Coercion, Survival, and War: Why Weak States Resist the United States
Coercion, Survival, and War: Why Weak States Resist the United States
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Abstract
This book considers why with its tremendous military advantage the United States so often fails to coerce much weaker states. The answer frequently resides in the large asymmetry in power which provides the United States a high probability of victory in a brute force war. The resultant high expected outcome from war introduces an incentive to leverage coercive demands upon a weak adversary, concession to which threaten the survival of the state, its regime, or its regime leadership. Perceiving its survival at stake an opponent will resist, so long as it has the means to do so. Theoretically, to avoid signaling costs, a powerful challenger should only choose coercive strategies likely to succeed. In practice, however, as in Iraq in 1991 and 2003, U.S. leaders may first seek United Nations Security Council resolutions to lower the diplomatic and political costs for brute force war. Coercion may also fail when interests are so limited that the United States cannot continue to make its threats credible as in 1986 following the El Dorado air raid against Libya. In other cases, as in Bosnia and Kosovo, coercion eventually succeeded, but not before coercive diplomacy failed as the United States placed the prestige of NATO at stake over non-vital interests.
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Front Matter
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1
Introduction
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2
A Theory of Asymmetric Interstate Coercion
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3
Survival and Coercion Failure
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4
The United States versus Iraq: The Gulf and Iraq Wars
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5
The United States versus Serbia: Bosnia and Kosovo
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6
The United States versus Libya: El Dorado Canyon, Pan Am Flight 103, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
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7
Conclusion
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End Matter
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