4.1 Concept of power
Power in IR is the ability to affect others' behaviour to obtain desired outcomes — the capacity to make others do what they would not otherwise do (and prevent them doing what they wish). Robert Dahl's classic formula: A has power over B to the extent A can get B to do something B would not otherwise do. Power has faces: (i) the power to compel (force/sanctions); (ii) the power to set agendas; (iii) the power to shape preferences (the deepest — making others want what you want).
4.2 Elements of national power (Morgenthau's catalogue — memorize in groups)
1. Geography — location, size, terrain (Nepal's Himalayan geography: defence asset, trade liability, landlockedness — Unit 6);
2. Natural resources — energy, minerals, water (Nepal's hydropower endowment as latent power);
3. Population — numbers (manpower, market), but also quality (education, health);
4. Economic capacity — industrial base, technology, finance, trade;
5. Military capability — armed forces, weapons, logistics, nuclear capability (hard power's core);
6. National character and morale — the social glue, will, identity (Nepal's Gurkha military reputation as reputation-power);
7. Diplomacy — "the intelligence of power" — skill in converting capability into outcomes;
8. Government and leadership — institutional quality, strategic culture, political stability (a Nepali sensitivity, given governance volatility).
Analytical caution (a mark-winning line): national power is relational (power over whom?) and situational (effective where?); a capability inventory measures potential, not usable power. Small states maximize power through coalitions, institutions (UN, NAM), law and skilled diplomacy — the Nepali strategy.
4.3 Hard, soft and smart power (Joseph Nye's triad)
• Hard power — coercion through military force and economic pressure (sanctions, aid conditionality); "sticks and carrots."
• Soft power — attraction and persuasion: a country's culture, political values and foreignpolicies when they are legitimate and attractive (Nye: getting others to want what you want). Examples: US universities and pop culture, Japan's aesthetics, India's Bollywood/yoga/diaspora, China's Confucius Institutes and "BRI attraction." Nepal's soft power assets: its brand as the birthplace of the Buddha (Lumbini), Everest and the Himalaya, tourism and trekking culture, Gurkha valour, peacekeeping reputation, and its spiritual-cultural exports.
• Smart power — the strategic combination: hard and soft resources blended to legitimate ends and means; Nye coined it for the US post-Iraq debate, and it now defines how even middle and small states design policy (military competence plus attraction — e.g., Nepal's peacekeeping: a hard-power contribution delivered in a soft-power idiom).