1.

Power as an Asset and a Goal

Power is both an asset and a goal. Power as an asset can be applied to help countries
achieve their goals at the international system. In this form, power is likened to
money, as a sort of political currency that can be used to acquire things. Money buys
things, power causes things to happen. However, there are differences between money
and power, political power is less liquid than money, it is harder to convert into what
you want, power unlike money has no standard measurement. Consequently, it is
much harder to be precise about how much power any country has.

Power is also a goal. In a world of conflicting interests among countries, it is prudent

to seek, acquire, or preserve sufficient power to pursue the national interests of states.
In this regard, the analogy between power and money has merit. We all expand money
as an asset, yet we also seek to acquire and to build up a reserve against both
anticipated needs and contingencies.

The duality of power as an asset and goal creates debates over whether more power is
always better. Idealists contents that countries can become fixated on acquiring power,
especially military power beyond what is prudently needed to meet possible
exigencies, arguing that, it is unwise because power is expensive and creates a
temptation to use it, and it spawns insecurity in the international system. However, the
realists dismisses the concern and say that the real danger is in unwise use of the
national power by wasting it on marginal goals, warning against a country being too
reluctant to expand it’s power to advance its national interests.

2. Hard and Soft Power:

The most common image of power involves the ability to make someone to do
something or suffer the consequences of someone else acts. This is called hard power,
this type of power rests on negative incentives, such as threats and ‘sticks’ and on
positive incentive – inducements and ‘carrots’

There is also soft power. This is the ability to persuade others to follows your lead by
being attractive example. As one scholar puts it, “A country may obtain the outcome it
wants in the world system because, other countries admires its values, emulating its
example aspiring its level of prosperity and openness and would want to follow it
(Rourke 2008: 236).

Hard power is easier to appreciate because it is easier to see that certain coercive
measures or positive incentives have been used and to observe the result. Realists are
however apt to dismiss the concept of soft power, arguing that countries follow other
countries’ lead if they share the same interest, not out of altruistic sentiments such as
admiration.

3. Absolute and Relative Power

By one standard, power that indisputably exists and can be potentially used is absolute
power. An example is the approximately 5,000 nuclear warheads and bombs that are
deployed on about 1,000 U.S. missiles and bombers. These arsenals indisputably exist
and will have specific impacts if used, and in theory can be used by a president
without any legal check on ability to authorise their deployment.

However, power does not usually exist in a vacuum since power is about the ability to
persuade or make another actor do or not do something. Calculating power is of
limited use except to measure it against the power of the other side. Consequently,
when assessing capabilities, relative power or the comparative power of national
actors must be considered. We cannot, for example say that China is powerful unless
we specify in comparison to whom. Whatever Beijing’s power resources may be,
China’s relative power compared to another major power, such as Japan, is less than
China’s relative power compared to smaller neighbour, such as Vietnam.

4. Power as Capacity and Will

Every country’s power is determined substantially by its power assets, its military and
economic strength, its leadership, the size and talents of its populations, and numbers
other factors. Together these make up a country’s power capacity, its potential for
exercising international power.

By themselves, substantial power assets are not enough to create a powerful global
pressure. They give a country the capacity to exercise power, but to be effective, they
must be supplemented by a will to power. This is a country’s willingness to use its
capacity to turn potential power into applied power.

5. Objective and Subjective Power

Just as a country’s power is influenced by its willingness to use it’s assets, so too it is
influenced by what other countries perceive to be those assets and the intent to use
them. Objective power consists of assets that a country possesses and is willing to use
it. As such, objective power is a major factor in determining whose interests prevail at
the international arena, as Iraq found out in 2003 in its war against the U.S.-led
coalition forces.

Subjective power is also important. A common assertion is that a country will damage
its reputation if it does not display unity, abandons a commitment, or backs down in
crisis. Because it is difficult to measure reputations, judging its impact is challenging. Some scholars
conclude that concern over reputation is overdrawn but that does not negate the case that a country’s
power is to a degree based on others perception, for being willing or not willing to use it and that the
perception that a country is not currently powerful can tempt another country. For example, Saddam
Hussein’s willingness in 1991 and 2003 to risk war with the US. was based in part on his perceptions that
Americans would not tolerate the cost and causalities necessary to invade Iraq and topple him. As
Saddam put it prior to the first w