2 ms·

I'm uncertain what you mean by this. 'Hard power' generally refers to military and economic actions such as sanctions - ie where governments forbid third partie

I'm uncertain what you mean by this. 'Hard power' generally refers to military and economic actions such as sanctions - ie where governments forbid third parties in the private sector (or indeed other countries, if they have the heft) to do business with the sanctioned entities. Can't see how that applies. The internet as a political factor is of course new, but transnational organization/ideology explicitly directed at displacement of the existing order goes back centuries.

jauntywundrkind 3y ago
Hard power is also the ability to police & coral & force not just far off people but your own people too. In the network state era, there are forces far beyond your borders that the majority of your citizens are dealing with regularly. You can keep a very tight grasp on your own citizen, effect all the moderately high firewalls you want & dabble in banning cryptography as you please, perhaps, but it'll usually be a pretty leaky defense, and no matter how much hard power you have in your state there's probably very little your hard power is going to do to stop or reduce the overwhelming presence of Facebook or Google or far more modest sized internet services in the world. They will certainly keep influencing the world. And they will keep creeping in and influencing your people. Power used to have geographic limitations, which gave local power enormity & presence. In the fiber optic age, that hard power buys you a lot less. And requires far more pressure & vigilance to apply even within your border.