POWER
Power is a quite common word. Almost in everyday of
our life, we hear that particular word. One might find it in many aspects, for
example physics, and politics.
Beside being a common word, power is also a complex
word. Many of the scientists have their own definition of power. Some of them
are:
1. According to Weber, power is the ability
of an individual or group to achieve their own goals or aims when others are
trying to prevent them from realising them.
2. Power is the ability of its holder
to make other individuals obedient on whatever basis in some social
relationship. In Foucault’s theory,
power is not only limited as physical force and headed through a single
direction, but working in relation, creating counterforces.
According to him:
·
Power is not
a thing but a relation
·
Power is not
simply repressive but it is productive.
·
Power is not
only belongs to the state, nor it is only had by the government.
·
Power is
exercised and present in every level of social body.
·
The exercise
of power is strategic and war-like.
But initially, the core definition
of power itself is the ability or capability to influence other parties to do a
certain thing in order to reach particular goal or outcome.
Based on its form, power can be
differenciated into three:
1. Soft power
According to Joseph Nye, soft power is the
ability to attract others because of the legitimacy of the state’s values or
policy.
The basic concept of the soft power
is persuasion and negotiation. This form of power has the principal of no force
or coercion. It can be in the form of culture, academic exchange, etc.
2. Hard power
While the soft power is concentrated
on cultural and academical aspect, the hard power is concentrated on military
and economical aspect. The power known by most of common people is hard power.
The exercise of this hard power can be seen through wars, invasions, sanctions,
etc. Contrary to the soft power, hard power often times uses force and coercion.
3. Smart power
Smart power is the kind of power
that combines the other two forms of power, which are soft and hard power.
Smart power comes from the
understanding that soft power is not necessarily better of more important than
the hard power. From that understanding, Joseph
Nye, Jr. stated that to create an effective strategy, one must combine the
hard power with soft power.
NATIONAL INTEREST
National interest is often regarded
as a mere agregation of particular
interest or the most dominant or active interest, even though they are the
minority – considered either asthe proportion of persons or cooperations
involved or as the proportion of capital measured by pecuniary standards.
(Beard 1935: 156)
In simpler words, one can understand
the concept of national interest as the ambition, goal, or wish of a state,
wether it is economic, cultural, politic, security, etc.
States, in several aspects is like
individuals. Not every need of the people can be found in the state, thus the
state must form a relation with another state. The form of relation can be a
cooperation, colonialism, or open competition. To achieve its need, which in
this case is relation, one state must have enough power.
For example, to achieve a
cooperation, one state must have soft power since to achieve that cooperation
the states must go through a negotiation.
In another case, if one state chooses to colonialize another state, then
the state must have enough hard power since to achieve the colonialism the
state must go through military way.
Case example of the relation between power and
national interest is the case of Shrouded in Mystery, New Bomber Makes Waves.
In late spring or early summer, the
US Air Force will decide who will build its next-generation bomber. Yet,
despite all the hype and public interest, the program remains shrouded in
mystery.
The Long Range Strike-Bomber (LRS-B)
program is stealthy, literally and figuratively. Few details are actually known
about the bomber's capabilities or design. But the program's impact is already
being widely felt throughout the Pentagon and its industry partners.
At the annual Air Force Association
conference last September, Northrop Grumman hung a major ad for its LRS-B
program.(Photo: Aaron Mehta/Staff)
The half a dozen analysts and
experts interviewed by Defense News for this piece all agree on one thing: the
LRS-B has the chance to shape American military aerospace for the next 20
years. Whichever competitor wins will reap a windfall of development money; the
loser could find itself out of the military attack airframe business entirely.
And while the program appears to be
on track, Congress is waiting in the wings for any sign of cost overrun or
technological problems.
"This is crunch time,"
said Richard Aboulafia, an analyst with the Teal Group. "It's the biggest
single outstanding DoD competition by a very wide margin. That makes it
important in and of itself."
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