ABSTRACT
Power is the currency of politics. Yet, unlike other assets of high liquidity, the operational meaning of this concept is extremely elusive, owing probably to the wide variety of definitions and to the ambiguity surrounding its tangible and intangible foundations. Nevertheless, there are three general approaches to the conceptualisation and measurement of power in international relations: 1 (a) control over resources, (b) control over actors, and (c) control over events and outcomes. Whereas the two latter approaches have received wide academic attention, the first conception seems best to represent what the practitioners of politics have in mind when they refer to national power: 2 a combination of tangible and intangible — quantitative and qualitative — resources that define to a large extent a nation’s ability to pursue its goals in world affairs. As one of the most prominent theoreticians of power politics phrased it:
A nation does not necessarily attain the maximum of national power because it is very rich in natural resources, possesses a very large population, or has built an enormous industrial and military establishment. It attains that maximum when it has at its disposal a sufficient quality and quantity in the right admixture of those resources of power which would allow it to pursue a given foreign policy with a maximum chance of success. 3
[Emphasis added.]