Air Power as a Coercive Instrument

Online Description

Coercion—the use of threatened force to induce an adversary to change its behavior—is a critical function of the U.S. military. U.S. forces have recently fought in the Balkans, the Persian Gulf, and the Horn of Africa to compel recalcitrant regimes and warlords to stop repression, abandon weapons programs, permit humanitarian relief, and otherwise modify their actions. Yet despite its overwhelming military might, the United States often fails to coerce successfully. This report examines the phenomenon of coercion and how air power can contribute to its success. Three factors increase the likelihood of successful coercion: (1) the coercer’s ability to raise the costs it imposes while denying the adversary the chance to respond (escalation dominance); (2) an ability to block an adversary’s military strategy for victory; and (3) an ability to magnify third-party threats, such as internal instability or the danger posed by another enemy. Domestic political concerns (such as casualty sensitivity) and coalition dynamics often constrain coercive operations and impair the achievement of these conditions. Air power can deliver potent and credible threats that foster the above factors while neutralizing adversary countercoercive moves. When the favorable factors are absent, however, air power—or any other military instrument—will probably fail to coerce. Policymakers’ use of coercive air power under inauspicious conditions diminishes the chances of using it elsewhere when the prospects of success would be greater.

📘 Key Terms & Definitions

Term: Coercion

Definition:

Use (or threat) of military force to induce an adversary to change its behavior.

Role in author’s argument:

Foundational dependent variable. Entire study asks when and how air power helps coercion succeed or fail, and how it differs from brute force.

Analytical notes:

Coercion is about changing choices, not simply destroying capability.
Success is probabilistic and incremental—authors emphasize changes in likelihood of behavior, not a binary yes/no outcome.
Coercion is a dynamic contest: both sides adapt cost–benefit calculations over time.

Comparison to other theorists:

Very Schelling-esque: coercion as “power to hurt,” but Byman et al. insist more on dynamic adaptation and political context.
Closer to George/Simons’s “coercive diplomacy” than Pape’s relatively static, target-set-focused treatment.

Term: Deterrence

Definition:

Coercion to prevent an action; compellence seeks to change ongoing behavior. The two blur in practice, especially in extended crises.

Role in author’s argument:

Used mainly to clarify scope: study concentrates on coercive diplomacy (largely compellence), while acknowledging many cases have intertwined deterrent and compellent phases.

Analytical notes:

Deterrence/compellence often overlap; the same air campaign can both deter escalation and compel concessions.
This blurring matters for operational design—signals sent for deterrence may be interpreted as compellent, and vice versa.

Comparison to other theorists:

Less doctrinally neat than Schelling’s clean deterrence/compellence distinction; more in line with Freedman’s argument that real crises mix both.

Term: Compellence

Definition:

Coercive strategy aimed at making the adversary change current policy, behavior, or posture.

Role in author’s argument:

Most empirical cases are compellent: Bosnia, Iraq, Somalia, nonstate actors. Study evaluates how air power contributes to compelling compliance with demands.

Analytical notes:

Compellence is harder than deterrence: usually requires positive action from the target and is more visible politically.
Air campaigns are typically compellent in practice, even when labeled “deterrent.”

Comparison to other theorists:

Echoes Schelling’s claim that compellence is harder, but Byman et al. provide more operational detail about air campaigns and nonstate cases.

Term: Brute Force

Definition:

Defeating or disarming an adversary regardless of its choices; success comes from physical destruction, not from altered decisionmaking.

Role in author’s argument:

Contrast category. Authors stress that policymakers often slide from coercion to brute force when adversaries resist, and that some “coercive” campaigns are in fact attempts at brute force.

Analytical notes:

Important to distinguish: denial coercion may resemble brute force but aims at perceptions of futility, not simply military collapse.
Coercive diplomacy often degenerates into brute force when conditions for success aren’t met.

