The Main Idea Of Foreign Policy: Hard Power And Soft Power

The state, as a system, pursues two major goals: firstly, preservation integrity and, secondly, maintaining this integrity at the maximum possible term. It is impossible to realize these needs without interacting with other actors in international relations, which is expressed in foreign policy. To implement their foreign policy, states use a variety of instruments. Undoubtedly, one of the main tools is “tough” and soft power. However, before moving on to researching these tools, it seems appropriate to consider the category of ‘power’ in its foreign policy context.

In political scientific thought, there is no single definition of the category of “force”, since it varies depending on the interpretation of the author.

All these definitions of the category of ‘power’ have one common component – impact on the policies of other states. This effect may occur in various ways, and this, in turn, gives full reason to talk about various forms of use of force. In this regard, they share the “hard” and soft power.

“Hard” power implies a coercive approach to international political relations, in particular, associated with the use of military force. A classic example of how this tool is used to solve foreign policy tasks may serve the United States of America.

An alternative to hard power is soft. Soft power refers to a convincing approach to international relations, usually using cultural influence.

With the transition from an industrial society to an information society, a large role in soft power politics is given the informational component of international relationships. The diffusion of American cultural values and political ideologies are often implemented through global telecommunications networks, such as the Internet, and through the media.

Most of the issues of using economic instruments for political purposes in this paper are considered on the example of the United States. This choice of object for research is determined by the fact that the United States is the largest economy in the world; they created and in many ways control the world financial system, most often all other countries use economic instruments in foreign policy, perceive such instruments as natural, carefully codified them in the legislation, and developed a detailed mechanism for their application.

Another feature of the interaction of political and economic factors in modern international life is that many issues of international trade and investment have acquired a significant political component before our eyes, this fully applies not only to traditional politicized areas, such as military-technical cooperation but and to projects in the field of energy, transport infrastructure, banking and insurance, agriculture, the environment, high technology.

It should be recognized that no attempt has been made to conduct a comprehensive study of the relationship between international politics and international business not only in Russian but also in world literature.

In conclusion, I would like to note that the pace of rapid growth of technology and globalization, all countries in the world have begun to become closer in foreign policy. The situation in the world that is happening now shows us that foreign policy has a very strong effect on the future of countries and their citizens.