Coercion, Survival, and War: Why Weak States Resist the United States

by Phil Haun

Overview

In asymmetric interstate conflicts, great powers have the capability to coerce weak states by threatening their survival—but not vice versa. It is therefore the great power that decides whether to escalate a conflict into a crisis by adopting a coercive strategy.

In practice, however, the coercive strategies of the U.S. have frequently failed. In Coercion, Survival and War Phil Haun chronicles 30 asymmetric interstate crises involving the US from 1918 to 2003. The U.S. chose coercive strategies in 23 of these cases, but coercion failed half of the time: most often because the more powerful U.S. made demands that threatened the very survival of the weak state, causing it to resist as long as it had the means to do so. It is an unfortunate paradox Haun notes that, where the U.S. may prefer brute force to coercion, these power asymmetries may well lead it to first attempt coercive strategies that are expected to fail in order to justify the war it desires.

He concludes that, when coercion is preferred to brute force there are clear limits as to what can be demanded. In such cases, he suggests, U.S. policymakers can improve the chances of success by matching appropriate threats to demands, by including other great powers in the coercive process, and by reducing a weak state leader's reputational costs by giving him or her face-saving options.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780804792837
Publisher:	Stanford University Press
Publication date:	07/01/2015
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Phil M. Haun is Professor of Aerospace Studies at Yale Universityand a Colonel in the U.S. Air Force.

Table of Contents

List of Tables, Figures, and Maps ix

Acknowledgments xi

1 Introduction 1

2 A Theory of Asymmetric Interstate Coercion 11

3 Survival and Coercion Failure 32

4 The United States versus Iraq: The Gulf and Iraq Wars 49

5 The United States versus Serbia: Bosnia and Kosovo 88

6 The United States versus Libya: El Dorado Canyon, Pan Am Flight 103, and Weapons of Mass Destruction 134

7 Conclusion 172

Appendix A Coding U.S. Cases of Asymmetric Coercion 191

Appendix B Asymmetric Coercion Model 206

Notes 211

Index 257

Editorial Reviews

"Why do U.S. efforts to coerce weak states work only half the time? Why does a particular form of coercion called coercive diplomacy fail two thirds of the time? Why do the weak resist in the face of overwhelming U.S. power? In this fine study, Phil Haun develops a novel theory of asymmetric coercion and answers these important questions."

Brandeis University - Robert Art

"Why do U.S. efforts to coerce weak states work only half the time? Why does a particular form of coercion called coercive diplomacy fail two thirds of the time? Why do the weak resist in the face of overwhelming U.S. power? In this fine study, Phil Haun develops a novel theory of asymmetric coercion and answers these important questions."—Robert Art, Herter Professor of International Relations, Brandeis University

From the Publisher