Comparison to other theorists:

Follows Schelling’s classic coercion vs brute-force split, but is more operationalized into air power cases like Desert Storm and Deliberate Force.

Term: Coercive Diplomacy

Definition:

Use of limited military force and threats, integrated with diplomacy, to influence adversary behavior without full-scale war.

Role in author’s argument:

Umbrella concept for the study. Air power is treated as an instrument within broader coercive diplomacy, not a stand‑alone solution.

Analytical notes:

Emphasizes integration of military moves with political demands, sequencing, and concessions.
Failures often trace back to ill‑designed diplomacy rather than airpower shortfalls per se.

Comparison to other theorists:

Builds directly on George & Simons but adds a systematic airpower lens and explicit coding of success conditions and challenges.

Term: Expected Utility / Cost–Benefit Calculus

Definition:

Coercion rests on the adversary’s perception of the relative costs and benefits of compliance vs defiance, weighted by probabilities.

Role in author’s argument:

Baseline rationalist model. Authors use cost–benefit language to structure analysis but stress its limits and the need for contextual judgment.

Analytical notes:

They criticize overreliance on pure expected‑utility modeling and argue for understanding time horizons, unintended effects, and perceptions.
Success is conceptualized as marginal change in the probability of desired behavior.

Comparison to other theorists:

More skeptical of formal rational-choice than some deterrence literature; closer to Jervis in insisting on perception, misperception, and complexity.

Term: Escalation Dominance

Definition:

Ability to raise costs on the adversary while denying it the ability to neutralize or counterescalate at each rung.

Role in author’s argument:

One of three central conditions for successful coercion. Many historical successes—Cuban Missile Crisis, Korea, Deliberate Force—hinge on having escalation dominance.

Analytical notes:

Dominance is relative, not absolute; most adversaries retain some low‑tech escalation options.
Critical for manipulating perceived risk and for preventing adversary counter‑coercion.

Comparison to other theorists:

Draws on Kahn’s and Schelling’s escalation concepts, but authors emphasize practical ceilings created by domestic and coalition politics—something Kahn/Schelling largely bracket.

Term: Denial Strategy (Threatening to Defeat Adversary’s Strategy)

Definition:

Coercive strategy that renders the adversary’s military strategy for gaining benefits ineffective, reducing incentives to persist.

Role in author’s argument:

Second central success factor. Air power is particularly well-suited for denial against conventional forces and logistics-heavy operations.

Analytical notes:

Related but not identical to brute force; focus is on perceptions that victory is impossible, not necessarily destroying all forces.
Works best where adversary strategy depends on mechanized forces, exposed logistics, or limited operational windows.

Comparison to other theorists:

Explicitly engages Pape’s Bombing to Win: accepts his emphasis on denial but treats it as one of several viable strategies and embeds it in a broader context.

Term: Punishment Strategy

Definition:

Threatening or inflicting pain on civilian or valued assets to raise costs of defiance, rather than directly thwarting military operations.

Role in author’s argument:

One classic coercive path, but the authors are skeptical of its effectiveness and stress its political and humanitarian downsides.

Analytical notes:

Punishment is often constrained by domestic/coalition sensitivities and international norms.
Evidence suggests punishment alone rarely coerces resolved adversaries and can backfire by increasing resolve.

Comparison to other theorists:

Much closer to Pape’s critique of punishment than to Douhet/Warden‑style optimism.
Unlike Pape, they don’t reject punishment categorically but fold it into a combined toolkit.

Term: Risk Strategy

Definition:

Manipulating the risk of future, possibly uncontrolled, damage to motivate concessions, often via limited strikes that signal potential for greater harm. (Implied from Schelling-derived discussion of escalation and salience.)

Role in author’s argument:

Operates through gradual escalation and signaling, central to their emphasis on coercion as an interactive ladder rather than a one‑off event.

Analytical notes:

Works in tandem with escalation dominance—raising risk for the adversary without accepting symmetric risk for the coercer.
Especially important when punishment and denial options are constrained.

