Raw Power

Dan's exactly right, unless we take power to mean something like human power over the cosmos, power to flourish, etc--which comes back to prosperity. In the context, maybe that's what Obama meant. But it's not the usual way of thinking about power in IR.

I don't think we have to be fighting Russians in order to prove ourselves mightiest. If we look at the American experiment as the power of ideas - Jefferson talked about this with patents and copyrights - I don't have any fewer ideas in my head if I tell you about one of them, if we look at the power of ideas to change the world....what brings lasting change and evolution are the rightness of the idea, because that will spread... And is I believe what Obama talked about with the 'quiet force of progress' in his inauguration speech. (Power being directed force.)

If we look at the distribution and propagation of ideas as power... which ideas do people propagate over time, those are still not zero-sum, just because I believe something (policy-ish, not empirically-provable) to be true doesn't mean you can't believe something else. But a good idea has power.

I suppose you could look at which ideas are propagating and holding true over time and influencing more people. For instance, it was through the work of engineers at Berkeley that UNIX got out of the hands of wizards (via BSD license). And a derivative license (Apache) powered the innovation of web software that runs 100 million servers (and was also created in the bay area, initially ;-). Which is now powering the ability of Iranians to communicate with the rest of the world.

I'd say that's a far more powerful weapon than any F-22 bomber. And it's merely a tool. Hey. This is a great thing for free speech. We think that's integral to self-government. You want to add to the system? Great, learn how it works, and make it better. Please!

(And such an example might be pointed at when we San Francisco liberals are derided for being un-patriotic because we prefer code -both law and internet- to guns to make our points).

Obama is wrong. More importantly, he will be ignored by Russian policymakers, who see (correctly, I believe) international relations as being about relative power relations, not the overall sum of power in the world system.

Power relations are zero-sum in the strict sense: an increase in relative power by one state reduces the relative power of other states, when we define power as the ability to affect other states' interests and effect their own. The fact that the sum of power may increase over time is irrelevant; changes within the power balance are still Pareto-optimal. (Potential power sources outside the Westphalian system -- e.g., Barnett's "Gap," transnational criminal organizations and international corporations -- may be interpreted as creating a Pareto-inefficient situation, but I would resist such a view.)

It is very different to say that a subset of actors can increase the sum of their power without affecting the relative power balance within the subset: that is trivially demonstrable and, while useful in the context of bilateral relations, says nothing about the larger pursuit of international power.

Now, it can be argued that my premises are flawed inasmuch as I stipulate that all power is prima facie coercive in nature or, more critically, that cross-border agreements and entanglements mean that exercising the coercive option will have negative effects on the exerciser. For example, China's continuing role as a sink for American overseas debt gives it coercive power over the American economy, but exercising that power would result in American economic collapse that would spread globally, along with RMB appreciation that would harm Chinese exports. To this, I would argue that (A) all coercive options carry negative costs, else they would be constantly exercised; and (B) coercive costs can change over time, making coercion more or less attractive.

The other counter-argument is that my thesis is irrelevant: what matters is how states choose to exercise coercion. Non-realist theories tend to ignore balance of power matters, arguing instead that the character counts more than capability. For example, a rise in American power should be viewed benignly by other states, because America is a noncoercive power, or at least a power whose interests are largely identical to those of other great- and middling- powers. (Bacevich criticized Mearsheimer's theory of offensive realism partially on these grounds, I believe.) This is probably where Obama is coming from: power gains need not be zero-sum because when America increases its power, it can be trusted not to use it against other states. However, just as we would find a similar argument from Ahmad-e-Nejad or Putin unpersuasive, other states don't seem to find this line of argument as persuasive as we Americans do.

A related criticism is that power theories tend to ignore the importance of actors within state: in other words, they hopelessly simplify matters by assuming a unitary state instead of the multiplicity of domestic actors that really dominate most foreign policy decisions. To return to Mearsheimer, his basic thesis is that the anarchic nature of the international system, coupled with the uncertainty of competitors' intentions under imperfect information, pushes policymakers to attempt hegemony, or to balance would-be hegemons. (This ineluctable requirement of the game is the "tragedy" of his book's title.) Although Mearsheimer can be criticized on a number of grounds, I think his basic thesis has profound theoretic power, even though his attempts to apply it have severe weaknesses. In the long run, then, all actors -- regardless of intent -- are pushed to the same result: minimize threats by maximizing power.

The problem with Obama's statement is that we are very much in a power-competitive state with Russia, which has led to overt (war with Georgia), covert (links between the Kremlin and "deep state" groups in Turkey), economic (Algeria and Nigeria), and diplomatic (Iran) competition with the US and its power-bloc allies. Pretending otherwise may be good optics, but it ignores reality, and no one in the Kremlin will be fooled.

First there was Adam and Eve. Then Eve had a baby, Cain. Now A & E have power over a third person, whereas there was no power previously, they now have power over (and responsibility for) a third person. Seems power hath increathed.

Percentage-wise, from before birth to after birth, power has remained the same at 50-50.

Mutual security is an obvious example of greater power for more than one party. It's not a zero sum game unless that's the way you play it.