Multilateral Coercive Diplomacy: Not "Myths of Empire"

Jack Snyder's interesting paper for CIAO, "Myths of Empire, Then and Now," enumerates three possible strategies for dealing with terrorism and weapons of mass destruction: defense, deterrence, and preventive attack. He argues that the Bush administration has succumbed to the temptation to favor imperialist expansion and preventive war. Furthermore, he implies that the Bush administration is willing, like previous imperial powers, to act unilaterally. Such a course of action, he argues, will generate resistance and bring about the outcome — the rise of a coalition opposing the United States — that the Bush administration is seeking to avoid.

It seems to me that Professor Snyder has omitted two other options. One is appeasement: doing nothing and hoping either to satisfy Saddam Hussein's ambitions or to get lucky as a result of his death or overthrow. Sometimes appeasement is a wise policy — Britain appeased the United States successfully at the beginning of the 20^th century — but it does not seem promising as a response to a risk-acceptant leader who has twice attacked his neighbors. A nuclear-armed Iraq led by Saddam Hussein — a likely outcome of a policy of appeasement — would be immensely more difficult to control.₁

The fifth option, also omitted by Professor Snyder, is more promising: what Alexander L. George has characterized as "coercive diplomacy." George defines coercive diplomacy as "the use of intimidation in order to get others to comply with one's wishes."₂ Coercive diplomacy is similar to what Thomas Schelling characterized earlier as "compellance" (in contrast to deterrence). Schelling explained that compellance "involves initiating an action (or an irrevocable commitment to an action) that can cease, or become harmless, only if the opponent responds."₃ The behavior of the United States up to this point is consistent with the interpretation that it can best be interpreted as reflecting a strategy of multilateral preventive diplomacy, or multilateral compellance, rather than as a strategy of unilateral preventive war. Snyder's arguments against preventive war, while quite convincing, are therefore not cogent criticisms of the Bush administration policy so far, which is one of multilateral coercive diplomacy.

The Bush Administration Strategy: Multilateral Coercive Diplomacy

In the spring and summer of 2002, the "hawks" of the Bush administration were indeed beating the drums for preventive war. Vice President Cheney even warned against going to the United Nations at all.₄ But beginning with the President's speech to the United Nations on September 12, 2002, the United States actively engaged for over eight weeks in a tortuous process of multilateral consultations. These consultations led, on November 8, to unanimous Security Council approval of a resolution sponsored by the United States, which called for rigorous inspections full compliance by Iraq with previous UN resolutions. Although the Bush administration "talked the unilateralist talk," it "walked the multilateralist walk."

It is ironic that the unilateralist talk and image of the adminstration were very convenient for its multilateral coercive diplomacy. Indeed, its apparent inclination toward unilateralism led allies of the United States to demand that the US go to the UN; and at the UN, its presumed unilateralist bent gave credibility to the US claim that the UN had better act, or else the US would act alone. Without a credible threat of unilateral American action, it is hard to imagine the Security Council taking such tough measures against Iraq. Certainly the initial preferences of France, Russia and China — not to mention Syria — were very different.

To anyone who has read Schelling, this irony will not be surprising. Credibility is necessary to make threats that matter, and statements by high US officials proposing unilateral preventive war surely made American threats credible. By the time of the UN Security Council resolution, few people thought that President Bush was bluffing when he threatened war against Iraq, with or without UN Security Council approval. Indeed, the Syrian foreign minister justified his country's vote for the US resolution on the grounds that "the resolution stopped an immediate strike against Iraq."₅

Resolution 1441 afforded Iraq "a final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations."₆ This language could almost have been lifted from Schelling's classic works of the 1960s. "In bargaining," Schelling explained, "the commitment is a device to leave the last clear chance to decide the outcome with the other party, in a manner that he fully appreciates; it is to relinquish further initiative, having rigged the incentives so that the other party must choose in one's favor."₇

The Argument for Multilateral Coercive Diplomacy

In the expanded list of available options that I have offered, coercive diplomacy seems the most promising. It is the only option that holds out the prospect of reducing the Iraqi threat without war, while actually reinforcing the United States position should war actually occur. Appeasement is unpromising, for reasons noted above. In his article, Snyder does not refute the administration's claims that defense and deterrence are unlikely to be effective against terrorists; or the claim that it would be much more difficult for the United States, or other countries, to contain Iraq if that country possessed deliverable nuclear weapons. Anyone who doubts this contention should recall how much less militantly the United States is treating North Korea — which has nuclear weapons and could devastate Seoul with conventional ones — than Iraq. Snyder makes cogent arguments against unilateral preventive war, appealing to the history of imperialist states that resorted to such measures.

