Summary
Coercive diplomacy is a beguiling, strategy, a subtle mixture of military pressures and diplomatic concessions. It is often erroneously thought to be a low risk strategy which military strong powers can employ to impose their will upon weaker opponents. Actually, however, this strategy can succeed only under special conditions, such as were present in 1962 when President Kennedy induced Khrushchev to remove Soviet missiles from Cuba. When special conditions of urgency, motivation and timing are not present, as in 1965 when President Johnson initiated bombing of North Vietnam, an effort to employ coercive diplomacy may easily lead to ruinous involvement.
