What is the example of hegemony as hard power?
Answers
HEGEMONY AS A HARD POWER:
1. It is this notion of hegemony as military dominance that is especially important to the current position and role of the US in world politics. The bedrock of contemporary US power lies in the overwhelming superiority of its military power.
2. American military dominance today is both absolute and relative.
(a) In absolute terms, the US today has military capabilities that can reach any point on the planet accurately, lethally and in real time, thereby crippling the adversary while its own forces are sheltered to the maximum extent possible from the dangers of war.
(b) No other power today can remotely match the military capabilities of US.
(i) US today spends more on its military capability than the next 12 powers combined.
(ii) Furthermore, a large chunk of the Pentagon’s budget goes into military research and development, or, in other words, technology.
(iii) Thus, the military dominance of the US is not just based on higher military spending, but on a qualitative gap, a technological chasm that no other power can at present conceivably span.