Military Coercion Research Articles

Azerbaijan’s power plays: analyzing Baku’s policy towards Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh after 2020

ABSTRACT The article examines Azerbaijan’s policy towards Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh after the 44-day war of 2020. This research answers the questions: What is Azerbaijan’s strategy and policy following the 2020 war, and why has Azerbaijan been conducting them? The article’s argument is that Azerbaijan has been employing military coercion. It includes threats, territorial seizures, ultimatums, full-scale use of force, blackmailing, and other means to secure concessions and maintain a dominant position over its adversary. Applying the concept of coercion the article seeks to explain the article discusses several examples of how Azerbaijan employed these tactics against Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh. Applying the concept of coercion, the research tries to comprehensively explain Azerbaijan’s policy and reveal conducive factors that encourage the implementation of such a policy. In some senses, the post-2020 period can be seen as a continuation of the 44-day war, characterised by lower intensity. The analysis contributes to further understanding of militarized coercion. Although the history of the conflict has been thoroughly examined by scholars, there are still a handful of studies on the post-2020 situation, which makes this article’s contribution important.

A new formal model analysis of deterrent to brinkmanship and the causes of the armament dilemma

How close does a nation come to the brink of war with an opponent during the process of crisis bargaining? The present study constructs a new formal model focused on a challenger’s incentive to intensify military provocations against a defender that involve a trade-off between securing a more profitable bargaining outcome and increasing the risk of accidental war. This model identifies the conditions under which the defender’s threat of military coercion effectively deters the challenger from engaging in his payoff-maximizing level of provocations. The numerical simulations suggest that a military buildup by a nation can cause counterintuitive results, namely, the armament dilemma, depending on the balance of the marginal benefits and costs for participants and the effectiveness of deterrence. Meanwhile, a state’s military buildup always strengthens its own bargaining power relative to its opponent’s regardless of the occurrence of this dilemma; that is, the paradox of power does not arise.

Decentering death: The war on terror and the less‐than‐lethal paradigm

AbstractHow does violent military coercion work alongside liberal democratic values in contemporary iterations of imperialism? This article shows how the less‐than‐lethal paradigm occludes death and perpetuates extreme forms of both deadly and not‐deadly military coercion in Iraq. Key to the 2003 invasion and subsequent counterinsurgency in Iraq, the less‐than‐lethal paradigm extends across military doctrine and US popular discourse. Based on the idea that killing is an undesirable way to dominate, the less‐than‐lethal paradigm is not necessarily benevolent or less deadly; instead, it is a legal, discursive, and logistical maneuver to minimize the political power of death and dying on the global stage. Decentering death, the less‐than‐lethal paradigm rebrands violence by reframing war as a precondition for peace, minimizing killing and death, disseminating nonkilling forms of coercion, and assigning responsibility to others for violence.

