hard power

Syllable breakdown

Dictionary meaning

the use of military force and economic coercion to influence the behaviour of other states and actors in international politics, contrasted with soft power's reliance on attraction and persuasion; hard power encompasses military threats, armed interventions, sanctions, trade embargoes, and financial penalties — all forms of compelling or coercing other actors by raising the costs of non-compliance; the concept is most developed in contrast to soft power in Joseph Nye's framework, though the underlying reality — that states can coerce each other through force and economic pressure — is the foundational premise of realist IR theory; the distinction between hard and soft power is contested by those who argue that economic relationships always contain elements of both, or who introduce the concept of smart power — the strategic combination of hard and soft instruments; American debates about the relative merits of diplomatic, economic, and military instruments of foreign policy frequently invoke the hard/soft power distinction, as do debates about whether sanctions constitute an effective substitute for military action

Examples

• Russia's invasion of Ukraine is a classic exercise of hard power to achieve territorial revision.
• Proponents of smart power argue that the United States relied too heavily on hard power in Iraq and Afghanistan at the expense of diplomatic and economic instruments.