ABSTRACT
While discerning observers note the growing significance of soft power in contemporary armed conflict, just war theory and, indeed, International Humanitarian Law (IHL) and the Laws Of Armed Conflict (LOAC) are conspicuously silent and offer little normative guidance for using soft power legally and ethically. Soft power encompasses the means to obtain a political goal through attraction and persuasion rather than through threats or coercion.1 Advocates embrace public diplomacy, economic development and public works abroad to co-opt and attract an adversary to its side. Hard power, on the other hand, is the traditional stuff of just war theory and international humanitarian law as adversaries employ, in the best case, the least destructive means necessary to disable an enemy, compel compliance and secure the political goals they seek. Accompanied by death, devastation and disease, the moral complexities of exercising hard power speak for themselves. Accompanied by publicity campaigns, humanitarian aid and ringing cultural events, the exercise of soft power seems worry free. Closer consideration of the words and deeds that characterize public diplomacy, however, reveals that this is hardly the case. Public diplomacy, a more nuanced idiom than its older counterpart “propaganda,” reflects the media efforts of any adversary to shape opinion and influence the behavior of domestic, enemy and third party audiences. Information operations, a more general category of enterprise, augments public diplomacy with staged media events, censorship and information manipulation for the benefit of one side or another. Public diplomacy also leans heavily on a wide array of public works projects. States and non-states pursue economic and medical development projects to win the hearts and minds of the local population. These projects are prime examples of soft power that together provide the means for state and non-state actors to gain crucial support at home and abroad. For non-state actors, the benefits of successful public diplomacy are even more striking, allowing such groups as the Taliban, Chechen rebels, Kosovo Liberation Army, Falintil (East Timor), the Palestinians and Hezbollah to expand their power base, form alliances, exert diplomatic pressure, recruit supporters and strengthen morale. Public diplomacy is surprisingly cheap and cost-effective and comes without the destruction and loss of life that attend kinetic means of warfare. In some cases, public diplomacy may replace hard power and successfully achieve broad national goals; in other cases, public diplomacy augments hard power by winning tactical victories no less impressive than those gained at gunpoint.
