I’ve written in this blog about power before. I’ve pointed out that power is the term used
to designate one party getting another to do something the second party would
not do otherwise. I have narrowed the
type of motivations that a second party has for doing what otherwise he/she is
not motivated to do: anticipation of a
reward, anticipation of a punishment, or the feeling that by so doing this
thing, he/she is doing the right thing – due to a sense of legitimacy, a sense
of allegiance, or what an expert thinks is the right or prudent thing to do.[1] These broad ideas take different forms in the
real world. Not only is this variation
present in regard to specific conditions and specific relations between people,
but in relation to historical times.
This latter aspect of power is what I want to address in this posting.
The situation with ISIS in Iraq and Syria hints of what I speak. Here is a well-organized terrorist group that
I have described as scary, vicious, and hell-bent on causing pain and
destruction to advance its religious tenants among Islamic people. I have also commented that its assets are
limited in terms of alliances and military equipment. Yet, with their recent advances, they are now
the defunct rulers of a significant area of territory. We don’t seem to be willing to send
sufficient troops to battle ISIS directly, not on the ground anyway. I don’t pretend to be knowledgeable enough to
pass judgement as to what the US should do in this case. I do feel the American public is ill-disposed
to support an extended military response to the ISIS threat. Its control of a definite geographic area is
threatening. It provides a base to plan
and prepare 9/11 type attacks on our homeland.
After all, we justified an invasion of Afghanistan for these very
reasons. The world is complex and guess
what? We can’t rely as heavily on the “big
stick” anymore as we have done in the past.
Joseph S. Nye[2] writes
of this variation. He tells us that
power today – that is in the global arena – is a multi-reality. He offers the analogy of a tri-level chess
game: three stacked boards in which we
have different forms of power making their importance and effect known. On the top board, we have the more obvious
form: military power. This is hard power and one based on coercion –
the anticipation of punishment. At this
level, the US is dominant; we can administer untold levels of death and
physical destruction. That is, we have
the capabilities to do so. But the
reality of the world is that such power is hamstrung. Nations have always been so limited, but of
late, they are more so. Our recent
history in Iraq demonstrates these limitations.
The second chessboard level represents economic power
competition. Here we are very strong,
but not as dominant as on the military board.
Other areas of the world are becoming more powerful when it comes to
economics. Before the financial crisis
of 2008, Europe’s economy was larger than that of the US. China, while far from matching the US on a
per capita basis, overall, has an economy that is slated to overcome the US
economy later in this century. That
means that those areas of the world are and will become more able to match the
US in terms of exercising economic power.
Economic power can either be based on the anticipation of punishment, as
in the use of economic sanctions, or anticipation of reward, as when a
government issues a grant. Therefore,
economic power can be both hard and soft power.
The last board is soft power; it is all those relations
between nations that governments cannot control. This is a very messy board. It is inhabited by a slew of actors from
terrorists, as mentioned above, to hackers.
They rely heavily on ever cheaper information technology. Sometimes on this board, power moves involve
pandemics or climate change. “On this
bottom board, power is widely diffused, and it makes no sense to speak here of
unipolarity, multipolarity, hegemony, or any other such clichés that political
leaders and pundits put in their speeches.”[3]
Teaching about power can be a complex matter because power is
complex. As military power loses its
dominance – a trend that promises to not only continue, but also to speed up – students
need to be able to take in and handle nuanced politics in order to understand
international settings in which both their government and organizations will maneuver. The world is getting smaller, and what
happens in far off areas of the world is more apt to influence their day-to-day
existence, and their ability to function will demand a better understanding of
how power is exercised. Civics education
needs appropriate language by which to instruct students about these power
realities. Hopefully, this posting can
help.
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