Signals, Deterrence, and the Quad

Signals, Deterrence, and the Quad Ketian Zhang (bio) The United States and its allies have the capability to deter China, and have successfully done so, from their worst-case scenario—a major militarized conflict. However, three factors reduce the effectiveness of their deterrence: the lack of clear signals, excessive media exposure, and divergent interests among Quad members. The Quad can be useful, but only if the United States maintains well-defined signals of commitment while clarifying the stakes. As it currently stands, the Quad does not successfully deter Chinese actions in territorial disputes. China has not shied away from using military coercion in its land border disputes with India. In June 2020, for instance, Chinese and Indian troops clashed violently along the disputed land border in the Galwan Valley, resulting in casualties on both sides.1 Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi told India to "stop transgressions into China-controlled territories" and to "refrain from actions changing the status quo along the border," representing a clear indication of coercive intent.2 Moreover, although China prefers to utilize nonmilitary—or so-called gray-zone—coercion in maritime disputes in the South and East China Seas, such coercive measures can themselves be destabilizing.3 This essay assesses factors influencing the likelihood of successful deterrence in the Indo-Pacific region by using China's land and maritime territorial disputes as examples. It addresses two questions: what signals of resolve are necessary for effective deterrence, and does the Quad enhance [End Page 43] deterrence? Finally, it uses the Sino-Indian border and South China Sea disputes to illustrate the conditions under which deterrence can be effective. The Need for Clearer Signals The United States and its allies have the capability to potentially deter China's territorial challenges. However, clearer signals of resolve and reassurance are necessary to achieve successful deterrence. First and foremost, the United States should set clearer red lines; otherwise, the signals sent to China are mixed and ineffective. For example, during its first term, the Obama administration was not sufficiently clear in signaling red lines to China regarding Chinese behavior in the South China Sea. A 2013 Chinese Academy of Social Sciences report on China's regional security environment stated that the implementation of U.S. rebalancing "had a problem of divergence between willingness and capability," citing the lack of U.S. commitment during the Scarborough Shoal incident of April 2012.4 This lack of clear U.S. red lines led Beijing to proceed with large-scale land reclamation activities in late 2013 and 2014. One Chinese scholar this author interviewed who was often in conversation with the then South China Sea section of China's State Oceanic Administration noted that "China first started reclamation at the Johnson South Reef and was watching the reaction from the international society carefully; it proceeded with large-scale reclamation after realizing that there was not much of a reaction internationally."5 By "international," this interviewee meant the United States. The U.S. response in 2014 was relatively muted: Washington did not call out China's land reclamation from the outset. Instead, the White House and, importantly, President Barack Obama himself remained silent. Obama's second term, however, saw the drawing of clearer red lines. During the November 2015 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Manila, Obama called on China to halt its land reclamation activities in the South China Sea.6 He subsequently warned Beijing in March 2016 that there would be "serious consequences if China reclaimed land [End Page 44] at the Scarborough Shoal."7 Local Chinese government documents from 2013 noted explicitly that China would implement land reclamation on the Scarborough Shoal.8 Yet following Obama's 2015–16 warnings, subsequent government documents cease to mention reclamation on the Scarborough Shoal. This suggests that without the clear red line from the United States, it is quite plausible that China would have proceeded to reclaim the Scarborough Shoal, making this episode a successful case of U.S. deterrence. The Trump administration pressed Beijing to halt militarization of the South China Sea, but Trump himself did not issue a clearly stated red line. This lack of clarity could have had adverse effects. Chinese analyst...

Explaining Chinese Military Coercion in Sino-Indian Border Disputes

ABSTRACT This article examines Sino-Indian border disputes in the post-Cold War period. There has been an increased frequency of Chinese military coercion in the Sino-Indian border disputes since 2006. This trend contrasts with Chinese coercion in the South China Sea in the post-2007 period, which tends to be non-militarized. Why does China prefer to use military coercion regarding Sino-Indian border disputes? This article argues that the geopolitical backlash cost for China to use military coercion against India has been low since the 1990s, and China, therefore, has consistently used militarized coercive tools. In contrast, the high geopolitical backlash cost pertaining to South China Sea disputes led China to utilize non-military coercion post-2007. This article implications for theorizing China’s choices of coercive tools and its India policy.

Congress's Own: A Canadian Regiment, the Continental Army, and American Union by Holly A. Mayer

Reviewed by: Congress's Own: A Canadian Regiment, the Continental Army, and American Union by Holly A. Mayer Friederike Baer (bio) Congress's Own, Canada, American Revolution, Continental Army Congress's Own: A Canadian Regiment, the Continental Army, and American Union. By Holly A. Mayer. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2021. Pp. 408. Cloth, $45.00.) Holly Mayer describes Congress's Own as a "regimental history" that "is a social, institutional, and civil-military analysis of how members of Congress's Own realized the American Revolution in combat and community" (xi). The regiment, she argues in this insightful and original book, "exemplified the military borderland that was the Continental Army and the imagined community of the nation declared to be the United States of America" (3). Mayer employs innovative applications of community and [End Page 283] borderland studies methodologies to make a case for this Canadian regiment as a microcosm of the Continental Army and the new American nation. The book begins with a discussion of key events in Canada in the years 1774 and 1775, including Patriot efforts to bring the Canadians over to their side through political and ideological persuasion and, ultimately, military coercion. In the beginning of 1776, the American Patriots created two Canadian regiments. While the vast majority of Continental Army regiments were tied to a state or states for recruiting and support purposes, these Canadian military units were authorized by Congress to recruit throughout the states in addition to Canada. Soon, the 2nd Regiment, also known as the Canadian Old Regiment, became a kind of multicultural experiment that brought together men from eleven states in addition to Canada. In early 1777, it adapted the nickname Congress's Own, in part to spur recruitment but also to signify its civic allegiance to Congress and, with that, its uniqueness. It remained in service until its disbandment at West Point in November 1783. In her previous book, Belonging to the Army: Camp Followers and Community During the American Revolution (Columbia, SC, 1996), Mayer studied the army primarily as a social organization that depended, to a significant extent, on the contributions of thousands of family members, servants, sutlers, and other associated individuals who did not actively and directly participate in combat. Although Congress's Own pays some attention to the wives and children of officers and privates that were attached to the regiment, it is primarily concerned with the experiences of the roughly 1,900 soldiers that belonged to this community at one time or another over the course of the war. Mayer conducted painstaking archival research to identify the members of the regiment, and she introduces readers to a number of them. Among them are Lieutenant Colonel Edward Antill, a native of New Jersey who had settled in Quebec, and Sergeant Major John H. Hawkins, who hailed from the Philadelphia area and was the author of a journal that first piqued Mayer's interest in the regiment's history. The book's main character is Moses Hazen, the regiment's leader for the duration of the war. Born in Massachusetts in 1733, he settled in Montreal in 1763 after serving in a colonial unit during the Seven Years' War. By the time of the American Revolution, Hazen had accumulated land holdings in Quebec and northern New England. He was initially conflicted about siding with the Americans, in part because of his ties to the British military but also because joining the American rebellion meant risk of losing property [End Page 284] in Canada. However, in early 1776, he seized the opportunity not only to join the Americans but also to assume command of the newly commissioned 2nd Canadian Regiment. Seigneur Hazen turned out to be a "dynamic combat commander but flawed manager" (211). Mayer details the regiment's movements and military operations throughout its history, including its participation in Sullivan's attack on British posts on Staten Island, as well as the battles of Trenton, Brandywine, Germantown, and Yorktown. She also examines operations that are less well known, such as the regiment's 1779 expedition into Coos Country, a region that included Vermont and New Hampshire. Over the course of several months, Hazen's regiment gathered intelligence, built...

