Treverton and Jones: Measuring National Power

Treverton, G. & Jones, S., 2005. Measuring National Power, Rand Corporation.

This is a summary of RAND conference proceedings with SAG and IFs.

The conference was designed to explore the changing nature of power. It initially explored power from three perspectives: the power of outcomes, the power of processes and the power of being. This is applied in a brief way to the changing nature of the US’ power in relation to other rising (and falling) international powers.

It also then explored the relationship between soft and hard power. This relationship is not entirely clear, and the distinction is not always very helpful.

It also looked at non-state actors and the power that they can wield. Specifically, it mentioned the land-mine ban as well as the Kyoto protocol.

Six kinds of non-state actors were mentioned: corporations, NGOs and civil society, IOs (WTO, IMF, WB, UN), regional economic associations, terrorists/criminals, virtual networks (hackers).

A different break-out group assessed different goals of non-state actors: change policy, disrupt state, work with state.

A third group identified ways in which ‘soft power’ could be changed to be more useful. They highlighted a range from coercion to attraction along economic, ideational and cultural lines. One way to determine soft power would be to poll a population and ask, “where would you like to live?”