The philosophy of soft power in international interaction: between “para-force” coercion and covert management

The article is devoted to the study of the phenomenon of soft power in the modern situation of international communication and multicultural interaction. The relevance of this topic is dictated, on the one hand, by the fact that soft power acts as a modern alternative to classical traditional forms of hard power - which gives it a significant advantage of a humanitarian nature, on the other, by the understanding that soft power, unfortunately, is often not an end in itself, but acts only as an element or modification of hard power, i.e. situations when “tough arguments” are exhausted and costly in short-term implementation, and pushing through specific interests can be carried out much more effectively through informational influence on the opponent than by military or economic means, which is reflected in the famous phraseology: “A honey tongue, a heart of gall”. Consequently, the search for a balance between altruism and egoism, as well as often irrational results of collective activity of subjects of international relations actualize the problem of philosophical reflection of forms of interaction and ethical justification of their use, which would lead to the solution of not only the classical problem “violence begets violence” (“hate begets hate”), but also the problem when paradoxically “nonviolence also begets violence”. In the latter case, we are talking about the use of “soft power” in a unilateral version, when the victory of one pole is achieved by destroying all other alternatives, which in the current international situation is reflected in the crisis of the unipolar system of the world. The methodology of the work is based on the principles and methods of socio-philosophical analysis, the concept of historicism, comparative analysis, which is interdisciplinary.