Comparison to other theorists:

Very Schelling-like on “threat that leaves something to chance,” but authors tie it directly to airpower rungs (e.g., widening target sets, higher sortie rates).

Term: Magnifying Third-Party Threats

Definition:

Using air power to shift local balances so that other actors (domestic insurgents, neighboring states, or coalitions) pose greater threats to the adversary.

Role in author’s argument:

Third core success factor. Many successes rely on making adversary fear others more: Croat/Muslim forces in Bosnia, Kurds backed by Iran in Iraq.

Analytical notes:

Leverages coercer’s strengths while mitigating casualty sensitivity by indirect pressure.
Risks: empowering radicals, undermining humanitarian aims, loss of control over partners.

Comparison to other theorists:

Underdeveloped in most classic deterrence literature; here it’s elevated to equal footing with denial and escalation dominance—good bridge to proxy‑war and civil‑war readings.

Term: Intelligence and Estimation Challenges

Definition:

Systematic difficulties in assessing adversary motivations, vulnerabilities, and the likely impact of threats or strikes.

Role in author’s argument:

One of three recurrent challenges undermining coercion (along with credibility and feasibility).

Analytical notes:

Particularly acute against nonstate actors, where information is sparse and motivations strong.
Misestimation can lead to “backfire,” where coercion increases enemy resolve or popularity (Somalia, Hezbollah).

Comparison to other theorists:

Strong Jervis vibe: misperception is central.
More systematic than many airpower texts, which often assume target systems are knowable and predictable.

Term: Credibility Challenges

Definition:

Doubts in adversary minds about whether the coercer will carry out threatened punishment or escalation, given its costs, constraints, and competing interests.

Role in author’s argument:

One of the three common obstacles. Domestic and coalition limits often make U.S. threats look hollow.

Analytical notes:

Credibility is not just about military capability; it’s tied to domestic politics, timelines, and prior behavior.
Publicly announced constraints (exit dates, “no ground troops”) undercut coercive leverage.

Comparison to other theorists:

Echoes Schelling and Huth but with a more granular treatment of media, polling, and coalition politics (drawing on Larson’s work).

Term: Feasibility Challenges

Definition:

Practical obstacles that prevent the adversary from complying even if it wants to, due to organizational, logistical, or political constraints.

Role in author’s argument:

Third recurrent challenge; warns that sometimes “won’t” is really “can’t.”

Analytical notes:

Nonstate actors often cannot control their subordinates or disarm militias quickly, so full compliance may be impossible.
Overestimating feasibility leads to unrealistic demands and apparent “defiance.”

Comparison to other theorists:

Resonates with organizational-theory critiques in the deterrence literature; Byman et al. give concrete examples (Bosnian Serb “renegade” units, fragmented warlords).

Term: Domestic Constraints

Definition:

Political, institutional, and societal limits on U.S. leaders’ ability to employ force—casualty sensitivity, restrictive objectives, ROE, exit strategies, coalition preferences.

Role in author’s argument:

Central theme of Part Three. Domestic constraints shape available coercive options and are exploitable by adversaries.

Analytical notes:

Presidents seek robust support by stressing clear interests, low costs, and high probabilities of success.
Adversaries can target U.S. vulnerabilities by prolonging conflicts, raising casualties, or tarnishing the cause.

Comparison to other theorists:

Strong overlap with Jentleson’s “pretty prudent” public and Mueller/Larson on casualties, but applied directly to airpower and coercive bargaining.

Term: Coalitions (Shared Control)

Definition:

Coercive operations conducted with allied partners who share decision authority over objectives, rules of engagement, and escalation.

Role in author’s argument:

Core to Chapter Five. Coalitions both enhance legitimacy and impose important constraints on coercive design.

Analytical notes:

Shared control can slow decisionmaking, limit target sets, and blur signals (e.g., Bosnia pre‑1995).
Air power’s low‑risk profile makes it the coalition workhorse; serves as common denominator capability.

