Interestingly, the notion of coercive diplomacy can be distinguished by other related concepts. įurthermore, unlike conventional military strategy, the threat and use of force in coercive diplomacy is coupled with clear communication, signalling and bargaining in order to make the opponent aware of one’ s intentions, motivation and credibility at every step of the ongoing crisis. It is a more flexible, psychological instrument in contrast to the ‘physical, quick and decisive’ use made in military strategy. Hence, in coercive diplomacy, force is not employed as part of conventional military strategy, but as a component of a political-diplomatic strategy aimed at persuading the adversary to back down. If force is used at all, it takes the form of an exemplary or symbolic use of military action, to demonstrate motivation and resolution to escalate to high levels of military action if necessary.
It should be remarked that coercive diplomacy offers an alternative to reliance on military action it is based on the threat of force rather than the use of force in order to get other actors to comply with one’s wishes. Clearly, the threat must be credible and potent enough to persuade the opponent that it is in his interest to comply with the demand.Ī state can coerce its adversary threatening political consequences, such as the expulsion from an international organization, economic sanctions, such as an embargo and the suspension of an economic agreement, or the use of force. ) summarizes perfectly the meaning and the aim of coercive diplomacy, that is to make an enemy stop or undo an action without resorting to military action, but through issuing a specific demand backed by a threat of punishment for non-compliance with it. This aphorism pronounced by the Chinese strategist Sun Tzu (VI-V cent. You can claim to be really successful not when you obtain one hundred victories in one hundred battles, rather when you seize your enemy without even fighting.
The present essay will first offer a theoretical framework on the notion of coercive diplomacy, outlining its most prominent features and the aims it can obtain secondly, it will analyse the variables that affect this kind of diplomacy and have a look at Kenneth Schultz’ s approach, which upholds that the use of coercive diplomacy has its own peculiarities in democratic regimes thirdly, it will test the framework provided through the analysis of two case-studies, one of which accounts for the success of coercive diplomacy, while the other for its failure in conclusion, it will be argued that this variant of diplomacy is a viable instrument to obtain foreign policy objectives under specific circumstances, provided that the coercing power is aware of the limits of this practice and adheres to strict principles of crisis management, in order to avoid the opposed outcome of the escalation of a crisis.Ģ.1 Alternative to Military Action and Plurality of Objectives Coercive diplomacy is one of the most intriguing and common practices of conducting inter-state relations and embodies the essence of the art of diplomacy: achieving political objectives and fostering a state’s national interest without waging a war.