How Does International Intervention Work to Secure Peace Settlements After Civil Conflicts?

AbstractThere is an emerging consensus that international intervention can secure peace by helping combatants resolve commitment problems following civil wars. But how do interveners accomplish this? Some suggest that intervention primarily works through military coercion, while others propose non-military instruments. We build on the existing literature to theorize that interveners commonly condition political, economic, and legal incentives on compliance with peace processes. Despite a rich literature on intervention, scholars have only started to test the underlying instruments. This article takes a critical step toward this end, examining peacekeeping missions led by the United Nations from 1989 to 2012. Contrary to conventional wisdom, we show military coercion is neither commonly used nor necessary to ensure peace. Missions that employ conditional incentives—on which we collect original data—are consistently correlated with a reduced risk of conflict recurrence, even when controlling for observed selection effects, and regardless of whether they are also authorized to use military coercion.

Constructing Qinghai province: Chinese state-making in a Tibetan-Mongol frontier region 1907–1957

ABSTRACT Dilemmas of territoriality beset the modern Chinese state at the rupture with empire in 1912, critically in the northwestern borderlands where Mongol and Tibetan declarations of independence threatened disaggregation of the imperial territory. In response the new Republican government took up the late Qing’s practice of “consolidating the borders” (shibian) by establishing provinces in the empire’s Inner Asian dependencies (fanshu) to integrate them by direct administration into the Chinese state. This paper examines one such project of Chinese state-making at the frontiers: the construction of Qinghai Province in the region of the Qing dependency situated between Gansu Province and Central Tibet. It adopts a historical-geographic approach to the state’s instrumentalization of administrative categorization and construction in Qinghai’s Tibetan and Mongol territories, a protracted undertaking carried out with heavy reliance on military coercion. Making the province evolved through interplay of national state and regional sub-state interests, driven by the Sino-Muslim Ma regime who acted as key agents on the ground, but located within the Republican political-administrative structure. In 1949, the CCP eliminated the Republic and the Ma regime but retained the province, dynamically restructuring its interior administration under regional nationality autonomy in recognition of the region’s Tibetan, Mongol and other non-Han populations. Qinghai’s significance for Chinese states in the first half of the 20th century lay in centrist calculations of national security and territoriality. As the first Chinese province on the Tibetan Plateau, its construction was, in essence, concerned with sovereignty, providing a political-administrative means to alter wider regional geopolitics in the interests of the Chinese state. Ongoing re-categorization of territorial administrative units inside the province suggests an unfinished project of state territorialization, as anxieties over instability in the northwestern regions of the PRC intensify.

