COERCIVE DIPLOMACY

(CD)
Cdr Noorhakimi bin Isa RMN
CP 40
P127451

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 Introduction
• Interstate war declined
• Managing conflict by coercion
• Part of state policy
• Represent challenges both theory and practice
• Central argument: success CD is hard to gain

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 Scope
• Understanding Coercive Diplomacy
• Key elements for success
• Vital challenges for success
• Significance of strategic context
• Conclusion

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 Defining Coercive Diplomacy (CD)
• One of the conflict resolution by influence strategy
• Definition: Strategy of using military threats and limited use of force
with inducements and assurances in order to influence an adversary to
visibly change its behaviour and do something against its will.
• ‘Stick’ (force) and ‘Carrot’ (inducement)
• Deterrence (before adv acting) and CD (after adv acting)
• Use of threat and limited forces
• ‘just enough’ force - demonstrate greater power could be used
• Critics – only known after occurred (impossible to measure in real-time)
• Intention: peaceful solution vs legitimize to brute force

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 Defining Coercive Diplomacy (CD)
Strategy Persuasion Defensive Deterrence Brute force
Concept Diplomacy Reliance Potential adv Real adv
Action To bargain Deterrence-compelling-CD (to influence) To control
Instrument Persuasion & inducement Threat & Limited force & Full-scale war
inducement inducement

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 Defining Coercive Diplomacy (CD)
• Understand CD by studying compellence vs deterrence
• Diplomacy vs CD: regards as a concept of communication, and negotiation
towards peaceful means.
• Offence vs defence CD: differentiate by coercer position (aggressor or
defender)

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 Defining Coercive Diplomacy (CD)

Utility theory Prospect theory

Coercer > Effort > Threaten > Systematic > Endogenous
Adv > Choice > Demand > Stake > Propensities
• ‘Rationale in decision making’ • ‘not assume rationality’
• Gain/loss assessed by comparing • Gain/loss from references point
• Tendency to avoid the risk • More likely to prevent loss
• ‘Risk averse’ • Explain ‘Risk seeking’
• Deterrence: coercer to refrain adv action (to • Gamble of applying an empirically more valid
increase utility) theory of decision to the problems of
• Compellence: coercer demands adv international relations worth taking
undertake an action (to reduce utility)

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 Key Elements for Success
• 4 actions to succeed (Jakobsen 2022): • 5 variables to support the conditions (George &
Simons 1994)
• Comm its demand • Global strategic environment
• Signal willpower • Provocation type
• Offer compensation • War image
• Using CBM • Unilateral or coalitional CD
• Adv isolation
• 9 conditions to favour success • 3 main dangers/complexities
• Obj clear
• Motivation strength
(Jakobsen 1998)
• Motivation asymmetry • Calculated risks to full-scale war
• Sense of urgency • Misunderstand context & adv domestic
• Strong leadership politics, mindset, obj
• Domestic support
• Int’l support
• High number of explanatory factors
• Opponent’s fear makes the framework hard to use
• Clear settlement term
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 Key Elements for Success
• Studies on this ‘success’ element complexities
• Focus on ‘sticks’ & ‘carrots’ should interact effectively
• ‘Ideal policy’. 4 conditions:
• threat force to defeat quickly the adversary and its objective with little cost
• compliance deadline must be given
• inducements for compliance should be offered
• an assurance to the adversary that no future demands acquired
• This is not enough– requires external factors beyond the coercer’s
control
• ‘Black-boxing’ the adversary

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 Vital Challenges for Success
• 4 factors complicated the effort:
• Success vs fails (binary) & degree of success – too much focus
• Use of threat & limited force sufficiency with lack of inducement
• Compliance without brute force
• Duration of success – permanent or temporary
• After the threat succeeds, there is a need for further diplomacy. Otherwise,
peace is temporary
• Rational choice theory: all choices are rational. However, balancing costs and
benefits is a preference
• Game theory: both sides will choose to comply with or against each other.
Thus, it creating a dilemma that can place pressure on character (cooperation,
trust, deterrence, inducement, threat and positioning)
HOW PARTIES PRESSURE EACH OTHER
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 Significance of Strategic Context
• 5 greats power in UNSC provide cooperativeness among states
• Purpose to minimize human suffering
• Promote humanitarian peace and livelihood
• Drone’s strategy as CD tool
• To stop WMD programs and their support for terrorism
• New emergence of symmetrical great power duel – Western-Russia
• Foreign policy: diplomacy identity as state’s behaviour
• Understanding the distinction compellence, CD and deterrence in a strategic
context
• Mixed of result aerial bombing. Strategic context to make it consistent to be
successful coercion
• Understand international law: effect on state’s behaviour and tool in diplomacy
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 Conclusion
• CD is a strategy. Stop military aggression
• 4 keys for success (comm, willingness, compensation, CBM)
• Hard to meet in practice
• Difficult to create fear
• The success rests on perceptual, psychological and emotional factors
• CD: hard to gain. Minimum determinant of military way in resolving
conflicts, minimizing damage and avoiding brute force
• Use of CD is shaped by strategic context

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 References
• George, Alexander L., and William E. Simons. 1994. “Findings and Conclusions.” In The Henkin, L. (1968). How
nations behave: Law and foreign policy. New York: Columbia University Press.

• Hurd, I. (1999). Legitimacy and authority in international politics, International Organization.

• Jakobsen, Peter Viggo. 2016. “Coercive Diplomacy: Countering War-threatening Crisis and Armed Conflicts.”
In Contemporary Security Studies, edited by Alan Collins, 476–86. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

• Limits of Coercive Diplomacy, edited by Alexander L. George and William E. Simons, 267–94. Boulder:
Westview Press.

• Ohnishi K. (2019). Compellence and Coercive Diplomacy: Concepts and Chracteristics.

• Schelling, Thomas C. 1966. Arms and Influence. New Haven: Yale University Press.

• Schelling, T.C. 1966. Arms and Influence (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press), 71.

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 References
• Art R.J. & Greenhill K.M. 2018. The Power and Limits of Compellence: A Research Note. Political Science
Quarterly Journal. Vol. 133. No. 1/2018.

• Barston R.P. 1988. Modern Diplomacy (New York: Longman).

• Bull. The anarchical society. Morgenthau, Politics among nation.

• George, Alexander L. 1994. “Coercive Diplomacy: Definition and Characteristics.” In The Limits of Coercive
Diplomacy, edited by Alexander L. George and William E. Simons, 7–11. Boulder: Westview Press.

• George, Alexander L. 1997. Forceful Persuasion: Coercive Diplomacy as an Alternative to War. Washington,
DC: United States Institute of Peace Press.

• George, Alexander L. 2003. “The Need for Influence Theory and Actor-specific Behavioral Models of
Adversaries.” Comparative Strategy 22:463–87. doi:10.1080/0149593 0390256527.

• George, Alexander L. 2004. “Coercive Diplomacy.” In The Use of Force: Military Power and International
Politics, edited by Robert J. Art and Kenneth N. Waltz, 70–76. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.

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Clarification

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