Admittedly, for coercive diplomacy to work it must be backed by credible threats of war. Hence in its attempts at coercive diplomacy, the United State has committed itself to war, if Iraq refuses to comply with Resolution 1441. No sane person can deny the enormous risks that such a commitment entails. Some of these risks are military. Others — which Snyder emphasizes — are issues of long-term politics. In particular, Snyder is concerned about generating intense resistance to United States imperialism by other strong powers.

However, the risks of generating resistance are generated, in Snyder's argument, by unilateral military action. Multilateral military action endorsed by the Permanent Members of the Security Council is much less likely to generate counterbalancing coalitions. Hence, the United States can limit the perils pointed out by Snyder by continuing on a multilateral path.

If Saddam Hussein clearly accepts or rejects the terms of Resolution 1441, the value of multilateralism will be clear. He might well comply with Resolution 1441, since the alternative seems to be the virtually certain destruction of his regime. If so, multilateral coercive diplomacy will have achieved an enormous triumph, surpassing even the 1995 Dayton Accords ending the civil war in Bosnia. At the opposite extreme, Saddam might fail to comply with the Security Council's demands, in transparent ways. Under these conditions, the Security Council is likely explicitly to endorse military action, since not to do so would represent explicit reneging on commitments, not just by the organization but by individual members of the Council. Such a war would be preventive but multilateral.

The most serious difficulty will arise in what may well be the most likely eventuality: that Iraq complies with a substantial portion of the demands made on it, but resists some of the intrusive inspections, hoping to stall and to sow dissent in the Security Council. Under these conditions, it is possible that the Security Council would not explicitly authorize further military action, and that the United States, and some of its allies, would act under the ambiguous quasi-authorization that Resolution 1441 and previous resolutions could be claimed to provide. Yet even taking into account this possibility, previous US endorsement of multilateralism would have two benefits.

First, the same pressure that led France and Russia to endorse Resolution 1441 would operate equally strongly at a later stage. France and Russia have two continuing sets of interests at stake. First, they seek to retain some degree of control over American actions — control that would be lost if the United States acted without explicit Security Council authorization. Second, both France and Russia understand that whatever status they have as great powers depends heavily on their permanent membership in the Security Council. If the Security Council were to be discredited, and bypassed, their own prestige and influence would suffer. The fact that France and Russia were unwillling to veto the US resolution this fall — and even voted for it — suggests that at a later stage they would also be inclined, in the end, to go along.

Iraq might anticipate this reaction, in which case it would be more likely to comply with Resolution 1441 in the first place. But Saddam has made many miscalculations in the past, so we can hardly count on such rational anticipation.

Even if the Security Council did not endorse US military action, the fact that the United States had held itself accountable to the Security Council would count for something, especially among allies and countries favorably inclined toward the United States. Resolution 1441 would have given it a stronger legal claim, and could provide political cover for more countries with interests in joining an American-led coalition.

Conclusions

From a policy standpoint, I draw two conclusions. First, the Bush administration strategy, so far, has been one of multilateral coercive diplomacy, not unilateral preventive war. Second, in my view multilateral coercive diplomacy is the best strategy for dealing with Iraq.

By no means does this argument imply that the Bush administration should be given a blank check for war. There has been a great deal of loose unilateralist talk by high officials. As Snyder points out, there has also been a failure explicitly to recognize dangers and tradeoffs. It is implausible that all of the following administration claims discussed by Snyder will come true: "the war will be cheap and easy, grumbling allies will jump on our bandwagon, Iraq will become a democracy, and the Arab street will thank us for liberating it." People who make such claims are not to be implicitly trusted. Furthermore, some administration leaders have seemed to want to define any deviation from the terms of Resolution 1441, however minor, as a "material breach" justifying war. We, as citizens and students of international relations, need to be willing to criticize premature or reckless claims of Iraqi noncompliance.

