Is power still powerful?

That’s the question.

If we take into account our present world,

economic crisis,

difficulties to define good solutions

and efficient solutions to the economic crisis…

Is power powerful?

American defeat in Vietnam,

chaos in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya…

is power powerful?

Deadlocks in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict,

is power powerful?

All these issues are clearly demonstrating

that power is not really adapted

to our present world,

or more exactly the traditional vision of power

is no more adapted to the new conditions

of a global order.

We have to admit that power experienced

many transformations

and has to face new adaptations

which were rather difficult.

Let’s have a look on our recent history.

States were joined

in the international arena

by peoples and societies.

Societies, social actors

are more and more present

in the international arena.

Is power powerful when it has to face societies

as it was when it had to face only other states?

The traditional vision of power

is perfectly adapted

to an interstate competition,

but is it adapted to competition

between states and societies,

between state actors and non-state actors?

Second transformation,

the rising role of culture.

The traditional international arena

during the 19th century but also

the major part of the 20th century

was a monocultural arena

in which all the main actors

were sharing the same culture.

What about this new international arena

in which different actors coming

from different cultures are competing?

Is then the traditional power

so fruitful and so efficient,

so powerful that it was previously?

Now third transformation

the proliferation of states.

When the UN was created in 1945

it was created by 51 states,

now there are 193 states in UN.

Is it possible to use power

when such a proliferation created microstates

for which the competition

didn’t have the same meaning.

Is power now working

when bipolarity has collapsed?

Bipolarity was supporting

the traditional vision of power,

bipolarity was structured

around two major powers,

two super powers: the US and USSR.

Now bipolarity is over,

we are in a post bipolar world,

and in this post bipolar world it is very hard,

difficult first to find a new hierarchy of powers,

but also to define the rules

of a clear competition

between states which are so different.

And overall,

power had to face the globalization

as a new world order

and globalization is directly questioning

the traditional concept of power.

First because globalization

introduced interdependence.

Interdependence is playing a major role

in international relations

and is even the substitute to sovereignty.

Sovereignty was holding

the very clear power competition,

but what about interdependence?

When states are more and more interdependent

at the economic level but also

at the cultural level but also at the social level,

what power is able to do? That’s the question.

What is the status of power

in a world of interdependence?

Is power still acting when states

are so interplaying with such a density?

Is power still powerful

when sovereignty is decreasing?

Is power still powerful

when coercion is less and less efficient?

As we can observe for instance

about the sanctions,

when sanctions are taken

by powerful states

these sanctions are playing against those

who are deciding them.

What about power when we have to face

an increasing number of actors?

The status of power is clear when you have

a small number of competing actors,

but what about now when we have

not only 193 state actors,

but when we have potentially

7 billion of individuals playing

on the international arena.

Is power powerful when it has to face

individuals and social actors?

And what about power facing

the new way of communication,

the new instrument of communication,

the new technology,

in which individuals are able

to get in touch with each other,

and so are able to structure a new kind

of social and international social relations.

Power is probably not adapted

in its traditional version

to face this new kind of situation,

and the real question is what about power

in a world in which states

have no more the monopoly

of the international functions?

Ladies and Gentlemen,

four consequences of these very high

but underestimated transformations.

First military power

is more and more powerless.

We could observe that

during the decolonization war,

when France was defeated

by the small Vietnamese army in Dien Bien Phu.

But US experience the same

when the US was defeated in 1975 in Vietnam,

but the same for Somalia, Afghanistan,

Iraq and so on, the same for Libya.

Is military power adapted

to these new conditions?

Probably not.

The second question is:

is soft power a clear and efficient substitute?

When the US was defeated in Vietnam

some American scholars like

Joseph Nye and Robert Keohane

elaborated the concept of soft power

and established the hypothesis

that when hard power is no more working,

soft power can be considered as a substitute.

Soft power is a strong power, probably,

for diffusing the dominant culture,

the cultural hegemony of the super power.

But the question is:

if you drink Coca Cola or if you wear blue jeans,

do you, for this reason,

support the American foreign policy?

The reality is that there is no transitivity

between the support you give to soft power

and the support which is expected

in the field of diplomacy and foreign policy.

The third question

is what about power in a world

in which protest is playing

more and more a central and major role?

There are in our present world

so many new protest diplomacies

or deviant diplomacies,

in which protesting against an hegemony

is much more important that proposing

a new international order.

Is the traditional vision of power able to face

this new culture of international protest?

It’s quite clear that it couldn’t.

And so the real problem

in our present interdependent and global world

is what hegemony now does mean?

Robert Gilpin and Charles Kindleberger

elaborated the concept of hegemonic stability

which they put that hegemony

was the only way for ordering

an interdependent world.

That was probably true during the 20th century,

but is it so clear and obvious by now?

That’s the problem,

is hegemony now a stabilizer

or is hegemony destabilizing the world?

That's to say, first hegemony

is not able to work and it is failing,

but the second point is that when hegemony

is too much evident, is too much visible,

the risk is high that this hegemony

creates instability, protests, conflicts, tensions,

anti-Americanism and war.

That is why the Obama administration

moved to another concept,

the famous concept of smart power,

in which hard power is considered

to be restricted, to be limited and to be mixed

with a very cautious use of soft power.

This concept of smart power

leads to the idea of a light footprint,

the superpower is supposed now

to leave only a light footprint

on the international order

and to the concept of leadership

from behind, leading from behind,

that’s to say to be much less ambitious

in the definition of the new international order.

This is clearly a revising conception of hegemony

in which hegemony is lessened,

in which hegemony is questioned,

in which hegemony is challenged

and in which we have to reconsider

the real capacities of power.

L’impuissance de la puissance

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