Comparison to other theorists:

Goes beyond most classic deterrence works (which assume unitary actors). Nice complement to alliance politics readings in 628 (extended deterrence, burden sharing).

Term: Nonstate Actors

Definition:

Warlords, guerrilla movements, terrorist organizations, and other armed entities lacking sovereign state status.

Role in author’s argument:

Chapter Six argues they pose distinct coercive challenges but are increasingly central in post–Cold War coercive missions.

Analytical notes:

Distinct features:

Few identifiable/targetable assets.
Particularly severe intelligence gaps.
Weak internal control over constituent elements.
Highly adept at counter‑coercion and propaganda.

Comparison to other theorists:

Anticipates later literature on terrorism and coercion (Kydd/Walter, Fortna). More nuanced than simple “air power doesn’t work against terrorists” claims.

Term: Indirect Coercion

Definition:

Coercing an adversary through pressure on third parties—clients, sponsors, or local rivals—rather than directly.

Role in author’s argument:

Important when nonstate actors lack targetable assets; U.S. often shifts to coercing their state sponsors or rival factions.

Analytical notes:

Often unreliable and may strengthen radicals or create backlash (Somalia, Hezbollah).
Increases complexity of signaling and control.

Comparison to other theorists:

Intersects with proxy-war and compellence-by-proxy literature; more grounded than many strategic‑bombing advocates who assume simple leverage via “pain.”

Term: Coercive Paradox

Definition:

“The more formidable air power (or any coercive instrument) becomes, the more likely adversaries are to anticipate and prepare to defeat it.”

Role in author’s argument:

Key caution in Chapter Seven. Explains why technological superiority doesn’t translate mechanically into coercive success.

Analytical notes:

Adversaries design strategies that avoid airpower strengths (dispersal, urban sanctuary, nonconventional ops).
Leads to declining visible coercive payoff even as capabilities grow.

Comparison to other theorists:

Parallel to Jervis’s security dilemma logic applied to coercion; sharp critique of technological determinism in some airpower advocacy (e.g., Warden).

🔫 Author Background

Daniel Byman – Political scientist, then at RAND; later known for extensive work on terrorism, Middle East security, and counterinsurgency. His background informs the nonstate‑actor and regional case analyses.
Matthew Waxman – Legal and national‑security scholar; RAND analyst at the time. Brings civil–military, legal, and public‑law sensibilities, visible in discussions of ROE and domestic constraints.
Eric Larson – RAND political scientist focusing on U.S. public opinion and military operations; his prior work on casualty sensitivity and opinion polling underpins Chapter Four and the public‑support tables.

Together they represent a blend of coercion theory, public opinion research, and operational case study work typical of late‑1990s RAND.

🔍 Author’s Main Issue / Thesis

Core problem: Why does the U.S.—despite overwhelming airpower—often fail to coerce adversaries, and under what conditions can air power be an effective coercive instrument rather than a blunt or counterproductive tool?

Thesis (compressed):

Coercive air power works best when it contributes to escalation dominance, denial of adversary military strategies, and magnification of third‑party threats, while avoiding common pitfalls in intelligence, credibility, and feasibility—all in the context of powerful domestic, coalition, and nonstate‑actor constraints.

🧭 One-Paragraph Overview

Byman, Waxman, and Larson offer a rationalist yet context‑sensitive framework for thinking about coercion, distinguishing it from brute force and embedding it in an expected‑utility logic that emphasizes shifting perceptions rather than simple physical outcomes. After laying out this conceptual foundation, they examine fifty years of coercive diplomacy to identify three key success factors—escalation dominance, denial of adversary strategy, and magnification of third‑party threats—and three recurring challenges—intelligence, credibility, and feasibility. They then turn to the contemporary environment, demonstrating how U.S. domestic politics and coalition dynamics shape coercive options and offering a sobering analysis of the severe challenges involved in coercing nonstate actors. Finally, they outline implications for the USAF, arguing that airpower can be highly effective but only when tied to realistic political objectives, attuned to adversary adaptation, and employed with restraint lest its coercive potency erode over time.