Yet if we judge by diplomatic actions rather than rhetoric, the Bush administration has, so far, followed a prudent multilateralist line. So far, its behavior has been prudent, and it should not be condemned for a policy of unilateralist imperialism that it has not, in fact, pursued.

From the standpoint of international relations theory, there is a lesson to be learned about multilateral institutions from the aftermath of 9/11. The significance of such institutions cannot properly be inferred from the inclination of liberal political leaders to rely on them, since these leaders could have been deceived (according to realists) by liberal political thought. A better test of significance comes when those who prefer unilateral action and resist multilateralism are in power. If these leaders also rely on multilateral institutions, the reason must lie not in the illusions with which they entered office, but with some environmental conditions that lead them, despite their inclinations, toward multilateral institutions. As Jack Snyder suggests, John Ikenberry's book, After Victory, provides numerous reasons why powerful states may be wise to accept, or even embrace, the constraints provided by multilateral institutions.₈

Before September 11, the Bush administration made clear its distaste for multilateralism by rejecting international agreements on a number of issues, including global warming, trade in small arms, money laundering, tax evasion, and the creation of an international criminal court. Yet right after September 11, the United States went twice to the United Nations, securing Resolution 1373 on September 28, 2001, invoking the mandatory provisions of Chapter VII of the Charter to require states to deny "safe haven" to terrorists and their supporters. Again in September 2002, the United States went to the United Nations — in a much more uncertain and laborious process — to secure a tough resolution demanding Iraqi disarmament.

Why did the United States do this? In a word, as Inis L. Claude argued about the United Nations 35 years ago, to secure "collective legitimation" for its policies.₉ Or as UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said on September 12, 2002: "There is no substitute for the unique legitimacy provided by the United Nations." The United States needs legitimacy for its actions not only to prevent the formation of resisting coalitions, but to gain the active cooperation, rather than mere passive consent, of regimes around the world. Success requires active police work in Singapore and Germany, at least minimal efforts to control Islamic fundamentalists in Indonesia, and acquiescence in the use of predator drones in Yemen. It also needs support in the Middle East to reinforce its coercive diplomacy toward Iraq, and if necessary to take effective military action.

Jack Snyder suggests at the beginning of his essay that the United States today "embodies a paradox of omnipotence and vulnerability." Its "omnipotence," however, is limited to the use of military force. The United States is hardly all-powerful in the political struggles essential both to defeating terrorism and protecting against the use of weapons of mass destruction by states such as Iraq. This lack of political omnipotence provides the opening for multilateral institutions and, indeed, makes them indispensable in the contemporary "struggle for power and peace."₁₀

Endnotes

Note 1: Perhaps the "deterrence" option is essentially equivalent to appeasement, reducing the number of options by one but not increasing the appeal of this course of (in)action. Back

Note 2: Alexander L. George, "Introduction: the Limits of Coercive Diplomacy," in Alexander L. George and William E. Simons, eds., The Limits of Coercive Diplomacy (Boulder: Westview Press, second edition, 1994), p. 2. Back

Note 3: Thomas C. Schelling, Arms and Influence (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), p. 72. Back

Note 4: New York Times, August 27, 2002. Back

Note 5: Farouk al-Sharaa, foreign minister of Syria, quoted in the New York Times, November 11, 2002, p. 1. Back

Note 6: UN Security Council Resolution 1441 (November 8, 2002), paragraph 2. Back

Note 7: Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1960), p. 37. Back

Note 8: John Ikenberry, After Victory: Institutions, Strategic Restraint and the Rebuilding of Order after Major Wars (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000). Back

Note 9: Inis L. Claude, The Changing United Nations (New York: Random House, 1967). For this argument about legitimation in the context of the struggle against terrorism, see Robert O. Keohane, "The Globalization of Informal Violence, Theories of World Politics, and the 'Liberalism of Fear,'" in Craig Calhoun, Paul Price and Ashley Timmer, eds., Understanding September 11 (New York: New Press, 2002), and as chapter 12 in Robert O. Keohane, Power and Governance in a Partially Globalized World (London: Routledge, 2002). This essay was originally posed on Dialogue IO, the website of International Organization, March 2002. Back

Note 10: This is the subtitle of Hans J. Morgenthau's classic "realist" text, Politics among Nations: the Struggle for Power and Peace. New York: Knopf, fourth edition, 1967. Back