Cheap Threats
![]() 288 pp., 6 x 9 Hardcover ISBN: 9781626162822 (1626162824) 288 pp., 6 x 9 Paperback ISBN: 9781626162815 (1626162816) eBook ISBN: 9781626162839 E-Inspection Request E-Inspection April 2016 EXPLORE THIS TITLE DescriptionTable of Contents Reviews RELATED SITES On Security: A blog about security policy, politics, and theory by Dianne Pfundstein Chamberlain |
Cheap Threats
Why the United States Struggles to Coerce Weak States
Dianne Pfundstein Chamberlain
Why do weak states resist threats of force from the United States, especially when history shows that this superpower carries out its ultimatums? Cheap Threats upends conventional notions of power politics and challenges assumptions about the use of compellent military threats in international politics. Related Sites:
Dianne Pfundstein Chamberlain is a research fellow at the Arnold A. Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University.
Reviews
"In this fascinating and carefully argued study, Pfundestein Chamberlain puts forward a "costly compellence theory.""—Foreign Affairs "In this carefully researched and forcefully argued work, Dianne Pfundstein Chamberlain develops a compelling theory of why the United States finds it so hard to bend weak states to its will."—Robert J. Art, Christian A. Herter Professor of International Relations, Brandeis University "Dianne Pfundstein Chamberlain identifies a major puzzle—why have weak states routinely ignored the compellent threats made by a powerful United States since 1945, in spite of the fact it does not bluff? Engaging game theory, quantitative studies, and postwar US history, she develops a far more sophisticated definition of resolve during crises than we've previously had—one that incorporates both a willingness to initiate war and to prevail as costs mount. Pfundstein Chamberlain reveals a great irony—that it is the very ease with which the United States can carry out its immediate compellent threats that make adversaries skeptical it is willing to pay the ultimate costs necessary to get what it says it wants. This is a timely, insightful, and well-researched study that will be of great interest to international relations scholars and policymakers alike."—Francis Gavin, Frank Stanton Professor in Nuclear Security Policy Studies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Table of Contents Introduction: Too Cheap to Compel 1 The Logic of Costly Compellence 2 US Compellent Threats, 1945-2007 3 The 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis 4 The 2011 Libya Crisis 5 The 1991 Threat against Iraq 6 The 2003 Threat against Iraq Conclusion: The Implications of Costly Compellence for Theory and Policy Appendix: How the Data Set Was Constructed Bibliography Index |