The Reagan Administration and Coercive Diplomacy: Restraining More Than Remaking Governments

Abstract

One of the highest priorities Ronald Reagan and his foreign policy team had when they came office in 1981 was break the United States out of what they considered its Vietnam trauma aversion the use of military force as an instrument of foreign policy. It wasn't so much that the Reagan administration wanted engage in new wars as that it believed in the utility of limited military force as an integral part of a coercive diplomacy strategy for bringing political pressure bear on America's adversaries. IWo conceptual distinctions are important in defining a coercive diplomacy strategy. First is the difference, as emphasized in the work of Alexander George, between coercive diplomacy and deterrence. Deterrence involves the use of threats and shows of force to dissuade an opponent from doing something he has not yet started do. Coercive diplomacy, however, uses threats and limited force get an adversary to stop short of his goal .. . [orn undo his action-to stop what he or she has already started do or reverse what he or she already has done.' While any particular use of force may have both deterrent and coercive diplomacy objectives, it still is important for analytic purposes make this distinction.