🎯 Course Themes Tracker (SAASS 628)

Coercion, compellence, deterrence – Central; explicit distinctions but emphasis on messy, real‑world overlap; focus on compellence via airpower campaigns.
Credibility & resolve – Deep dive into domestic/coalition constraints and how they shape perceived resolve; credibility often more about politics than capability.
Signaling & perception – Coercion is a dynamic signaling game; emphasis on salience, escalation rungs, and misperception of costs/benefits.
Rational vs emotional vs cultural logics – Rationalist baseline but acknowledges culture, nationalism, and domestic political narratives in adversary responses (Somalia, Hezbollah, Aideed).
Theories of victory – Adversary victory strategies (hegemonic conquest, survival, ideological goals) strongly shape which coercive levers work (denial vs punishment vs third‑party threats).
Escalation dynamics & thresholds – Escalation dominance, salience, nuclear backstops (Cuba, Korea, Desert Storm) all treated as key variables.
Alliance assurance & extended deterrence – Coalition reassurance missions (e.g., Scud hunt for Israel) become coercive enablers; extended deterrence of allies is part of the coercive story.
Cost‑balancing & risk manipulation – Coercion understood as shifting expected utility via costs/benefits and risk of escalation; explicit critique of binary success metrics.
Instruments of coercion – Airpower front and center; also acknowledges sanctions, ground forces, naval presence, and information warfare as complementary tools.
Competition continuum – Cases span from preventive crises and peace enforcement to near‑war (Bosnia, Desert Storm, Cuba), illustrating coercion short of and within armed conflict.

🔑 Top Takeaways

Air power is powerful but not magic. Destroying targets ≠ changing behavior; coercive outcomes depend heavily on political context, adversary strategy, and third‑party dynamics.
Three success pillars: escalation dominance, denial of adversary strategy, and magnifying third‑party threats explain much of the variance in coercive outcomes across cases.
Three recurring pitfalls: intelligence gaps, credibility problems, and feasibility constraints regularly undermine coercion even when airpower performance is strong.
Domestic and coalition politics are not noise; they are the environment. Adversaries actively exploit U.S. casualty sensitivity, time limits, ROE, and coalition divisions.
Nonstate actors are uniquely hard to coerce. They often lack targetable assets, have strong motivations, weak internal control, and sophisticated counter‑coercive strategies.
Coercive effects are incremental and probabilistic. Success should be understood as changing the odds of compliance, not simply observing whether compliance occurred.
Technological advances help, but adaptation erodes their edge. The “coercive paradox” warns that more capable air forces may push adversaries toward more resistant strategies.
Restraint is a strategic asset. Overuse of “cheap” air strikes in low‑stakes crises can burn credibility and reduce the deterrent value of future airpower threats.

📒 Sections

Chapter 1: Introduction – Air Power as a Coercive Instrument

Summary:

Introduces coercion as a central task of U.S. military power and argues that despite overwhelming capabilities, the U.S. often fails to compel adversaries. Lays out goals: improve understanding of coercive diplomacy and assess air power’s role across historical cases, with an eye to post–Cold War conditions.

Key Points:

Coercion defined as using threatened force to change adversary behavior.
U.S. has recent mixed experience in Balkans, Horn of Africa, Gulf.
Study seeks to identify conditions for success and recurring challenges.
Air Force’s speed, reach, and precision make it central to coercion.

Theory Lens Map:

Rationalist coercion with expected‑utility flavor.
Early signal that escalation dominance, denial, and third‑party threats will be key variables.

Cross-Cutting Themes:

The tension between military strength and political failure.
Airpower as tempting “low‑cost” tool whose misuse can erode credibility.

