Hard and Soft Power Approaches to Armed Conflicts: The United States in Iraq and Russia in Syria

Armed conflicts are generally associated with the use of hard power for coercing and forcing an opponent to do something against its will in a situation where war is extension politics. However, there many scholarly observations about important role soft armed conflicts, interaction between power, effects on one another within framework conflict. This paper explores two specific 2003 U.S.-led military intervention Iraq 2015 Russian Syria. Various aspects approaches discussed, outcome operations national potential analyzed. The results study show that whereas War came as disaster U.S., operation Syria—despite dire predictions—created strengths opportunities Russia international relations.