How Effective Are Strategies of Coercive Diplomacy in Pursuing International Security - Term Paper Example

Running Head:International Security Table of contents 1. Introduction------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2 2. Theoretical framework ------------------------------------------------------------------ 3 2.1. Alternative to Military Action and Plurality of Objectives-------------- 3 2.2. The general theory and logic of coercive diplomacy--------------------- 4 3. Democracies and Coercive Diplomacy------------------------------------------------ 7 4. Libyan War case study ----------------------------------------------------------------- 8 4.1. Analysis ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 9 5. Conclusion -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 12 1. Introduction Coercive diplomacy can be termed as the diplomacy of threats. On some occasions diplomats will opt for threats if the demands they are after are not met, this approach may be detrimental on most occasions as compared to its importance. The threats imposed on the party whose corporation is required should be credible and achievable if success is to be achieved. The approach may fail if the person whose imposition or corporation is required if there is no direct advantage associated with the requirements of the diplomats. There should be basically a line which can lead to a win-win situation for both parties1. This paper points some of the theories which engulf coercive diplomacy in the present world. 21st century has been culminated with a number of security upbeats in a lot of countries. As compared to the world war era, diplomats have resented to adopt a different approach in trying to quench the problems which have mushroomed in the present society. However, sometimes one approach will never be the right route to achieving a solution and protecting the human rights. The continuous reach for human right balancing mechanisms has compelled the associating parties to develop mechanisms in protecting these crucial attributes. Also there are endeavours to create a balance or friendly relationship within the international community. As depicted by a number of authors coercive diplomacy may rapture international relations within minutes. It is not always a matter of forcing a certain party to undertake what they are not willing to; rather there should be a bargaining point. This paper outlines the general theory and logic of coercive theory which is followed by the practical application of the approach and their interrelated effects in international relationship. Finally the paper concludes with specific recommendations on how diplomacy and friendly relationship can be boosted in the 21st century. 2. Theoretical framework 2.1. Alternative to Military Action and Plurality of Objectives According to Sun Tzu, he states that you can be able to successfully win a war without necessarily employing military actions in the field. He depicts that the enemy can be sized by just using other factors. Neutralizing the enemy without physical involvement is what the approach calls for. It is basically the issuance of threats which are backed by credible demands to the adversary. A state can employ this method to compel expulsion of its adversary from the international organization; some of the areas which may be targeted include the economic performance of the adversary by the use of sanctions and embargos on the international market. It is echoed coercive diplomacy is a better approach to relations than the military actions; it majorly includes threats rather than force from the military actions. In cases where force is employed it takes a different approach where the physical presence of military is not crucial. In coercive diplomacy force is a factor which is employed on a minimal scale as compared to the military approach, since diplomatic strategy is the main approach pushed for in the adversary states. Unlike the military approach, coercive diplomacy is coupled with a number of soft instances which suggests that there is a room for negotiations and agreement; it tends to be a cost reduction and friendly approach. 2 Compliance can tend a varying time gap, for example in 1916 the US gave Germany an immediate ultimatum while in 1911 the Italians gave the Ottoman Empire an ultimatum of 24 hours to surrender Libya. Coercive demand can give be very beneficial to the state on a number of ways, he state will be able to achieve its objectives of ensuring that the adversary does not commit the forbidden act, it also puts a state in the right position to gauge the direction of the agreements or relationship. However, there may be challenges on how to monitor the adversary from committing the same mistakes again. 2.2. The general theory and logic of coercive diplomacy According to George Alexander coercive diplomacy is a state whereby one party compels the other party to undertake a certain activity in compliance with the set rules. George tries to differentiate the offensive approach from the defensive approach. There are many factors which revolve around coercive diplomacy in the globe today. Apart from the threats which may be imposed on the non-complying party, other factors which play a significant role in the process include; communication, bargaining, signals and negotiation. There should be a simple point of origin before coercion is applied. After a thorough negotiation process, the parties concerned will then lay a framework if a common agreement is not achieved. It is when the coercive diplomacy mechanisms are applied, on most occasions they tend to touch on psychological, economical and political agendas of the party. The party involved will often be traumatized until the demands are met. For example if a country is subjected to such coercive diplomacy it will not be open to the rest of the world which means no trade or communication is directed that country. It places the country in a state of pressure and comprises making it difficult to sustain its operations effectively. Coercive diplomacy is a four basic attributed function, the major components contained in the approach include; demands, punishment, incentives if any and infliction of a sense of urgency. These attributes are all used differently and on a different ground as compared to one another. The different framework emancipated by these factors gives up four types of coercive diplomacy. The major five