Hard Power
Hard power refers to a nation's ability to influence others through military and economic means. It involves the use of coercion, force, and financial incentives to achieve strategic objectives. In the context of geography, hard power is often associated with a country's territorial expansion, control over resources, and geopolitical influence.
6 Key excerpts on "Hard Power"
eBook - ePub- Geoffrey Sloan(Author)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Geopolitics highlights the point that securing political predominance is not merely a question of having power in the sense of the availability of natural resources, the acquisition of wealth or a capacity for projecting force, but it is also dependent on the configuration of the field within which that power is exercised. Over time, that field within which power is exercised may expand (or contract) given the changing nature of alliances, the emergence of new adversaries and enemies, shifts in where technological advances occur, mistaken policy decisions and a number of other salient factors. Obviously, one goal of policy makers is to extend the geographic configuration over which power is exercised. Geopolitical practice and the conceptualizations that it produces over time remain pertinent to the practice of international relations because ‘Geopolitical thinking is inherent to the very practice of foreign policy, though this is not always made explicit’. 39 Furthermore, it is from choices made by policy makers that political importance or relevance is attached to geographical configurations or locations. The geographical factors which influence politics are a product of policy makers selecting particular objectives and attempting to realize them by the conscious formulation strategies vis-à-vis potential or realized adversaries. In short a geographical perspective is inevitable if an international policy is to be formulated and successfully implemented in the teeth of inevitable opposition: In nearly all international transactions involving some element of opposition, resistance, struggle or conflict, the factors of location, space and distance between the interacting parties have been significant variables. This significance is embodied in the maxim, ‘power is local’...
eBook - ePubWar, Peace and International Relations
An introduction to strategic history
- Colin S. Gray(Author)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...As was noted in Chapter 1, physical geography (and therefore geopolitics) constitutes a dimension to, and a significant source of fuel for, strategic history that has always been in play. The history explained here has unfolded and occasionally erupted in, on and sometimes for physical geography (now in five distinctive domains) as well as in geography as it is understood politically and strategically. Physical geography (distance, climate and so forth) is likely to cast the deciding vote on the prudence or imprudence of particular strategies. But the relevance of physical geography for decisions to act is filtered and mediated by political and strategic judgement. Are long distances more challenge than barrier? US military power could not reach Japan in decisive force until the fleet train of at-sea logistics was reinvented, constructed and practised to near perfection. Was Russian geography, sheer space and distance with severely harassing weather expressing an unforgiving climate, fatal for Hitler's adventure in the East in 1941? Or is it more sensible to view physical geography as a potentially manageable challenge that the Germans failed to meet? The so-called ‘global commons’ of the sea, air, orbital space and cyberspace are strategic highways for us if we are able to use them as and when we wish. When a particular ‘common’ is contested – or, worse, commanded by an enemy – it becomes a highway of menace. While ever alert to the perils of determinism, it is necessary to acknowledge the ways in which geography and its human-constructed dependencies, geopolitics and geo-strategy, intrude into the grand historical narrative. When thinking about any and every episode in the war–peace cycle covered in this book, readers should be alert to the geographical sources of influence on events. States are defined territorially and the human players who engage in strategic behaviour on their behalf must act in geographical space...
eBook - ePubGeospatial Intelligence
Origins and Evolution
- Robert M. Clark(Author)
- 2020(Publication Date)
- Georgetown University Press(Publisher)
...They shaped the thinking behind every major war, hot and cold, of the twentieth century, and they continue to be proffered to influence the thinking of leaders throughout the world. The trend in such geopolitical frameworks is to view state (and nonstate) powers through a multidimensional lens. Geography is the starting point, but political, military, economic, social, infrastructure, and information factors have major roles to play. During the nineteenth century, thematic cartography came to the fore as an effective means of political messaging for leaders and the general public alike. The wide availability of maps that contain geopolitical themes since then has encouraged the mobilization of popular opinion for either noble or less-than-honorable causes. Notes 1. Alfred Thayer Mahan, The Influence of Sea Power upon History: 1660–1783 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1890). 2. Toshi Yoshihara and James R. Holmes, “Japanese Maritime Thought: If Not Mahan, Who?” Naval War College Review, Summer 2006, https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1930& context=nwc-review. 3. H. J. Mackinder, Democratic Ideals and Reality (London: Henry Holt, 1919). 4. Woodruff D. Smith, “Friedrich Ratzel and the Origins of Lebensraum,” German Studies Review, February 1980, 51–58, www.jstor.org/stable/1429483?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents. 5. Colin Flint and Peter J. Taylor, Political Geography, 7th ed. (New York: Routledge, 2018), 2. 6. Nicholas J. Spykman, The Geography of the Peace (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1944). 7. Nicholas J...
