🌐🥊 We all experience plenty of power-calculating in our own minds when we look at the wars going on at this moment.
For example, when we analyze the ongoing fighting between the forces of Tigray and Ethiopia, right away we find out and compare population and territory and the number of active soldiers. We also look at less quantifiable information like history and ideology in order to get an idea how determined both sides in the conflict are.
In 1975 Ray Cline, reflecting glumly on the lost Vietnam War (including the role of the US media), designed his well-known formula, which highlights dualism in that national power is basically the product of national resources multiplied by national will.
People and countries have pursued power because they believed and imagined that feeling powerful can and does feel tremendously good, writes Karl Hermann Höhn, an independent expert in measuring national power. At least a great deal better than feeling weak. Experiencing pain. Getting humiliated. Having to submit to unfair demands.
🔗 Issues and Problems of Power Measurement
#EconomicStatecraft #State
@valdai_club — The Valdai Discussion Club
For example, when we analyze the ongoing fighting between the forces of Tigray and Ethiopia, right away we find out and compare population and territory and the number of active soldiers. We also look at less quantifiable information like history and ideology in order to get an idea how determined both sides in the conflict are.
In 1975 Ray Cline, reflecting glumly on the lost Vietnam War (including the role of the US media), designed his well-known formula, which highlights dualism in that national power is basically the product of national resources multiplied by national will.
People and countries have pursued power because they believed and imagined that feeling powerful can and does feel tremendously good, writes Karl Hermann Höhn, an independent expert in measuring national power. At least a great deal better than feeling weak. Experiencing pain. Getting humiliated. Having to submit to unfair demands.
🔗 Issues and Problems of Power Measurement
#EconomicStatecraft #State
@valdai_club — The Valdai Discussion Club
Valdai Club
Issues and Problems of Power Measurement
Generally power and the psychological (or sociological) appear intrinsically intertwined. One may try to subtract the psychological from power and then call it ‘capabilities’. Depending on the purpose, such distinctions between capabilities and the psychological…
🌏 The new concept of Russia’s foreign policy, unexpectedly for many, introduced the idea of a state-civilisation in official use.
The concept of civilisation has long appeared on the “radar” of political theory. For liberalism and socialism, civilisation is determined by the measure of the dominance of the human mind. The more civilised a society is, the more rationality and progress it has. Such a linear picture divides the world into developed civilised societies and undeveloped uncivilised ones, with a large grey area in between.
There was another approach, considering civilisations as large communities, united within themselves by spiritual and material culture and by no means always reduced to separate states. Civilisation can go far beyond the history of a particular state, and also spatially cover a large number of them.
What is the advantage of this approach to international relations?
1️⃣ First, the historical depth. Liberalism, socialism and conservatism often operate within a relatively narrow range of historical experience. At best, we are talking about several centuries, although their intellectual roots are much deeper. For civilisational studies, the depth of analysis is hundreds and even thousands of years.
2️⃣ Second, this approach allows us to go beyond the usual scheme in which the players are nation-states. Obviously, cultural and civilisational motives can act as a factor in international politics, where not only interests but also identities collide. In addition, quite specific civilisational components are used in the national ideology of a number of states. The states of the Islamic world are a striking example.
3️⃣ Third, the civilisational view covers both spiritual and material aspects of culture. The nation state is but one of the possible political forms born of the Western civilisation and, in a relatively short period of time, became ubiquitous, but not necessarily definitive.
Bringing the concept of the state-civilisation into an official document brings us back to the fundamental questions of our identity, writes Valdai Club Programme Director Ivan Timofeev.
https://valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/a-state-as-civilisation-and-political-theory/
#EconomicStatecraft #politics #state #civilisation
@valdai_club
The concept of civilisation has long appeared on the “radar” of political theory. For liberalism and socialism, civilisation is determined by the measure of the dominance of the human mind. The more civilised a society is, the more rationality and progress it has. Such a linear picture divides the world into developed civilised societies and undeveloped uncivilised ones, with a large grey area in between.
There was another approach, considering civilisations as large communities, united within themselves by spiritual and material culture and by no means always reduced to separate states. Civilisation can go far beyond the history of a particular state, and also spatially cover a large number of them.
What is the advantage of this approach to international relations?
1️⃣ First, the historical depth. Liberalism, socialism and conservatism often operate within a relatively narrow range of historical experience. At best, we are talking about several centuries, although their intellectual roots are much deeper. For civilisational studies, the depth of analysis is hundreds and even thousands of years.
2️⃣ Second, this approach allows us to go beyond the usual scheme in which the players are nation-states. Obviously, cultural and civilisational motives can act as a factor in international politics, where not only interests but also identities collide. In addition, quite specific civilisational components are used in the national ideology of a number of states. The states of the Islamic world are a striking example.
3️⃣ Third, the civilisational view covers both spiritual and material aspects of culture. The nation state is but one of the possible political forms born of the Western civilisation and, in a relatively short period of time, became ubiquitous, but not necessarily definitive.
Bringing the concept of the state-civilisation into an official document brings us back to the fundamental questions of our identity, writes Valdai Club Programme Director Ivan Timofeev.
https://valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/a-state-as-civilisation-and-political-theory/
#EconomicStatecraft #politics #state #civilisation
@valdai_club