it was to attain greater social, political, cultural and economic freedom, this was not achieved because the country ended up worse off than it was during Saddam’s time.12 The international components of soft power include for instance the ability to persuade other states to cooperate towards a certain end. States need not only to be able to convince others to cooperate but must also be able to attract cooperation through positive incentives for instance the appeal for economic and or political norms and principles. Within the era of globalisation, states have found themselves in a situation where their power is defined by factors other than the traditional military ones. For instance, states which commit themselves to investment in hi-tech and high skilled education are likely to gain a greater advantage above the states which do not take such initiatives. States which are incapable or ignore the need to invest in the possible advantages of soft-power at the domestic level will for instance develop a technological dependency on foreigners and will be exposed to vulnerability and therefore weakness in case the foreign nationals opt to leave.13 The technological aspect of globalisation is a major source of security competition and therefore power. However, technological advances can at times come with drawbacks. For instance, the United States is a country that has always been far ahead of even the closest among its allies in terms of military technology. However, it often finds that it is no longer able to fight effectively together with other countries because sharing its technological resources even with allies would make the American military and industrial dominance vulnerable to the international competition which is fuelled by globalisation. At the same time, it is ironical that with further advances in technology, the US is at risk of being overtaken within the world’s arms trade, and this would provide relative gains for rival manufacturers of weapons.14 Baylis et al explain that while military advantage can raise the incentives for unilateral action by a powerful state, the incentives will tend to be neutralized by pressures that globalisation has placed on states to also express their ‘soft power’ abilities and appeal.15 Soft power requires that states have to operate within the framework of globalisation. These include for instance the procedures and rules of international institutions in order to establish effective coalitions. For instance, the purely military perspective of power, the United States was able to carry out its war virtually alone during the Iraq invasion of 2003. However, at the same time the US government alienated most of the international community. The choice that it made with regard to involving others ended up being a significant miscalculation, considering the risks and costs associated with the long term rebuilding and occupation of Iraq together with the damage that it caused upon American prestige due to its inability to identify any evidence that there were any Weapons of Mass Destruction as it had claimed there are in Iraq. 16 Unilateral action in Iraq’s case implied almost always going alone when it came to the costs of war while also suffering almost all the casualty figures. The effective use of soft power in the Iraq case would have implied a more persuasive approach and an effective joint working with the international community before the war started in order to avoid the kind of disastrous peace that was achieved. If only the US had sought to create a true coalition prior to getting into the war, there would have been far less costly, more militarily effective and had more gains in the post-war times.17 Considering the complex channels that come with globalisation, there is the placing of a greater premium on a state’s ability to persuade the rival side rather than on the ability to attack militarily. Within the globalised security setting, any unilateralism results in the incurring of higher costs to the state’s objectives for power in case the exercising of hard power results in a balancing of soft power by other states or within public opinion at the international level.18 Within the era of globalisation, power-balancing has continued, although it takes different patterns and channels. It is common for states to use the norms and principles belonging to international institutions together with their procedures and rules along which they work in constraining other states. For instance, the War on Iraq demonstrated that a powerful state can pursue what it wants without being stopped by an international body, but there is still the possibility of constraining it considerably. At the domestic level in the US, there was a lot of pressure for the government to seek legitimacy before launching a pre-emptive war. The US took about six months trying to achieve some international consensus via the United Nations. France, Germany and Russia got placed conditions on the US, for instance defining the roles of the UN’s weapons inspectors as from fall 2002 to early 2003. In the end however, they were unable to stop Iraq’s being invaded, therefore showing that soft-power balancing through international institutions is really limited.19 Globalisation has leveled international politics’ playing field in a way that nation-states are incapable of preventing. Popular movements have their ideas advocated for through the thriving media networks, and these have placed the demands of people on states and institutions with greater pressure, leading to reactions that would otherwise not have been expected. As a result, globalisation has allowed some regions and issues of the globe to get much needed international attention through a combination of media technology and organized activism. 20 Previously powerless groups and societies are able to become powerful because access to knowledge and control over information are gradually becoming the main components of power competition this kind of latent power has led to the emergence of international people’s movements which have influenced considerable international change through issue advocacy. For instance, groups advocating for human rights and environmental conservation together with labour movements conducted street protests during the World Trade Organisation (WTO)’s 1999 meeting in Seattle, USA. 21Although the WTO’s mandate is legally limited to handling trade issues, they forced leaders from WTO’s member-states to agree that there are relationships between the environment and labour standards, free trade and human rights. International Public Movements have the ability of constraining states, especially in the case of democracies, with states which ignore the concerns of global citizens doing so at great risk. In addition, the growth in articulation of international interest articulation has made it harder for states to make effective plans because they are in many instances forced to go through a growingly complex agenda.22 Conclusion In conclusion, the use of hard power is at times opted for in the solution of international disputes. However, even though its application is generally sharp and decisive, it does not at all times offer the answers which are required in order to ensure the continuity of peace within the international scene. On its part, soft power generally tends to be slower and more time consuming. Its diplomatic approach more often leads to positive result and calls all parties involved to a deliberation table. The agreed solutions will be likely to result in long periods of relative peace and calm. The process of globalisation has resulted in the rise of new kinds of complex and interrelated risks. These in turn force nations to come up with redefinitions of their security needs and these have tended to favour soft power as an approach. Bibliography Inderjeet Parmar, Soft Power and Us Foreign Policy: Theoretical, Historical and Contemporary Perspectives (Taylor & Francis, New York 2010) John Baylis and others, The Globalisation of World Politics: An Introduction to International Relations (Oxford University Press, Oxford 2011) Kurt Campbell and Michael O'Hanlon, Hard Power: The New Politics of National Security (Basic Books, New York 2006) Scott Burchill and others, Theories of International Relations (Blackwell Publishers, Malden 2009) Thomas Ilgen, Hard Power, Soft Power and the Future of Transatlantic Relations (Ashgate Publishers, Aldershot 2006) Read More