eBook - ePubThe US-Japan Alliance
Balancing Soft and Hard Power in East Asia
- David Arase, Tsuneo Akaha(Authors)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Why this is so is discussed later. Nye believes that Hard Power and soft power are distinct from one another, and that one does not require the other. Nye states: “Sometimes countries enjoy political clout that is greater than their military and economic weight would suggest because they define their national interest to include attractive causes such as economic aid or peacekeeping.” 24 Not everyone agrees. Samuel Huntington asserts that Hard Power is the prerequisite or foundation of soft power. For him, culture and ideology become attractive “when they are seen as rooted in material success and influence.” 25 It is too simple to say that soft and Hard Power are categorically different, or that causality only runs in one direction from soft to hard, or hard to soft power. Today, US soft power is related to its retention of strategically located military bases. Osama bin Laden uses a cultural legacy of Islam to create Hard Power. Hitler used a Nazi vision of German culture to create an incredibly powerful war machine. Though Huntington may be right that Hard Power can create soft power, it is also apparent that the soft power of ideas and values rooted in culture can create and sustain Hard Power. In other words, though the two are not interchangeable, there is a degree of fungibility between soft and Hard Power. The philosopher Bertrand Russell dealt with the complexity of power and its causes by conceiving of power as varied and transmutable in form, but of the same essence: Like energy, power has many forms, such as wealth, armaments, civil authority, and influence on opinion. No one of these can be regarded as subordinate to any other.… Wealth may result from military power or from influence over opinion, just as either of these may result from wealth. 26 The puzzle of soft power Soft power is the ability to get another to do something without using threats or blandishments...
eBook - ePubThe Maritime Dimension of European Security
Seapower and the European Union
- B. Germond(Author)
- 2015(Publication Date)
- Palgrave Macmillan(Publisher)
...2 The (Critical) Geopolitics of Seapower Seapower and geography Geography is an important determinant of international politics and security. Human and states’ agency is inevitably limited by geographical constraints. Some scholars have claimed that geography constitutes one of the factors influencing the development of seapower. For example, Colin S. Gray stressed that the capacity of the US to exercise its power abroad derives ‘inexorably from the enduring facts of physical, political, and strategic geography’ (Gray, 1994: 165). Michael S. Lindberg emphasises the role of geography ‘to determine a state’s relationship with the sea, its maritime importance, its vulnerability to threats emanating from seaward and its need for naval power’ (Lindberg, 1998: 38). According to Jakub Grygiel, ‘geography, from geological factors such as the layout of a coastline to more ephemeral characteristics such as geography-influenced strategic culture, shapes the ability of a state to develop a navy and to wield seapower’ (Grygiel, 2012: 35). Here, the influence of Mahan’s writings seems evident; three of the six ‘elements of seapower’ he defined in his Influence of Seapower have directly to do with geography or geopolitics (i.e. geographical position, physical conformation, extent of territory), and two others with geography-informed ideational dispositions (i.e. national character, character of governments) (Mahan, 2007: 29–81). This could lead us to believe that Mahan was deterministic in his account of geography. However, Jon Sumida claimed that this interpretation results from a superficial reading of Mahan’s extensive work and demonstrated that ‘Mahan’s main concern in the Influence of Sea Power series was the critical importance of decision making by statesmen and admirals, not the power of geographical factors to determine the course of history’ (Sumida, 1999: 57). Actually, one has to be very careful when discussing the influence of geography upon seapower...
eBook - ePubTerritories
The Claiming of Space
- David Storey(Author)
- 2012(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...1 Introduction We live in a highly territorialized world where we are regularly confronted with signs such as ‘authorized personnel only’, ‘no trespassing’, ‘prohibido el paso’, and so on. Such everyday warnings and admonishments are a reflection of attempts to impose forms of power (through rules and regulations) over portions of geographic space (Figure 1.1). They are manifestations of the intersections between geography and politics and are highly visible reminders of the ways in which power is imposed, accepted or resisted. Political geography draws attention to the spatial dimensions of power, dealing with political phenomena and relationships at a range of spatial scales from the global down to the local. The sub-discipline revolves around the intersections of key geographical concerns of space, place and territory on the one hand and issues of politics, power and policy on the other. A glance at the global political map provides us with the most obvious manifestation of the territorial dimension to politics in the division of the earth into separate countries or states. However, this macro-scale territorialization is accompanied by a myriad of much more micro-scale variants including those mentioned above. In everyday usage, territory is usually taken to refer to a portion of geographic space which is claimed or occupied by a person or group of persons or by an institution. Following from this, the process whereby individuals or groups lay claim to such territory can be referred to as ‘territoriality’. However, as will be seen, these somewhat simplified definitions mask considerable complexity. The investigation of various dimensions of territorial formation and behaviour at different spatial scales forms the central focus of this book. It considers the ways in which territories are ‘produced’ and explores how territoriality is used as a strategy to assert power or to resist the power of others...
