160 CHAPTER FivE ■ The STaTe
With the strategy of compellence, a state tries, by threatening to use force, to get
another state to do something or to undo an act it has undertaken. The prelude to the
1991 Gulf War is an excellent example. The United States, the United Nations, and
co ali tion members tried to get Saddam Hussein to change his actions using the com-
pellent strategy of escalating threats. Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait initially was widely
condemned. Formal UN Security Council mea sures gave multilateral legitimacy to
the condemnation. Next, Iraq’s external economic assets were frozen and economic
sanctions were imposed. Fi nally, U.S. and co ali tion military forces were mobilized
and deployed, and specific deadlines were given for Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait. At
each step of the compellent strategy of escalation, one message was communicated to
Iraq: withdraw from Kuwait or more coercive actions will follow. The Western alliance
followed a similar strategy to try to compel Serbia to stop abusing the human rights of
Kosovar Albanians and to withdraw its military forces from the region. Compellence
was also used before the 2003 Iraq War, when the United States and others threatened
Saddam Hussein that if certain actions were not taken, then war would follow. Threats
began when George W. Bush labeled Iraq a member of the “axis of evil”; they esca-
lated when the United Nations found Iraq to be in material breach of a UN resolu-
tion. Then in March 2003, Great Britain, one of the co ali tion partners, gave Iraq ten
days to comply with the UN resolution. And on March 17, the last compellent threat
was issued: President George W. Bush gave Saddam’s Baathist regime 48 hours to
leave Iraq as its last chance to avert war. In all of these cases, it was necessary to resort
to an invasion because compellence via an escalation of threats failed. Note that com-
pellence ends once the use of force begins.
With the strategy of deterrence, states commit themselves to punishing a target
state if that state takes an undesired action. Threats of actual war are used as an instru-
ment of policy to dissuade a state from pursuing certain courses of action. If the target
state does not take the undesired action, deterrence is successful and conflict is
avoided. If it does choose to act, despite the deterrent threat, then the first state will
presumably deliver a devastating blow.
Since the advent of nuclear weapons in 1945, deterrence has taken on a special
meaning. Today, if a state chooses to resort to vio lence against a nuclear state, nuclear
weapons might be launched against it in retaliation. If this happens, the cost of the
aggression will be unacceptable, especially if both states have nuclear weapons— the
viability of both socie ties would be at stake. Theoretically, therefore, states that recog-
nize the destructive capability of nuclear weapons will be hesitant to take aggressive
action. It is difficult for a state to know with absolute certainty that it could annihilate
its adversary’s nuclear capability in one go— called first- strike capability— and even
the possibility that the adversary could respond with its second- strike capability
would result in restraint. Deterrence is then successful.