Crisoles y moldes en Los Nogales

The spread of the Tawantinsuyu in the Aconcagua Valley (Central Chile) is thought to have been culturally mediated, avoiding military coercion, and thus leading to different forms of cultural acceptance, resistance or hybridisation. However, very few studies have discussed how this process is reflected in the metallurgical production during the Late Period (ca. AD 1400-1530). The result of a technological study on a group of crucibles and moulds from Los Nogales (Aconcagua valley), using optical microscopy, petrography, SEM-EDS, XRD and FTIR is presented here. Results indicate that the raw materials used were local igneous rocks obtained from alluvial deposits, mixed with small amounts of smectite-montmorillonite clay. Moulds also contained bone ash as temper. Firing temperatures were estimated between 800-850 ºC for moulds and above 900 ºC for crucibles. Their manufacture technology and morphology indicate that these technical ceramics were made following a technological tradition originated in northwest Argentina that was introduced to the Aconcagua valley during the expansion of the Tawantinsuyu, and accepted by local communities.

A New Formal Model Approach to Brinkmanship and Inadvertent War

How close does a nation come to the brink of war with an opponent during the process of crisis bargaining? The present study constructs a new formal model focused on a challenger's incentive to intensify military provocations against a defender that involves a trade-off between securing a more profitable bargaining outcome and increasing the risk of inadvertent war. This new model identifies the conditions under which the defender's threat of military coercion effectively deters the challenger from engaging in his payoff-maximizing level of military provocations (i.e., his preferred brinkmanship). In conclusion, a sufficiently strong provocation incentive on the part of the challenger makes the defender's implicit threat of coercion incredible, thus allowing the challenger to engage in his preferred brinkmanship. A presented numerical example further suggests that a security dilemma could arise because military buildup by the defender could weaken the deterrent effect on the challenger's military provocations.

Willful ignorance in international coercion

ABSTRACT Intelligence gathering presents a dilemma when states attempt military coercion. New information may bolster the case for war and the credibility of threats to fight. But it may also undermine the case for war, thereby preventing states from achieving their aims through coercive threats. I argue that this incentivizes leaders to decline to gather available information about the state of the world when they hold threats to fight that are initially credible. Leaders who engage in such willful ignorance may blunder into war, but they can also achieve “coercion through ignorance,” forcing their opponents to make otherwise unavailable concessions. When conditions appear favorable initially, this tradeoff favors ignorance. I apply the model to the US invasion of Iraq, arguing that the Bush administration deliberately declined to gather relevant information as part of a strategy of coercion aimed at Saddam Hussein’s removal from power short of war.

El retorno de Moscú: la gran estrategia de Rusia en la era Putin (2000-2020)

Desde el ascenso de Vladimir Putin al poder, Rusia ha combinado estabilidad política y económica con asertividad internacional, lo que ha sentado las bases para el regreso de Moscú a la primera plana del escenario mundial. El artículo presenta las principales discusiones en torno a la gran estrategia de la Federación de Rusia y analiza la trayectoria de su política exterior desde la llegada de Vladimir Putin al poder hasta el inicio de la crisis global de la covid-19. Desde la perspectiva del realismo neoclásico, el principal argumento es que Rusia posee una gran estrategia pragmática basada en un trípode de objetivos –preservación de estatus como potencia global, primacía en el espacio postsoviético y disuasión a la expansión de la otan– que se implementan mediante la utilización de una gama amplia de herramientas, incluida la coerción por vías militares. A continuación, se desarrolla la evolución de la estrategia internacional del pragmatismo estratégico ruso que generó una serie de tensiones con Occidente tras las crisis de Georgia en 2008 y Ucrania en 2014, en paralelo con el ascenso de un vector alternativo eurasiático.

Chemical Weapons in the Iran-Iraq War (1980–1988). 4. The Destruction of Iraqi Chemical Weapons

