Coercive Diplomacy: The India-Pakistan Case

International Journal of Research and Scientific Innovation (IJRSI) | Volume IX, Issue I, January 2022 | ISSN 2321–2705

Coercive Diplomacy: The India-Pakistan Case

Vaasu Sharma

Abstract
What are the factors behind successful coercive diplomacy? How Pakistan and India employed coercive diplomacy in attaining leverage, starting from Kargil War till date? How India increasingly resorted to coercive diplomacy against Pakistan especially with the advent of BJP government in 2014? This paper comprehensively deals with these questions by examining the concept of coercive diplomacy and probe the extent of leverage brought by it to the two countries. This paper elucidates the difference between coercion and compellence. Besides, theoretical and conceptual analysis of coercive diplomacy it delves into how India used the coercive diplomacy against Pakistan in different degrees in 5 major conflicts i.e Kargil (1999), Twin Peak Crisis (2001), Mumbai attacks (2008), Uri attacks (2016) and Pulwama terror attacks (2019). In the end, the paper analysis the factors that contributed to the enhanced employment of coercive diplomacy against Pakistan over the years and the crucial role played by US in support of India. Paper also analyse the Indian dilemma in employing coercive diplomacy against Pakistan and how it was overcome. Paper concludes that coercive diplomacy will remain a powerful tool in the arsenal of these nations to extract the desired results.

Introduction

In the contemporary international system, the variables, determining the understanding of inter-state relations and crises, have transformed from the state of peace and war to the perceived threat of violence. The space occupied by this new variable is known as a ‘grey region’ in international relations. Simply speaking, mere threat of violence, which is better known as ‘coercive diplomacy’, is a new tool in international relations to enforce adversary to give up his claim on his valuable possession or to forbid him from taking control of our valuable possession. This tool can be used against a target state or non-state actors to make them mend their behaviour in conformity with the desired order.
Thomas Schelling, a prominent international relations theorist states that coercive diplomacy is based on latent violence , which in fact is extension of Morgenthau theory (1948) that defined the need to combine threat of force with persuasion/compromise as well as reciprocal relationship between diplomacy and force. Notably, focus of the theory was on ‘force’ rather than ‘diplomacy’. Later, Alexander George (1991), developed Schelling’s idea of coercive diplomacy and suggested the principle of giving a ‘credible’ and ‘tough’ threat of ‘punishment’ to adversary to convince him to submit to the demands of the threatening state . As per George coercive diplomacy is an age-old instrument of statecraft that had never been systematized. It aims to push adversary to comply/negotiate on demands of coercer besides simultaneously managing to avoid the situation converting into military escalation.

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