{"id":502,"date":"2020-08-15T16:17:17","date_gmt":"2020-08-15T16:17:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.competitionreview.in\/blogs\/?p=502"},"modified":"2020-08-15T16:18:17","modified_gmt":"2020-08-15T16:18:17","slug":"what-is-sharp-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.competitionreview.in\/blogs\/2020\/08\/15\/what-is-sharp-power\/","title":{"rendered":"WHAT IS SHARP POWER?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Prof. V.P. Gupta<\/strong>, Director, Rau\u2019s IAS Study Circle, New Delhi \u2013 Jaipur \u2013 Bengaluru<\/strong><\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Defining Sharp Power<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sharp power is a term coined by Christopher\nWalker and Jessica Ludwig <\/strong>of the National Endowment for Democracy, a think-tank\nbased in the United States. The text referred to Sharp power as a form of\ninformation warfare that is being waged by authoritarian powers such as Russia\nand China<\/strong> to shape public perceptions around the world, by using\ncommunication formats such as social media. They consider Sharp power as form\nof power which penetrates or perforates the political and information\nenvironments in the targeted countries by exploiting the openness of democratic\nsocieties. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thereafter, an article in The Economist<\/em>\nmodified the understanding of Sharp power as information warfare which relies\non subversion of information, bullying and pressure tactics that seeks to\npromote self-censorship by targeted audiences in other countries. Sharp power\ntherefore is a behavioural aspect of International relations that uses\ninformation, both genuine and fake, as a warfare tool to weaken the targeted\ncountry by augmenting the socio-political cleavages in the targeted country.\nMoreover, it seeks to control the flow of negative information about itself by\nusing economic sanctions, threats, etc. on media houses, research institutes\nand other forms of pressure tactics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hard and Soft Power<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The term Soft power, as coined and defined by Joseph\nNye Jr.,<\/strong> harnesses the allure of culture and values of a country to enhance\na country\u2019s strength and the ability to affect other countries by attraction\nand persuasion. While, Hard power is the ability to affect other countries by\ncoercion and payment. According toJoseph Nye Jr., if someone puts a gun to your\nhead and demands your wallet, it does not matter what you want or think. That\nis Hard power. If that person is trying to persuade you to freely give up your\nwallet, everything depends on what you want or think. That is Soft power. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Soft power is rarely sufficient on its own for\npower projection, but when coupled with Hard power, it is a force multiplier.\nPower thereby depends on whose army wins, but it also depends on whose\nnarrative also wins. A strong narrative therefore is a source of power. For example,\nthe United States may have had a military victory in the War in Vietnam but the\nnarrative of \u2018who won\u2019 or the \u2018moral victor\u2019 is attributed to Vietnam.\nSimilarly, Joseph Nye Jr. provides the analogy of Osama bin Laden having\nneither threatened nor paid the men who flew aircraft into the World Trade\nCenter\u2014he had attracted them with his ideas. Therefore, soft power can be used\nfor evil ends, but its means depend on positive attributes of voluntarism,\nallure and attraction. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Difference between Soft and Sharp\nPower<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ability to harness Soft power is based upon the\nvoluntarism of the targeted audience through forming an allure and attractive\nopinion, while Sharp power is based upon compelling the behaviour of the\ntargeted audience through manipulation of opinion. The distinction between Soft\npower and Sharp power becomes hard to discern wherein which action would\nconstitute voluntarism or a compelling scenario, or which information is\ntargeted to attain allure or manipulation. Sharp and Soft power therefore are\nalso inversely proportional to each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Joseph Nye Jr. considers that all information to\nenhance Soft power provides the ability for the
\naudience to choose on how to frame that information. Only when that information\nattempts to limit the framing ability of the targeted audience, the information\ndelves into deliberate deception and a mean to coerce and not allure the\ntargeted audience. He concludes by asserting that it is this quality\u2014openness\nand limits on deliberate deception\u2014that distinguishes Soft power from Sharp\npower since without proper disclosure, the principle of voluntarism has been\nbreached. Sharp power through the deceptive use of information for hostile\npurposes, therefore becomes closer to Hard power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Using Sharp Power<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The manipulation of socio-political perceptions\nand electoral processes has been resorted to by the United States and the\nerstwhile Soviet Union in other countries during the Cold War, to reduce the\nattractiveness of ideological frameworks of communism and free-market economics\nrespectively in foreign countries. Similarly, the private sector such as\nCambridge Analytica, Facebook hearing in US Congress, etc. have become,\nknowingly and otherwise, as means of information warfare by Russia to\nmanipulate electoral processes such as in United States and increasing the\nsocio-political cleavages such as between Brexit voters in UK. