After all, academics dwell in the realm of the abstract and the theoretical while military professionals dwell in the realm of the concrete and the real. Moreover, military professionals are not entirely comfortable with violence as a bargaining process. One does not, they believe, “bargain” with one’s enemies — one fights them. Nor do they find congenial the idea that coercion requires the cooperation of the enemy. Even if one explains that this is by no means happy cooperation, it rankles nonetheless because they (especially those in the U.S. military) believe they should own the initiative and maintain dominance across the full spectrum of conflict at all times.
The word “coercion” itself sits uneasily with military professionals. It has overtones of blackmail and manipulation, which are anathema to their self-identity. In general, they also do not take readily to Schelling’s emphasis on threats. While they fully understand deterrence, they may draw back from the idea that they are in the business of “threatening” others (and sometimes making those threats credible by actions) in order to deter and compel. For Schelling, conflicts involving coercion unfold through a kind of violent communication about intentions and commitment. Understandably, few military officers see killing and dying as just a form of communication.
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Schelling was interested in the ability of military power to “hurt” the enemy — to inflict pain or punishment — and the inherent “bargaining power” this confers. Coercion is about future pain, about structuring the enemy’s incentives so that he behaves in a particular way. It manipulates the power to hurt and involves making a threat to do something one has not yet done. The coercer forces another actor to calculate, to decide — based on his own interests and position — whether or not to resist the threat being made.
Observing human behavior, Schelling recognized that humans use threats constantly to shape the behavior of others. We do this for a range of reasons. Anyone who has raised a child has learned quickly how to influence that child’s choices: A parent may issue a threat in order to keep a child from harm, or to set boundaries to help prepare the child for civil interaction with others. As children grow older, the content of those behavior-influencing threats must change in order to reflect the child’s level of comprehension and new interests and the parent’s changing leverage over the child’s behavior.
Similarly, if we wish to keep our homes safe from intruders, we may install a security system and then post a sign advertising it. A potential intruder is alerted to the negative consequences that will greet any attempt to enter without permission. This action is meant to deter — to prevent someone from taking an action he otherwise might take. But threats can be used to compel actions as well as deter them. In the film The Godfather, Don Corleone promises to influence the decisions of the head of a film studio, stating, “I’m gonna make him an offer he can’t refuse.” If the recipient of the threat refuses to accept the “offer” (which is actually a demand), then harm will follow. The coercive threat is designed to compel an individual to do something he would prefer not to do. If the threat derives from a source known to be willing and able to produce harm, then it is credible and must be taken seriously.
An actor being coerced (i.e., the target state) must assess its own willingness and ability to endure pain, as well as the credibility of the adversary’s threat. “The power to hurt,” Schelling explained, “is a kind of bargaining power, not easy to use, but used often.” Even great powers possessing high levels of coercive leverage over others find that target states can resist in unexpected ways, making the line between the application of power and the achievement of a desired outcome anything but direct and straightforward. By its nature, coercion requires a decision by the actor being coerced, thus placing the outcome in the actor’s hands. This is what makes coercion difficult and complex — and distinct from a more direct use of power that Schelling defined as “brute force,” wherein there is no need for a decision by the target state because power is imposed directly in such a way as to obviate choice.
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The power to hurt confers bargaining power, Schelling insisted. The willingness to exploit it is diplomacy — “vicious diplomacy, but diplomacy.”
Schelling explained that the use of “the power to hurt” operates like blackmail in that it exploits an enemy’s fears and needs. The power to hurt is usually most successful when it is held in reserve. Hostages, for instance, are taken and held for coercive purposes. Those taking the hostages seek to make another actor give up something — money, political prisoners, etc. But if they kill the hostage, the other actor no longer has an incentive to concede and coercive hostage-taking fails. Any coercive act that kills the hostage, as it were, reduces its own effectiveness. Hostages, Schelling argued, “represent the power to hurt in its purest form.”
In Schelling’s taxonomy, “coercion” is an overarching category encompassing both “deterrence” and “compellence.” The word “deterrence” was in common usage when he wrote Arms and Influence. The term “compellence” he coined himself, after rejecting several alternatives. Since 1966, it has become part of the lexicon of security studies. (Schelling admired, but chose not to select, the terms “dissuasion” and “persuasion” that J. David Singer had used several years earlier to describe a similar idea.)
Deterrence involves a threat to keep an adversary “from starting something,” or “to prevent [an adversary] from action by fear of consequences.” Compellence is “a threat intended to make an adversary do something.” In deterrence, the punishment will be imposed if the adversary acts; in compellence, the punishment is usually imposed until the adversary acts. As noted, the central characteristic of both forms of coercion is that they depend, ultimately, on cooperation by the party receiving the threat. This is by no means friendly cooperation, but it is cooperation nonetheless. Compellence can be used in peacetime and in wartime, the former use being referred to generally as coercive diplomacy.
Alexander Downes describes coercion as “the art of manipulating costs and benefits to affect the behavior of an actor.” Explaining its two forms, he writes, “Deterrence consists of threats of force designed to persuade a target to refrain from taking a particular action. Compellence, by contrast, utilizes force — or threats of force — to propel a target to take an action, or to stop taking an action it has already started.” The United States, he notes, is one of the most frequent users of compellent threats. Examples abound. Sometimes they involve the use (or threatened use) of U.S. troops, and sometimes they do not. But military power always stands in the background. In one notable example from 1956, President Dwight Eisenhower used economic and diplomatic threats to compel the British, French, and Israelis to cease the military operations they had begun in response to Egypt nationalizing the Suez Canal. More recently, the administration of President Donald Trump used a threat of economic sanctions to try to compel the Mexican government to more aggressively discourage population flows across the U.S. border.
A couple of days ago I stumbled across a story that in the 2nd Chechen war the Russians would make an offer to city/town elders that if not a single bullet was fired from the town at the Russians then the Russians would return the favor. But if the town shot at the Russians they would go all-in. The Russians would do a patrol together with the town elder to make sure there were no enemy forces, but otherwise stay out.
And I was thinking that the reason the Chechen elders probably took that deal is because they had been through the first Chechen war, so they knew enough of the reality of war that they wanted to avoid it.
Pity the fools that depend on twitter for their world view.
To be minimally socialized is to be coerced into following the norms dictated – and enforced – by others. Don’t do what you can’t get away with.
Most of our morality is cope to avoid facing this brutal truth. The rest is an attempt to codify reciprocity – the basis for a sane and healthy society.
Coercion dominates where there are gross power imbalances or too many stupid people. Reciprocity dominates among sane and intelligent people.
Good people make a good society. Most of the societal norms are manifestations, not causes. Sick people live by sick rules and construct a sick society thereby.
The way to a better society is to coerce bad people into leaving the rest of us alone – and no other coercion at all.
Harry Jones says, “The way to a better society is to coerce bad people into leaving the rest of us alone — and no other coercion at all.”
YES! YES! YES! YES!
The most common and obvious use of compellance by the Atlantic empire is first, their efforts to replace local priestly castes with their own preachers; and if you make a stink about it, they then try to ‘color revolution’ you; and if you fight back against this, they then call up their janissaries to drop bombs all over you, for ‘human rights abuses’. Because obviously those outside the empire are being provocative warmongers for not submitting and being inside under the empire already, and the poor empire thus has no choice but to defend itself from this heinous aggression.
In other words basically, the choices people were given is either throw a gay pride parade, or be destroyed by golems.
But of course, that same empire, by the very nature of its faith, has done yeoman work in rendering itself impotent as well. Which means, Interesting Times are certainly ahead.