How To Flunk Coercive Diplomacy 101

The Trump administration's uncoordinated, nonstrategic, haphazard approach towards Iran.

Photo by Jani Andrade on Unsplash

Just a few days ago, when musing about the likelihood of the United States bombing Iran, I suggested that maybe, just maybe, Donald Trump had not thought his plan of ‘bomb Iran just a little bit to coerce them and then if that doesn’t work bomb them a lot’ all the way through: “This is not a great coercive bargaining strategy — the thing is, I completely believe that Trump thinks it’s a great coercive bargaining strategy…. This is exactly the kind of war of choice that Trump claimed to disdain when he was on the campaign trail. A sustained bombing campaign of Iran seems like a stupid idea that has not been vetted or discussed in public enough for Trump to do it.”

The reporting over the last few days reinforces the notion that Trump has not thought any of this through despite deploying close to half of all available U.S. air power to the Middle East. Indeed, all signs point to a hasty, impulsive rush to war.

The New York Times’ Erika Solomon has a story explaining the depth of the Trump administration’s misperception about the preferences of the Iranian regime:

Facing high-stakes brinkmanship as American warships and fighter jets mass off its shores, Iran has refused to concede to President Trump’s demands on its nuclear program and weapons — a stance that has bewildered U.S. officials.

The authoritarian clerics who rule Iran see those concessions — which, in their view, could compromise their core ideology and sovereignty — as a greater threat to their survival than the risk of war.

A dangerous mismatch in perceptions between Iran and the United States is why efforts to negotiate a deal over Iran’s nuclear and military capabilities look increasingly fragile, experts say, and a new regional conflict seems almost inevitable….

Mr. Trump’s administration views Tehran as so weak that it should accept U.S. demands, regional officials have said….

Mr. Trump’s lead negotiator with Iran, Steve Witkoff, described the president as “curious as to why they haven’t” capitulated, in an interview with Fox News over the weekend.

The vice president, JD Vance, told Fox last week that despite the threat of war, Iranians “are not yet willing to actually acknowledge and work through” the president’s demands.

Yet it is the very perception of Iran’s weakness that experts say makes Tehran determined to resist.

“For Iran, submitting to U.S. terms is more dangerous than suffering another U.S. strike,” said Ali Vaez, the Iran director of the International Crisis Group. “They don’t believe that once they capitulate, the U.S. will alleviate the pressure. They believe that would only encourage the U.S. to go for the jugular.”

Ayatollah Khamenei has repeatedly stressed his view that Washington’s eventual aim is to topple Iran’s system of governance.

“Nuclear energy is not the problem, nor are human rights; America’s problem is with the very existence of the Islamic Republic,” he said in a speech in 2024.

Huh, so if the target anticipates frequent future conflicts and believes that the coercing actor is not really interested in striking a bargain, coercion might fail?! Wait, that sounds familiar….

While imposing high costs on the target might be a necessary condition for successful sanctions, it is far from a sufficient condition. Actors contemplating the use of economic statecraft must consider other factors as well. The most banal and yet the most important additional consideration is the articulation of feasible demands….

The obvious negotiation problem with seeking regime change in the target country is that it undermines coercive bargaining. From the target's perspective, there is little point in negotiation if the other side's intent in imposing economic coercion is to end the targeted actor's grip on political power.

Consistent with their transactional approach to foreign affairs, Trump and his administration are acting under the belief that a short-term deal can be struck that would avoid the messiness of actual military force. In some international interactions that would be the case. Thinking that Iran would be willing to make such a deal on the nuclear issue with an administration that withdrew after the last successful application of U.S. coercive diplomacy is borderline delusional.

Now it is possible that the actual use of U.S. military power could cause the unpopular theocratic regime in Iran to buckle and/or collapse. But that would still represent a failure of coercive diplomacy. If the coercer has to follow through with the use of force, then the threat of force has accomplished nothing.

And in this case of using force, as both Axios and the Washington Post have reported, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine has warned the White House about the downside risks of attacking Iran. From WaPo’s John Hudson and Tara Copp:

As the Trump administration weighs an attack on Iran, the Pentagon’s top general has cautioned President Donald Trump and other officials that shortfalls in critical munitions and a lack of support from allies will add significant risk to the operation and to U.S. personnel, according to people familiar with internal discussions….

In Pentagon meetings this month, Caine also has raised concerns about the scale of any Iran campaign, its inherent complexity and the possibility of U.S. casualties, one person said. The general has said that any operation would be made all the more difficult by a lack of allied support, this person said, speaking like others on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations….

An attack on Iran could further strain U.S. relations with its regional allies. A senior Persian Gulf official told The Post that Arab countries have informed Washington that they would not allow their bases to be used for a strike against Iran. Iran’s threat to retaliate against any country that supports the U.S. operation has also raised questions about Washington’s ability to secure flyover rights.

One former Pentagon official said the lack of allied support significantly complicates the mission. “How are we going to be able to do this, especially if the Arabs don’t give us overflight? How are you going to hit hundreds, if not thousands, of targets across the country?” the former official said.

Well, I’m sure Trump’s hand-picked diplomats in the region can grease the wheels for continued U.S. partnerships in the region. Or… not.¹

Credit where it’s due: to date president Trump’s uses of military force have been more successful — or at least less messy — than I would have predicted ex ante. Maybe this is all fretting about nothing. Or maybe the Atlantic’s Tom Wright is correct to point out that time is largely on the U.S. side.

But — to repeat a theme — an administration that fancies itself as adroit in the dark arts of coercive diplomacy seems utterly clueless about how to deal with Iran. So it is hard to think that this will end well.

1. To be fair, some of Trump’s other hand-picked ambassadors are also flailing.