Coercion Logic Breakdown:

Identify adversary behavior to change.
Threaten or use air strikes to shift adversary cost–benefit calculus.
Evaluate domestic/coalition constraints that shape threat credibility.

Limits Map (mini):

Political constraints on escalation.
Intelligence uncertainty over adversary values.
Risk of escalation into brute-force war.

Chapter 2: How to Think About Coercion

Summary:

Provides the conceptual heart of the book: a nuanced, dynamic model of coercion grounded in cost–benefit logic but sensitive to context, feedback, and nonbinary outcomes. Distinguishes coercion from brute force, critiques black‑and‑white notions of success, and underscores the difficulty of measuring coercive effects.

Key Points:

Coercion is a heavily interactive decision process; both sides adapt.
Traditional binary success coding hides backfires and partial successes.
Dependent variable should be marginal change in probability of desired behavior.
Coercion versus brute force illustrated via target and objective differences.

Theory Lens Map:

Expected utility: costs, benefits, probabilities, and perceptions.
Methodological critique: warns against overfitting formal models; advocates historically informed, context‑rich analysis.

Cross-Cutting Themes:

Measurement challenge for coercion; ties to 628 debates on what counts as “success.”
Emphasis on time and sequencing: outcomes can change as costs accumulate.

Coercion Logic Breakdown:

Adversary chooses between compliance and defiance under uncertain information.
Coercer manipulates expected payoffs via threats, assurances, and actions.
Outcomes include success, partial success, null effect, and backfire.

Limits Map (mini):

Imperfect information and dynamic adaptation.
Difficulty in parsing causal impact of threats vs other pressures.

Section 2.1: Coercion vs Brute Force

Summary:

Clarifies that brute force seeks to disarm regardless of the enemy’s choices, while coercion aims to influence choices by exploiting the threat of future harm.

Key Points:

Brute force outcomes depend on destruction; coercion outcomes depend on expectations.
Many campaigns mix both logics (e.g., Desert Storm).

Theory Lens Map:

Schelling-based conceptual distinction embedded in operational airpower cases.

Coercion Logic Breakdown:

Coercion: “If you do X, we will hurt you more.”
Brute force: “We will eliminate your ability to resist, regardless of your choice.”

Limits Map (mini):

In practice, states often mislabel brute-force operations as coercive, blurring assessment of airpower’s coercive efficacy.

Chapter 3: Explaining Success or Failure – The Historical Record

Summary:

Analyzes post‑1945 coercive cases to derive general conditions under which coercion tends to succeed or fail and to assess air power’s specific contributions.

Key Points:

Identifies three success factors: escalation dominance, denial of adversary strategy, magnifying third‑party threats.
Identifies three recurring challenges: intelligence, credibility, feasibility.
Introduces spectrum coding: conditions are degrees, not binaries.
Uses Operation Deliberate Force as exemplar with a spectrum table of conditions.

Theory Lens Map:

Comparative case analysis with structured variables (3+3 framework).
Implicit design resembles structured, focused comparison (George).

Cross-Cutting Themes:

Adversary strategy choice often more decisive than coercer capabilities.
Airpower helps most where adversary relies on conventional forces and where third‑party threats can be amplified.

Coercion Logic Breakdown:

Coercion success = presence of escalation dominance + denial + third‑party leverage – (impact of intelligence/credibility/feasibility problems).

Limits Map (mini):

Historical record still ambiguous; leaders often ignore unfavorable conditions and try coercion anyway.

Section 3.2: Escalation Dominance

Summary:

Develops concept of escalation dominance using historical examples (Cuba, Korea, Desert Storm, Deliberate Force) to show how credible ability to escalate while denying adversary counters supports coercion.

Key Points:

Escalation is context‑dependent and recognized via salient thresholds.
Nuclear dominance often underwrites conventional coercion (Cuba, Korea).

Theory Lens Map:

Draws on Schelling salience and Kahn escalation ladders.

