In my opinion, soft power is inherently fragile. The effect of sole soft power is strong at the grassroots but weak as you move up the pyramid. It can be undermined by hard power, if not in the eyes of the people, then in the state administration. In fact, today's concepts of power have become increasingly hybridized. Personal ambitions can be bought, forced, manipulated. And a bought, coerced or manipulated administration is protected by hard power coming from intervenist power. This state administration may endeavour to eliminate your soft power with all its mean. This is also the equation of the modern colonial order largely.
In order to combat this colonial order, it is important that your soft power is supported by deterrent hard power. But wit a nuance, in a way, you have to look like Robin Hood. If there is a struggle to change the traditional order and paradigm, even this kind of hybrid power alone will not be enough. There must be a relationship of mutual benefit based on consistent and conscientious principles.
In my opinion, the thing that will sustain Turkish foreign policy in the strongest way will be to sustain its principles. Our principles should be our point of legitimacy, and these principles should be compatible with conscientious norms and the interests of the countries concerned. Do you remember the Wilsonian principles, the early stages of US political expansion? I know, We didn't win a world war, even we have trying to overcoming many issues inside let alone others, but we have to stand up with a set of principles that encompass all the peoples with whom we used to share a common order, a common ideology, and therefore power once upon a time.
I am not talking about things like Ummah things etc, I believe that as major fault lines become evident in the world order and power transfers take place in the meantime, a struggle must be waged to open up a space that will prevent the old world from leaving the influence of one hegemon and sitting in the lap of another. If you fail to achieve this, the fronts of the new wars of sharing world will again be built on these losers club. As a matter of fact, you only need to look at the last 20 years to see this.
A bond of trust must be built on the basis of common security and common interests. The real losers of past world wars should not be the losers again, of the new world. We have to build our 'own' space. And, If you want to be an antithesis, you have to be the name of the path of collectivism.
