Power has a magnetic appeal. In fact, the idea of exercising one’s authority and expanding its boundaries has always attracted human beings. The ambition for power is inherent to individual and collective psychology. It is in fact an unavoidable component. If taken to the extreme, however, this ambition can lead and drag you into a vortex of madness and desire for oppression. The writer Ignazio Silone had no doubts: “the temptation of power is the most diabolical that can be offered to man”. Also, Henry Kissinger thought much the same way, believing that Power is the supreme aphrodisiac.
Traditionally, it is believed that countries with great power prevail in personal or international relationships, so they would be pursued in search of personal gain, or for the security and survival of the State. In this “realist” vision, the power of a nation is determined in particular by the quantity and quality of the country’s resources, determining a hierarchy of powers at the top of which would be located the main actors of the system, whose actions and relationships influence the trend of international politics. In this hierarchy, military force is inevitably considered the main factor of power and war is the parameter to measure its extent. For these reasons, states have always tried to expand power, especially military power, as it is considered the most effective tool for imposing their will on other states.
More recently, during the Cold War period, we learned how an unprecedented military power, such as that of nuclear weapons, unfolded unthinkable scenarios of destruction of the entire human civilization and how only a complex system of dissuasion could prevent an aggression based on the certainty about the mutual destruction of the opponents in the case of its use. Today we see every day how it is a mistake to identify power with military force alone and how there are many other forms, often technologically more sophisticated. Furthermore, military power, when exercised through conflicts, presents very high human and social costs, which civil society tends to accept with ever greater difficulty, even in non-democratic countries.
Historically, it is believed that the concept of power is linked primarily to the country’s geographical position, the extent of its territory, the size of its economy and the availability of natural resources.
However, it can be said that over the years the power of states increasingly has a multidimensional character. Several qualitatively different, essentially immaterial components converge in it.
Among these, research, technology, innovation capacity, information, soft power and the educational level of the population have to be considered. These are the so-called intangible factors of power, which play a decisive role in any political-strategic comparison, as they manage to increase the effective weight of a State on the international scene, beyond its mere material, economic or military strength.
The world is experiencing a real revolution in fields of information and knowledge, while new technologies are representing irreplaceable multipliers of influence. Moreover, new technologies are often in the hands of private actors, new protagonists on the international stage, who have exponentially increased their power of influence to reach a global dimension. If the technological innovation is very fast, its speed can profoundly change scenarios and determine structural competitive advantages in favor of areas of the world in which large technological companies operate, for instance the major microprocessor manufacturers.
In conclusion, the concept of power today tends to lose its absolute meaning, being modeled on the basis of individual situations, specific interests and objectives, and the tools through which it is exercised, against the backdrop of increasingly intense competition between the actors that act on the global scenario: states, international organizations, centers of economic-financial power, opinion movements, terrorist groups, NGOs, individuals. This has to be considered in a context that sees a worrying weakening of the role of multilateral fora as a negotiating mean, a factor in easing tensions and a tool for conflict prevention.
Is power today up to the extraordinary scale of the challenges of our time?
The fifteenth edition of the Festival of Diplomacy (Rome 16-25 October 2024) will have the title “Looking for Cratos, the Greek god of Power”, and the main theme will be “Power and its countless faces”
CONCEPT 2024
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