Coercion Logic Breakdown:

If A can credibly escalate and B cannot counter, B’s expected costs of defiance increase sharply → greater likelihood of concession.

Limits Map (mini):

Terrorism and low‑tech escalation erode dominance; domestic and coalition politics can cap A’s escalatory options.

Chapter 4: Domestic Constraints on Coercion

Summary:

Explores how U.S. democratic politics, casualty sensitivity, and public expectations shape—and often constrain—coercive strategy, creating exploitable vulnerabilities for adversaries.

Key Points:

Decisionmakers seek robust support by arguing high stakes, clear objectives, achievable success, and low costs.
Common constraints: restrictive objectives, tight ROE, exit strategies, force‑protection rules, coalition preferences.
Adversaries exploit these by diminishing stakes, tarnishing cause, dragging out conflict, and imposing casualties.

Theory Lens Map:

Public‑opinion and domestic‑politics model of coercive credibility (Larson’s expertise).
Democratic accountability as both asset and liability.

Cross-Cutting Themes:

Domestic constraints feed into adversary expectations about U.S. staying power and willingness to escalate.
Media and polling as part of the deterrence/coercion environment.

Coercion Logic Breakdown:

Domestic constraints shrink the feasible threat set, lowering perceived credibility and enabling adversary counter‑coercion (e.g., Aideed).

Limits Map (mini):

U.S. can partially offset constraints with low‑casualty tools (air power, unmanned systems) but may inadvertently signal lack of resolve.

Chapter 5: Coercion and Coalitions

Summary:

Analyzes how conducting coercive operations via coalitions affects objectives, escalation, and signaling. Coalitions bring legitimacy and access but constrain targeting and timelines and introduce shared-control problems.

Key Points:

Divergent preferences among coalition members often block robust escalation (e.g., Bosnia prior to 1995).
Coalitions can be exploited by adversaries to split partners or provoke backlash (Iraq 1993 incidents).
Air power, with fewer coalition assets at risk, becomes the default coalition instrument and a way to preserve unity.

Theory Lens Map:

Principal–agent and collective‑action problems applied to coercive diplomacy.

Cross-Cutting Themes:

Legitimacy vs freedom of action trade‑off.
Extended deterrence and reassurance of allies via protective air missions (e.g., Scud hunt for Israel).

Coercion Logic Breakdown:

Effective coercion requires aligning coalition members’ risk tolerances and preferred outcomes; misalignment → noisy or inconsistent signals.

Limits Map (mini):

Shared command structures and consensus requirements impose ceilings on the scale, timing, and nature of air operations (Bosnia command chart).

Chapter 6: Coercing Nonstate Actors – A Challenge for the Future

Summary:

Examines missions involving warlords and terrorist groups, arguing that while air power can play useful roles, nonstate adversaries present especially acute challenges to coercion.

Key Points:

Two main mission types: coercing local warlords directly and coercing state sponsors of nonstate actors.
Distinct characteristics: lack of targetable assets, poor intelligence, weak internal control, difficulties with indirect coercion, and adept counter‑coercion.
Nonstate actors can exploit domestic and international opinion and restrictive ROE (Somalia, Hezbollah).

Theory Lens Map:

Nonstate coercion framed as extension of general 3+3 framework with each challenge magnified.

Cross-Cutting Themes:

Trade‑off between humanitarian objectives and coercive uses of force.
Adversary propaganda and legitimacy as central to coercive outcomes.

Coercion Logic Breakdown:

Difficulty holding anything meaningful at risk → weaker denial/punishment levers; strong motivation and propaganda amplify resilience.

Limits Map (mini):

Even well‑executed air campaigns may not overcome diffuse organization, deep grievances, and lack of central authority.

Section 6.3: Characteristics of Coercive Operations Against Nonstate Actors

Summary:

Explicit bullet list of distinctive challenges: lack of targetable assets, intelligence gaps, weak control over constituents, problematic indirect coercion, and adept counter‑measures.

