Hard power, soft power, smart power and sharp power

Hard power

Hard power is the use of military and economic means to influence the behavior or
interests of other political bodies. This form of political power is often aggressive (coercion),
and is most immediately effective when imposed by one political body upon another of lesser
military and/or economic power. Hard power contrasts with soft power, which comes from
diplomacy, culture and history.

According to Joseph Nye, hard power involves "the ability to use the carrots and sticks
of economic and military might to make others follow your will". Here, "carrots" stand for
inducements such as the reduction of trade barriers, the offer of an alliance or the promise of
military protection. On the other hand, "sticks" represent threats - including the use of
coercive diplomacy, the threat of military intervention, or the implementation of economic
sanctions. Ernest Wilson describes hard power as the capacity to coerce "another to act in
ways in which that entity would not have acted otherwise".

While the existence of hard power has a long history, the term itself arose when
Joseph Nye coined soft power as a new and different form of power in a sovereign state's
foreign policy. Hard power encompasses a wide range of coercive policies, such as coercive
diplomacy, economic sanctions, military action, and the forming of military alliances for
deterrence and mutual defense. Hard power can be used to establish or change a state of
political hegemony or balance of power. Although the term hard power generally refers to
diplomacy, it can also be used to describe forms of negotiation which involve pressure or
threats as leverage. The United States has demonstrated a 'hard power' policy in regard to the
Iraq War, the Afghanistan War and its continued war on the Taliban. To be more specific, the
United States’ attack on Iraq in 2003 was based on the concerns about Iraq’s possession of
weapons of mass destruction (WMD). In part by referring to “War on Terrorism,” George W.
Bush administration used hard power measures to uproot Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and
to handle subsequent crisis in Iraq. However, many critics mention that the war in Iraq had the
United States lose its reputation as an icon for democracy and justice.

Soft power

Soft power is the ability to attract and co-opt, rather than coerce (hard power). In
other words, soft power is the ability to shape the preferences of others through appeal and
attraction. A defining feature of soft power is that it is non-coercive; the currency of soft
power is culture, political values, and foreign policies.

Joseph Nye introduced the concept of "soft power" in the late 1980s. For Nye, power is
the ability to influence the behavior of others to get the outcomes you want. There are several
ways one can achieve this: you can coerce them with threats; you can induce them with
payments; or you can attract and co-opt them to want what you want. This soft power –
getting others to want the outcomes you want – co-opts people rather than coerces them.

It can be contrasted with 'hard power', which is the use of coercion and payment. Soft
power can be wielded not just by states but also by all actors in international politics, such as
NGOs or international institutions. It is also considered the "second face of power" that
indirectly allows you to obtain the outcomes you want. A country's soft power, according to
Nye, rests on three resources: "its culture (in places where it is attractive to others), its political
values (when it lives up to them at home and abroad), and its foreign policies (when others see
them as legitimate and having moral authority)."

Soft power resources are the assets that produce attraction which often leads to
acquiescence. Nye asserts that, "Seduction is always more effective than coercion, and many
values like democracy, human rights, and individual opportunities are deeply seductive."
Angelo Codevilla observed that an often overlooked essential aspect of soft power is that
different parts of populations are attracted or repelled by different things, ideas, images, or
prospects. Soft power is hampered when policies, culture, or values repel others instead of
attracting them.

In his book, Nye argues that soft power is a more difficult instrument for governments
to wield than hard power for two reasons: many of its critical resources are outside the control
of governments, and soft power tends to "work indirectly by shaping the environment for
policy, and sometimes takes years to produce the desired outcomes." Nye also claims that soft
power does not contradict the international relations theory of realism. "Soft power is not a
form of idealism or liberalism. It is simply a form of power, one way of getting desired
outcomes."

Examples of soft power throughout history:

 USRR: The Soviet Union competed with the U.S. for influence throughout the Cold
War. The Soviets were engaged in a broad campaign to convince the world of the
attractiveness of its Communist system. In 1945, the Soviet Union was very effective in
attracting many in Europe from its resistance to Hitler, and in colonized areas around
the world because of its opposition to European imperialism. The Soviets also
employed a substantially large public diplomacy program that included: promoting
their high culture, broadcasting, disseminating information about the West, and
sponsoring nuclear protests, peace movements, and youth organizations. Despite all of
this, the Soviets' closed system and lack of popular culture impeded the ability of the
Soviet Union to compete with the U.S. in terms of soft power.
 China: China's traditional culture has been a source of attraction, building on which it
has created several hundred Confucius Institutes around the world to teach its
language and culture. The enrollment of foreign students in China has increased from
36,000 a decade before to at least 240,000 in 2010. China's Asian Infrastructure
Investment Bank has attracted many western countries to join. In 2017, China had the
second largest diplomatic network in the world.
 France: France has long exerted a great amount of soft power. The country and its
culture have for centuries been admired in many parts of the world; so much so that
Thomas Jefferson is famously quoted as saying "Every man has two countries, his own
and France."
Smart power