After the defeat of Iraqi army in Kuwait in February 1991, on April 3, the UN Security Council (UN Security Council) adopted Resolution 687, that «decides that Iraq shall unconditionally accept the destruction, removal, or rendering harmless, under international supervision, of: (a) All chemical and biological weapons and all stocks of agents and all related subsystems and components and all research, development, support and manufacturing facilities». This UN operation was not the first forced disarmament of vanquished by victors, but it gave great impetus to the completion of the work on the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on Their Destruction, i.e. the destruction of an entire class of weapons of mass destruction. The aim of this article was to show the process of Iraqi`s chemical weapons destruction. The destruction of Iraqi chemical weapons included the formation of legal basis (United Nations Security Council Resolution 687); the establishment of the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) to inspect and oversee the destruction or elimination of Iraq’s chemical weapons directly on Iraqi territory; certain measures of political, economic (UN sanctions) and military coercion (the US and the UK military operation «Desert Fox»). In summer 1991, UNSCOM formed a Destruction Advisory Panel to develop technologies for the destruction of chemical weapons, toxic substances and their precursors. Their destruction was carried out in the period October 1992 to May 1994 on the territory of the Muthanna State Establishment. Sarin, cyclosarin, tabun and their precursors were destroyed by hydrolysis in aqueous alkaline solution using a repurposed production facility. Thus 76 tons of sarin and sarin/cyclosarin mixture, as well as 40 tons of tabun were destroyed. For the sulfur mustard, the high-temperature direct burning method was used at the special factory, established under the project of the Destruction Advisory Panel. Thus were destroyed around 400 tons of liquid sulfur mustard. Chemical munitions and containers, after the extraction of poisonous agents, were destroyed using a specially developed technique of explosive ventilation and burning. 30 chemical warheads for Al-Hussein ballistic missiles, 12,8 thousand 155-mm mustard shells, 40,5 thousand 122 mm rockets for MLRS, filled with sarin/cyclosarin, were destroyed. In general, UNSCOM managed to solve the problem of chemical disarmament of Iraq. The article describes in details the Iraq’s chemical weapons destruction technologies

How Does International Intervention Work? Mechanisms for Securing Peace Settlements in Civil Conflicts

There is emerging consensus that international intervention can secure peace by helping combatants resolve commitment problems following civil wars. But how do interveners accomplish this? Conventional wisdom suggests that intervention primarily works through force. We theorize instead that interveners commonly condition political, economic, and legal incentives on compliance with peace processes. Despite a rich literature on intervention, little effort has been made to systematically test the underlying mechanisms. This paper takes a first step toward this end, using United Nations peacekeeping data from 1989-2012. Contrary to conventional wisdom, we show that military coercion is not frequently employed. Moreover, peacekeeping that employs conditional incentives is consistently correlated with a reduced risk of conflict recurrence, even when controlling for potential selection effects, and regardless of whether peacekeepers are also authorized to use force. These findings have important implications for international efforts to secure peace in civil conflicts worldwide.

Chemical Weapons in the Iran-Iraq War (1980–1988). 4. The Destruction of Iraqi Chemical Weapons

After the defeat of Iraqi army in Kuwait in February 1991, on April 3, the UN Security Council (UN Security Council) adopted Resolution 687, that «decides that Iraq shall unconditionally accept the destruction, removal, or rendering harmless, under international supervision, of: (a) All chemical and biological weapons and all stocks of agents and all related subsystems and components and all research, development, support and manufacturing facilities». This UN operation was not the first forced disarmament of vanquished by victors, but it gave great impetus to the completion of the work on the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on Their Destruction, i.e. the destruction of an entire class of weapons of mass destruction. The aim of this article was to show the process of Iraqi`s chemical weapons destruction. The destruction of Iraqi chemical weapons included the formation of legal basis (United Nations Security Council Resolution 687); the establishment of the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) to inspect and oversee the destruction or elimination of Iraq’s chemical weapons directly on Iraqi territory; certain measures of political, economic (UN sanctions) and military coercion (the US and the UK military operation «Desert Fox»). In summer 1991, UNSCOM formed a Destruction Advisory Panel to develop technologies for the destruction of chemical weapons, toxic substances and their precursors. Their destruction was carried out in the period October 1992 to May 1994 on the territory of the Muthanna State Establishment. Sarin, cyclosarin, tabun and their precursors were destroyed by hydrolysis in aqueous alkaline solution using a repurposed production facility. Thus 76 tons of sarin and sarin/cyclosarin mixture, as well as 40 tons of tabun were destroyed. For the sulfur mustard, the high-temperature direct burning method was used at the special factory, established under the project of the Destruction Advisory Panel. Thus were destroyed around 400 tons of liquid sulfur mustard. Chemical munitions and containers, after the extraction of poisonous agents, were destroyed using a specially developed technique of explosive ventilation and burning. 30 chemical warheads for Al-Hussein ballistic missiles, 12,8 thousand 155-mm mustard shells, 40,5 thousand 122 mm rockets for MLRS, filled with sarin/cyclosarin, were destroyed. In general, UNSCOM managed to solve the problem of chemical disarmament of Iraq. The article describes in details the Iraq’s chemical weapons destruction technologies.

