Compelling China: The Strategic Culture of Coercion

摘要

In a political-military crisis with China, the United States may seek to avoid the terrible costs of a direct military conflict and use coercive diplomacy strategies to compel China to back-down and defuse the situation. However, since World War II, U.S. coercive diplomacy strategies have failed in 68% of the cases. Given the costs of failure, U.S. policy-makers and military planners must adapt a coercive diplomacy strategy to a China-specific context that takes into account China s strategic culture. This study assesses the utility and challenges of using coercive diplomacy as a strategy to compel China to change its behavior in a crisis situation. The paper examines coercive diplomacy using the lens of China s strategic culture as a means to inform and evaluate United States policy options. The study: 1) examines the theoretical basis for coercion and briefly compares historical examples of coercive diplomacy, 2) provides an analysis of China s strategic culture as it relates to coercive diplomacy and crisis management, and 3) addresses strategic policy implications for the United States and offers recommendations for revising U.S. China strategy.