Forcing the Common Good

Abstract

Hard power, the unorthodox foreign policy mechanism, has emerged recently as a complex agency that uses military power to regulate diplomatic relations between military and civilian actors. Although national governments use hard power rather frequently to influence foreign public opinions, the field’s scholarship tends to downplay the role of military instruments in the development of public diplomacy. Almost all armed forces contribute to various public diplomacy efforts by applying basic tools, including humanitarian-relief operations and construction works, and international military education and training programs. This article analyzes these tools in the context of soft power and public diplomacy and demonstrates the impact of military power on public diplomacy. It also reconstructs the effective time frames of public diplomacy works of the military by introducing a novel pattern to understanding these works.