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fear from China, as earlier with US and the\nUSSR during Cold War, is that it seeks to conquer foreign minds with its thoughts\nand ideas. Australia became the first nation to raise a red flag against Chinese\ntactics of Sharp power with allegations of interference in research in\nAustralian universities and publishing houses, bribing members of Australian\nparliament for positive image construction in Australian parliamentary\ndiscourse, barring critical researchers from access into China, spying on\nChinese diaspora and other tactics.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Information through government-backed formats\ndoes not necessarily mean they are a Sharp power threat. Al-Jazeera, BBC,  Doordarshan, etc. are government-backed\ninstitutions but it is only when they use deceptive information for hostile\npurposes such as forming animosity between groups in other countries, promoting\ncivil disobedience, etc., it is then that the actions of these institutions can\nbe treated as Sharp power projection. The use of information warfare by\nPakistan through separatist organisations and PTV to promote communal and\nethnic feud in Kashmir can be attributed as Sharp power projections.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Democratic societies are more prone in providing\nopportunities for other countries to employ techniques of information warfare\nsince hostile information even after identification becomes protected as\nfundamental freedom till decided otherwise. This leaves an opportunity to only\ncountering information with information as means to protect against malign\ninfluence. This identification and countering ability by democratic societies\nsuch as India therefore becomes essential. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chinese Response to Label<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

China has asserted that the new expression of\n\u2018Sharp power\u2019 has been concocted by the West to vilify China and is a continued\nreflection of Cold War mentality of portraying Western adversaries with\nnegative labels. Chinese media has highlighted the controversial\nconditionality\u2019s prescribed by Western organisations such as International\nMonetary Fund, World Bank, etc. as form of socio-political interference in\nrecipient countries, in contrast to Chinese developmental aid approach of\nproviding recipient countries to choose their own independent trajectories and\ndevelopmental requirements. \n\nThey further highlight the example of the US and UK who lobbied for\ninvasion of Iraq using fake information of presence of Weapons of Mass\nDestruction. Moreover, Rupert Murdoch, a US citizen, owns two thirds of\nAustralian media and was persecuted in UK for \u2018fake news\u2019 and political\nlobbying in the United States. Similarly, the US President Donald Trump and the\nAmerican media have accused each other of providing \u2018fake information\u2019 to the\npublic. These and other several acts showcase the use of Sharp power by Western\ncountries, wherein the projection by an American think-tank of China as using\nSharp power and the subsequent reiteration by Western or West-sponsored media\nacross the world is in itself an example of deceptive use of information\nagainst China for hostile purposes of portraying China as a coercive rising\npower.\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Prof. V.P. Gupta, Director, Rau\u2019s IAS Study Circle, New Delhi \u2013 Jaipur \u2013 Bengaluru Defining Sharp Power Sharp power is a term coined by Christopher Walker and Jessica Ludwig of the National Endowment for Democracy, a think-tank based in the United States. The text referred to Sharp power as a form of information warfare that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.competitionreview.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.competitionreview.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.competitionreview.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.competitionreview.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.competitionreview.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=502"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.competitionreview.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":504,"href":"https:\/\/www.competitionreview.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502\/revisions\/504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.competitionreview.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.competitionreview.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.competitionreview.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}