A Review of Soft Power: A Case Study of Psychological Operation

In the recent decades, political literature has had its own ups and downs phases. Due to these developments, we have witnessed the flourishing of new terms understanding of which requires the knowledge of anthropology, terminology and epistemology. One of these terms that has had much use in the realm of international relations is “soft power”. Although soft power, from the point of pragmatism, has a long history, however academically and conceptually it is a new phenomenon. In the realm of international relations and international community, nations have used various forms of power to achieve their goals. Even though hard power was the first mean used by nations to achieve their goals, however, by the passage of time, due to its heavy cost, casualties, unclear outcome and declining popularity and legitimacy, soft power is gradually becoming preferably the first means employed by nations to pursue their goals in the international community. Soft power is a multidimensional and complicated matter which suffers from its own plastic and junction nature. These features make soft power a time consuming job which requires new ways and means. Soft power involves channels such as media, press, and internet, war of information and psychological warfare which each of them has its own complexity. Due to these complexities, after trying to present a critical analysis of soft power with respect to various speculative dimensions such as terminology and epistemology, then arguments on psychological warfare are presented.