US Drug Policy and Perpetual War against the Drug Trade in Mexico

Abstract Globalization of drug consumption has generated a highly lucrative market for illegal traffickers. The US launched a worldwide campaign against illicit drug use, forcing many countries to comply with the ‘War on Drugs.’ We describe this historical process as a perpetual war resulting in violence, criminality, forced displacement, and disappearances in Mexico and other countries. For instance, despite economic, political, and military coercion in Mexico, the “drug problem” shows little sign of going away, unless a new approach regarding drug production and trade is adopted.

Cautious Bully: Reputation, Resolve, and Beijing's Use of Coercion in the South China Sea

Abstract Since 1990, China has used coercion in its maritime territorial disputes in the South China Sea, despite adverse implications for its image. China is curiously selective in its timing, targets, and tools of coercion: China rarely employs military coercion, and it does not coerce all countries that pose similar threats. An examination of newly available primary documents and hundreds of hours of interviews with Chinese officials to trace the decisionmaking processes behind China's use and nonuse of coercion reveals a new theory of when, why, and how China employs coercion against other states, especially in the South China Sea. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the findings show that China is a cautious bully that does not use coercion frequently. In addition, when China becomes stronger, it tends to use military coercion less often, choosing instead nonmilitary tools. Moreover, concerns with its reputation for resolve and with economic cost are critical elements of Chinese decisionmaking regarding the costs and benefits of coercing its neighbors. China often coerces one target to deter others—“killing the chicken to scare the monkey.” These findings have important implications for how scholars understand states' coercive strategies and the future of Chinese behavior in the region and beyond.

On Coercion in International Law

Coercion is ubiquitous in international relations. Yet international law has neither defined coercion nor has it developed an understanding of the nature, processes, or legality of coercion. This Article addresses this gap in international law scholarship. Because coercion is best understood when examined in the context of concrete cases, this Article discusses three recent crises in which states exercised significant pressure against their adversaries. These crises are the Russian intervention in the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election, the 2017 North Korean nuclear weapons crisis, and the 2018 murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. These cases provide examples of the infinite variety of instruments of statecraft. The principal question that this Article considers is when does the use of tools of diplomacy such as those employed in these cases constitute unlawful coercion. To answer this question, this Article develops a concept of coercion for international law. It discusses the origins and content of the prohibition on intervention in the affairs of states, which is the principal rule of international law governing coercion, and proposes a novel understanding of the structure and elements of this rule. It defines violations of the prohibition on intervention as the pursuit of unlawful ends and unlawful means. The ends, or purposes, of intervention are unlawful if it interferes with the domaine reserve of a state, while the means of intervention are unlawful if a state uses coercion to achieve its unlawful ends. To identify the instruments of statecraft that are unlawfully coercive, this Article constructs a Coercion Continuum, which includes four categories of coercion: Military Coercion, Economic Coercion, Cyber Coercion, and Political Coercion. Under each of these categories this Article identifies the practices, policies, and instruments of statecraft the use of which constitutes unlawful coercion.

Air Power Meets Clausewitz: Military Coercion as Limited War

This article presents a critical evaluation of the study of military coercion, a field that has gained growing prominence since the end of the Cold War. Its purpose is to analyze what may be the most representative work to come out of this line of research: Bombing to Win: Air Power and Coercion in War, by Robert A. Pape (1996). It will interrogate the underlying premise of the work – one shared by the remainder of the substantial literature in this area – according to which military coercion is fundamentally different from war. This interrogation takes into account the contrast between Pape's approach (1996) and Carl von Clausewitz' theory of war (1993). It concludes by identifying what lies at the heart of military coercion and war, and makes two central assertions for the study of military coercion: 01. that military coercion is essentially war and, as such, is a wholly political phenomenon, with results entirely subordinate to politics; and 02. that the occurrences which Pape defines as successful military coercion are nothing more than manifestations of limited war – limited war being one of the two possible forms that war can take.

How Does Peacekeeping Held Secure Post-Conflict Peace?

There is emerging consensus that international intervention can secure peace by helping combatants resolve commitment problems following civil wars. But how do interveners accomplish this? One theory suggests that intervention primarily works through force. Another claims that interveners commonly condition political, economic, and legal incentives on compliance with peace processes. Despite a rich literature on intervention, little effort has been made to systematically test the underlying mechanisms. This paper takes a first step toward this end, using new data on mechanisms employed by United Nations peacekeepers (1989-2012). Contrary to conventional wisdom, we question the extent to which military coercion is employed. Moreover, missions that employs conditional incentives is consistently correlated with a reduced risk of conflict recurrence, regardless of whether missions are also authorized to use force, and even when controlling for potential selection effects. These findings have important implications for international efforts to secure peace in civil conflicts worldwide.