A Few Further Words on The Limits And Futility of Hard Power

I probably won't have time to write a lengthy post this weekend, but I thought I'd share a few essays from other writers on the subject of hard power. 

• First, there is an essay titled, "The Illusion Of Hard Power: Reflection On How Democratized Technology And Strategic Geography Broke The Superpower Monopoly On War".  If you're wondering why both Iran and Ukraine have managed to successfully paralyze the war machines of much larger and more well-endowed aggressors, this article does a good job of providing an explanation.
• Then, "The Future of American Strategy: Fighting Without Friends" describes how the soft power of the United States has been eroded over the last decade and especially how our Chump-in-Chief Trump has aided in the destruction of that soft power.  The fact that the U.S. is now stumbling in its attempt to wield hard power in an unjust and ill-advised series of unprovoked wars is not helping things at all.
• There are also articles describing how some policy makers in the United Kingdom, Japan, and Turkey are all itching to build up the hard power of their nations, even though these nations are characterized by declining birth rates and stagnating economies, and even though any attempt by the leaders of these nations to offensively deploy hard power would likely result in a fair number of their young men and women getting shot up in the process.
• Lastly, please see my posts titled "The Hard Drug of Hard Power" and "So Then, What Is Soft Power?" for a view of a different way of making our way through the world.

Bouncing Around On The Top

In my posts on strategic nonviolent resistance, I have emphasized how the organization of a righteous parallel society is a key component of resistance against a would-be tyrant.  I have also emphasized how the building of independent centers of economic power by, for, and among the oppressed is a key tool for bringing painful economic pressure to bear on the society of the tyrant via massive withdrawal of economic cooperation from the society of the tyrant.  Today I want to highlight how the building of the parallel institutions of a parallel society robs the tyrant's dominant society of its power.  Let's turn again to Gene Sharp's book From Dictatorship to Democracy, specifically a passage from Chapter 9, which I quote below:

Combined with political defiance during the phase of selective resistance, the growth of autonomous social, economic, cultural, and political institutions progressively expands the “democratic space” of the society and shrinks the control of the dictatorship. As the civil

institutions of the society become stronger vis-à-vis the dictatorship, then, whatever the dictators may wish, the population is incrementally building an independent society outside of their control. If and when the dictatorship intervenes to halt this “escalating freedom,”

nonviolent struggle can be applied in defense of this newly won space and the dictatorship will be faced with yet another “front” in the struggle.

In time, this combination of resistance and institution building can lead to de facto freedom, making the collapse of the dictatorship and the formal installation of a democratic system undeniable because the power relationships within the society have been fundamentally altered. Poland in the 1970s and 1980s provides a clear example of the progressive reclaiming of a society’s functions and institutions by the resistance...

 Even under martial law, with many imprisonments and harsh persecution, the new independent institutions of the society continued to function. For example, dozens of illegal newspapers and magazines continued to be published. Illegal publishing houses annually issued hundreds of books, while well-known writers boycotted Communist publications and government publishing houses.  Similar activities continued in other parts of the society.

Under the Jaruselski military regime, the military-Communist government was at one point described as bouncing around on the top of the society. The officials still occupied government offices and buildings. The regime could still strike down into the society, with
punishments, arrests, imprisonment, seizure of printing presses, and the like. The dictatorship, however, could not control the society.  From that point, it was only a matter of time until the society was able to bring down the regime completely. [Emphasis added.]

Turning Trump, his fat-cat brethren (including Musk), and the Rethuglicans into a bunch of irrelevant bouncing balls - now that would be a fine sight indeed!  And it is a worthy goal toward which to work, even though we must now start small and build incrementally.