basic coercive diplomacies are; ultimatum, tacit ultimatum, the try and see approach, gradual turning of screw and carrot and stick approach. If coercive diplomacy is to succeed it will immensely depend on the communication procedures approached by the diplomats in trying to create a common ground, this makes it very important that proper communication skills are learnt. Ultimatums engross the demands and threats which are imposed at a specific time frame to the party concerned. This is done to improve the urgency of the matter at hand, for instance it is applied to warring countries to reduce the amount of bloodshed in those countries hence human rights protection. On the other hand when the time frame is conveyed in an implicit manner the ultimatum is depicted as tacit. Try and see mechanism opens up by making a demand and then adopting a coercive route on a mild scale, it is done to gauge the reaction time of the adversary, if the adversary does not react effectively the coercive force is increased. Finally is the gradual turning screw coercive approach, basically it relies on commencing on a higher scale of pressure decreasingly with the adversary compliance. 3 Threats are a major factor in coercive diplomacy, the magnitude of imposition will obviously depend on the demands to be met and the resistance factor of the party to comply with stipulations. Motivation in diplomacy can be termed as the best tool to arrive at a common ground. If there is more coercive power the adversary will tend to adopt a more resistant position. It is these factors which will depict the direction of the diplomacy as appreciated in the society. Generally the more the demand is enforced the more the resistance in relation to the demands. Motivation and commitment underlie the main starting point of the successful coercive diplomacy; an adversary will take a stand relating to the threats and potency in their decisions. George depicts that both forces should try to portray a common goal which is achievable from both parties, one party should not be made to suffer on grounds that an effective solution is to be achieved. The mutual relationship and coexistence among the states can either dictate the success of failure of the approach for example, the EU can be able to sanction a country easily as compared to one state in the EU and this means that all the global states will need to work in partnership or collaboration. However, another instance is when a state is the main trading partner with another; the major trade partner will be able to adopt the process to compel the other state from carrying out a given activity. 3. Democracies and Coercive Diplomacy Each democracy has its own procedures of carrying out mandates, the important aspects about a number of international democracies is that they open up mechanisms which allow for public debates. This aspect about these democracies will be a good process of ensuring coercive power, there can be arrived at two major results which can accrue to this instance; confirmatory and restrictive. It means the governments responsible will not be willing to pay high prices in order to comply to some of the stipulated policies hence compliance. Democratic states will often face limited oppositions as opposed to non-democratic states. For example in the recent past there has been an uprising in the Middle East which is one region dominated by non-democratic states. For example Libya government was toppled and replaced by a new government which was believed to be more concerned on the welfare of the citizens. Due to increased oppression the citizens in the country resented to the streets to protest about the infringement of their rights. Since the country did not have a regular model of channelling citizens concerns, the protests acted as a coercive approach in problem solutions. In trying to comprehend the importance of democracy in the country, a number of researches have been concluded on the topic and the results depict that 60% of the countries who face riots and disgruntled citizens have a non-democratic government. One of the major fighters of democracies in the world the US has been enlisted as the first developed country in the EU to interfere in crisis in the globe. For example in the Iraq war the US government sent its troops to protect the human lives, the Libyan war also has seen the US government take a stand on allowing military actions which has send the US nationals to the streets protesting on the role of the military operations in other countries. However, 4currently the US has sharpened its tactics and it is moving towards diplomatic stands. The US secretary is seen traversing across the world preaching on peace and democracy in the society. 4. Libyan War case study Libya is that country which was categorized as a radical and regional helm. It propagated immensely on terrorism and weapons of mass destruction in the world. However, with the present new government Libya has shifted its attention towards development by accepting the Pan Am 103 Lockerbie terrorism case and letting go its endeavour of developing chemical weapons. The change can be traced back in 1999 when the Libyan government surrendered two major culprits to the criminal court at The Hague, also in the year 2003, Libya signed an agreement that it was complying with the international regulations to stop the development of the mass destruction weapons. There are a number of factors which need to be addressed on how Libya came to accept the terms and conditions of signing the long awaited policies. Was Muammar Qaddafi influenced by the US, or was it the fear that George W. Bush had created by the attack on Iraq. However, from the onset there had been a number of negotiations and discussions which were ongoing between the two states. It was basically a well articulated procedure of ensuring that the governments reached a common understanding. Most of the discussions occurred in the era of President Bill Clinton who on his part ensured that military action was the last resort. On some occasions Bush was recorded depicting that the coercive nature of the process had coupled Libya to drop its earlier intentions. 