In international relations, the term smart power refers to the combination of hard
power and soft power strategies. It is defined by the Center for Strategic and International
Studies as "an approach that underscores the necessity of a strong military, but also invests
heavily in alliances, partnerships, and institutions of all levels to expand one's influence and
establish legitimacy of one's action.”

Joseph Nye suggests that the most effective strategies in foreign policy today require a
mix of hard and soft power resources. Employing only hard power or only soft power in a given
situation will usually prove inadequate. Nye utilizes the example of terrorism, arguing that
combatting terrorism demands smart power strategy. He advises that simply utilizing soft
power resources to change the hearts and minds of the Taliban government would be
ineffective and requires a hard power component. In developing relationships with the
mainstream Muslim world, however, soft power resources are necessary and the use of hard
power would have damaging effects.

The term smart power emerged in the past decade, but the concept of smart power
has much earlier roots in history and is a popular notion in international relations today. For
instance, in 1901 Theodore Roosevelt proclaimed: "Speak softly and carry a big stick". The end
of the Cold War was marked by the collapse of the Berlin Wall, which fell as a result of a
combination of hard and soft power. Throughout the Cold War, hard power was used to deter
Soviet aggression and soft power was used to erode faith in Communism. Joseph Nye said:
"When the Berlin Wall finally collapsed, it was destroyed not by artillery barrage but by
hammers and bulldozers wielded by those who had lost faith in communism.

Sharp power

The term "sharp power" was coined in November 2017 by the National Endowment for
Democracy, and published in an article in Foreign Affairs Magazine, to describe aggressive and
subversive policies employed by authoritarian governments as a projection of state power in
democratic countries, policies that cannot be described as either hard power or soft power.
Sharp power can include attempts by one country to manipulate and manage information
about itself in the news media and educational systems of another country, for the purpose of
misleading or dividing public opinion in a target country, or for masking or diverting attention
away from negative information about itself.

In common parlance, “soft power” has become a catch-all term for forms of influence
that are not “hard” in the sense of military force. But the authoritarian influence techniques
that have gained pace and traction in recent years, while not hard in the openly coercive
sense, are not really soft, either.

Although Russia and China undertake some activities that can credibly fall into the
category of normal public diplomacy, the nature of these countries’ political systems invariably
and fundamentally color their efforts. In the case of China, for example, educational and
cultural initiatives are accompanied by an authoritarian determination to monopolize ideas,
suppress alternative narratives, and exploit partner institutions. The rulers of Russia, a less
wealthy and powerful state, sometimes seem content to propagate the idea that their
kleptocratic regime—whose paramount leader is rapidly approaching two decades in office—is
a “normal” member of the international community, and that its actions and statements are
no less valid than those of democracies. But they can only generate this false sense of equality
by sowing doubt and disorder among their rivals.

We are in need of a new vocabulary to describe this phenomenon. What we have to

date understood as “soft power” when speaking of authoritarian regimes might be more
properly labeled as “sharp power.” Authoritarian influence efforts are “sharp” in the sense
that they pierce, penetrate, or perforate the information environments in the targeted
countries. In the ruthless new competition that is under way between autocratic and
democratic states, the repressive regimes’ “sharp power” techniques should be seen as the tip
of their dagger—or indeed their syringe. These regimes are not necessarily seeking to “win
hearts and minds,” the common frame of reference for “soft power” efforts, but they are
surely seeking to manage their target audiences by manipulating or poisoning the information
that reaches them.

The authoritarian ideal for the media is plain to see in China. On the ninetieth
anniversary of the establishment of the People’s Liberation Army, four separate state-owned
newspapers had identical covers. In February 2016, President Xi Jinping visited the
headquarters of the three main state media organizations, which pledged their loyalty to the
Communist Party. When such total control is not possible or desirable, authoritarian regimes
often resort to strategic distraction. Among other examples, this can be observed in the
Russian national broadcast media, which are by turns disorienting and entertaining, or in
Beijing’s large-scale fabrication of social media posts designed to disrupt discussion of
controversial topics.