The Types of Coercion and Deterrence

 

Chapter two of the Rand Corporation’s Conventional Coercion Across the Spectrum of Operations is entitled “The Theory of Coercion”. This chapter discusses deterrence and three types of coercion: accommodation, punishment, and denial. Accommodation coercion is often called positive deterrence because it offers incentives for complying with coercive demands. For example, the U.S. may tell Germany if they do not acquire oil from Russia, then the U.S. will provide Germany with additional military support and weapons. Punishment involves threatening to impose great costs on an adversary if the adversary does not comply with the demands. This often involves threatening to kill combat troops or harming civilians. What is important is the target is something the adversary values. Coercion by denial involves convincing the adversary resisting demands will be unproductive. This may vary depending on an adversary’s strategy. Coercion by denial’s notable trait is hopelessness. A common example includes threatening to defeat an adversary on the battlefield.  

This chapter also discusses deterrence, extended deterrence, and the differences between strategic and tactical deterrence. Deterrence is often referred as "the persuasion of one’s opponent that the costs and/or risks of a given course of action he/[she] might take to outweigh its benefits". Extended deterrence is deterring attacks against external interests and allies instead of direct attacks against the deterring target. Most military strategist use strategic deterrence, which involves efforts to a state’s behavior to change in the international arena. Tactical deterrence involves an individual or small group’s immediate behavior. Police officers often use tactical deterrence. Peacekeeping operations often use tactical deterrence, which can have outcomes with important strategic implications. 

Similar to deterrence, compellence looks to make the target change its behavior according to a coercer’s demands. Common goals include withdrawing from disputed territory, surrendering, or halting an invasion. Compellence and deterrence have some differences. Successful threats do not have to be carried out in compellence. However, violence is often used to make open-ended threats. This is risky, because adversaries can then chose how long to resist a coercer’s demands and increase the compellence costs.