PRESS

This explanation is also unconvincing, however.
Where defense, security, and military matters are concerned,
soft power is valid and valuable, but it is best
seen as a proxy for hard power rather than a sufficient
alternative to it. It requires very little understanding
of strategy to see that the result of a self-emasculation
program would be for UK hard power to be replaced
not by soft power but by bluff, and there might be
nothing more expensive than the insecurity that is exposed
when a bluff is called. Fortunately, it is barely
conceivable that senior people charged with UK national
security could have adopted such a strategically
irresponsible, politically dishonest, and intellectually
weak position.
If neither austerity nor anti-strategy offers a convincing
explanation for the evolution of UK hard
power, there is a third alternative. The only clear positive
trend in the story of UK hard power over the past
15 or so years is the very high level of operational experience
gained by UK armed forces. If the forces have
remained so effective even under conditions of austerity,
then it is at least possible that their success might
have worked against them by providing a perverse
disincentive for sustained investment in hard power,
whether financial, intellectual, or political.
Operational experience might also mask the most
convincing yet least attractive explanation for the current
condition of UK hard power: strategic ambivalence.
It cannot be said that the UK has altogether lost
interest in hard power. But neither can it be said with
much confidence what that interest is: Why should the
UK remain interested in hard power? How important
is hard power to the UK national strategic outlook? Is
military expenditure seen as a government obligation
or as a burden to be offloaded whenever and wherever
possible?
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