Is the concept of power central to our understanding of global politics?

Power is a key concept within international relations and the global sphere. This essay aims to evaluate the means through which power can be exerted and the centrality of power within global politics. 
Hard power can be defined as the exertion of force, either economic or military, in order to enact the polices of a state. Theorist Richard Haass presents the view that power can be achieved through Necessary Wars, such as wars to maintain influence within a region. This is due to the belief that a justification for a war is not needed in order to enforce power in a region. Examples of the military deployment of hard power include that of Saudi Arabia in Yemen, where military force is being used in order to fight a larger proxy war between the Sunni and Shiite Muslims. Furthermore, the military force does not need to be used in order to exert power, this is exemplified in North Korea. The Nuclear Weapons programme within the state allows for a projection of hard power without the enactment of hard power force. Moreover, the creation of trade embargoes such as that of embargoes on North Korea in order to restrict development and prevent arms sales. This is an exemplification of economic hard power, as these trade restrictions and economic sanctions on oil were implemented by the US among other states cause North Korea to be isolated from the international sphere until a point at which the end their Nuclear Weapons development programme. 
On the other hand soft power is a type of power that focuses on the integral roles of diplomacy and relations in order to achieve aims. Joe Nye presents soft power as ‘the ability to get what you want through attraction, rather than coercion or payment’. Examples of soft power include that of Hollywood, where America and the West are presented in a way that makes them admirable by other states, along with allowing influence to be portrayed in media, such as films. This therefore presents soft power as despite a lack of hard power initiatives, soft power is able to attract the prospects of the West in order to present views such as that of democracy and capitalism. The Portland Index evaluates states capacity to deploy soft power to achieve goals, in 2017 France, the UK and the US were the top ranking states for use of soft power, illustrating the ability of the West to achieve goals through coercion. A further example of soft power is China funding the African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa as this applies the use of economic funding in order to project a soft power message of aid to the AU, while illustrating the influence of China on the region.