4.1. Analysis Libyan case has also been manifested in other countries like North Korea and Iran who in the past five years have been pressed to drop their ambitions of developing nuclear weapons. North Korea was sanctioned by the European Union because of its ambitions of developing nuclear weapons which is against the international stipulations. Libya has faced three phases of coercive diplomacy, for example in the year 1981-1988 there was a failed attempt of coercive diplomacy which was instituted by the US government under the presidency of president Reagan Ronald. The second phase was in the year 1989-1998 which culminated a number of other nations apart from the US; this was supervised by President H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. The third phase was in the year 1999-2003, under the administration of H.W. Bush and finally there was the recent 2010 to the present under President Barrack Obama. These stages depicted by Libya in the quest to attain international recognition and the processes in them highlights the relevance of coercive diplomacy in the 21st century. There was a failed attempt on the first instance, mixture on results in the second phase, successful on the third attempt and fourth in the approach. Some of the aspects which were approached by the US were the analysis of the structural composition of Libya and credibility of the approach in which they wanted to gauge their demands. It is a positive framework on which to be able to understand the adversary. The Qaddafi regime ratified the nuclear plant establishing in the country, despite its stand to adopt a position of no mass destruction policy or signing the Nuclear Non-proliferation treaty 5(NPT). The country went ahead to develop the WMDs which was against the signed treaties. With the increasing concerns over Libya’s desire to carry out this process, the US government put on a ban on arms trade with Libya. The US government also called off its officials in the country. However, throughout the 1980s the Libyan government pursued its stance relentlessly. The US, government put an embargo to the crude oil exports in the country; this meant that Libya had to suffer losses since its major revenue emanated from the crude oil they were exporting. Reagan adopted economical and military coercion; however a clear observation of the strategy which was adopted there underlay a number of discrepancies which led to the failure of the process. The strategy can be termed as short sighted as it did not target all the areas which were to be covered. It was basically disproportional in the sense that many factors lay unaddressed. The US laws greatly hampered the process since no foreign personality was to be targeted. The policies of a country can become an impediment to the achievements of coercive diplomacy. Also in relation to the Reagan regime there was no measure of reciprocity given. It was stances position for both governments hence the strong oppositions. It means that there was no agreement level to be achieved in the negotiations. Such factors make the whole process complicated in the manner in which diplomacy is to be achieved. Reagan could not underpin Qaddafi because of the societal pressure which could pile against him if he did that, moreover Qaddafi had his own approach in which he was undertaking his duties with support from close allies in other countries. In 1990s Libya continued its push to have a successful nuclear plant in the country, however due to the change of administration and techniques by both the US and Britain who ensured that the country stayed sanctioned over time and issued workable threats. Qaddafi opted to settle down and suspend the whole process. It can be seen that it was a short term approach in solving the Libyan crisis. The UN Security Council also joined hands in ensuring that Libya stop the activities it was indulging in which was against the laid rules and policies. Coercion at this stage had mixed results due to the nature it was undertaken. Cleary observing the Libyan government structure it had changed to allow coercive pressure to take effect. Libya is one of the international countries which have experienced a huge stance of coercive diplomacy from the west. As depicted, coercive diplomacy does not offer a lasting solution to the problems, for example after Qaddafi silencing for a long time, he came back to the limelight again in 2009, it was almost at this time when the country was in turmoil with an upsurge of war, Qaddafi did not want to live power to allow for democracy in the country. It was a war which lasted for a very long time before the death of Qaddafi.6 5. Conclusion Can be seen from the above description it is paramount that the use of coercive diplomacy is limited to a short duration of time. The recent crisis in Syria has received international attention since the EU and other international agencies are trying to come up with a more designed approach to ensure that security is upheld in the global scene. Sanctions on Zimbabwe although bringing in some fruits it were not the best solution; they implicated a lot of harm to the citizens of the country than good. North Korea has also been on the limelight as one country which is working on the techniques of creating nuclear weapons. Embargos have been placed on its oil products and other economic sanctions which are aimed at ensuring that the country stops its move. However, North Korea is adamant about the whole affair and argues that it needs to boost its energy production capacity. With a high opposition framework coercive diplomacy is subject to the ineffective it becomes on the international scene. Hence, it can be concluded that coercive diplomacy is meant to be a short term process in ensuring that security is attained in the global scene. It does not formulate an everlasting solution to activities. For instance when the government of a country changes hands there is likelihood that things will be conducted differently from the way they used to be done. Either the new regime will be positive or negative depending on the leaders. Thus, to achieve correct platform international security agencies should adopt other methods and only use coercive diplomacy on emergencies. Since the method will be very effective to avoid bloodshed and humanitarian crisis in the society. Bibliography Alexander L. George, David K.Hall, and William E. Simons, the Limits of Coercive Diplomacy (Boston: Little, Brown, (2001) AlexanderL. George, Forceful Persuasion: Coercive Diplomacy as an Alternative to War (Washington, D.C.: United States Institute of Peace, (2008). Alexander L. George and William E. 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