Key Points:

Illustrates each through Somalia, Chechnya, Hezbollah, and bin Laden examples.
Shows how standard coercion levers (territory, infrastructure, forces) often don’t bite.

Theory Lens Map:

Extends rationalist model to organizations with different resource and control structures.

Coercion Logic Breakdown:

Traditional coercive threats (territory, infrastructure) do not align with what nonstate actors value or depend on → low coercive leverage.

Limits Map (mini):

High risk of backfire and radicalization when working with local enemies of the nonstate actor.

Chapter 7: Implications and Recommendations for the USAF

Summary:

Synthesizes findings into USAF‑specific guidance, detailing how airpower can support escalation dominance, denial, and third‑party threat magnification while coping with domestic, coalition, and nonstate challenges. Emphasizes need for restraint and political savvy.

Key Points:

Airpower offers powerful escalatory options but must be used to manage adversary escalation options, not just to destroy targets.
Technological advances—UAVs, PGMs, unmanned systems, information warfare—can mitigate domestic and coalition constraints but also risk signaling low resolve.
Introduces coercive paradox and warns against overuse in low‑stakes crises.

Theory Lens Map:

Normative application of 3+3 framework to force‑planning and doctrine.

Cross-Cutting Themes:

Integration of political and technological considerations.
Recognition that adversary characteristics and stakes may matter more than any particular coercive tool.

Coercion Logic Breakdown:

Design campaigns to:
- Enhance escalation dominance (including by overcoming political ceilings).
- Deny adversary military strategies where possible.
- Amplify credible third‑party threats without losing control.

Limits Map (mini):

Airpower’s denial and third‑party roles are limited against nonconventional strategies and nonstate threats; technological fixes can’t overcome fundamentally unfavorable political conditions.

🧱 Limits Typology (Coercion-Specific)

Information Limits
- Persistent intelligence gaps about adversary values, strategy, and internal politics.
Capability Limits
- Physical inability to strike relevant targets (e.g., dispersed guerrillas, protected leadership).
Political Limits – Domestic
- Casualty aversion; tight ROE; exit dates; resistance to open‑ended commitments.
Political Limits – Coalition
- Need for consensus; divergent risk tolerances; host‑nation basing constraints.
Normative/Legal Limits
- Humanitarian law and legitimacy; difficulty maintaining impartiality in peace operations once coercive force is used.
Organizational Limits (Target)
- Fragmented authority, weak command, or decentralized networks make compliance technically hard or impossible.
Strategic Adaptation Limits
- Adversaries shift tactics to exploit U.S. strengths/weaknesses (urban terrain, human shields, terrorism).
Backfire Risk
- Coercion strengthens enemy legitimacy, radicalizes population, or undermines humanitarian missions (Somalia, Lebanon).

📏 Measures of Effectiveness (MoE)

Author’s critique of standard MoE:

Binary success/failure coding ignores marginal effects, backfires, and probability shifts.

Implied MoE set for SAASS use:

Behavioral Compliance Spectrum
- Full compliance with demands
- Partial / delayed compliance
- Tactical concessions only
- Null effect
- Backfire (increased defiance, strengthened adversary)
Change in Adversary Strategy
- Evidence of abandoned or modified campaign plans (e.g., curtailed offensive, reduced shelling).
Escalation Dynamics
- Ability to escalate or de‑escalate without undesired counters; maintenance of escalation dominance.
Coalition and Domestic Support
- Sustained or improved public/ally support before, during, after campaign.
Third-Party Effects
- Impact on behavior of allies, local partners, and rival factions (e.g., strengthened insurgents or moderates?).

🤷‍♂️ Actors & Perspectives (Strategic Empathy)

U.S. Leadership – Balances security interests, domestic politics, coalition management, and reputational concerns. Often prefers “limited” air options to avoid casualties yet still “do something.”
Adversary Regimes – Care about survival, internal legitimacy, and long‑term strategic goals; may discount U.S. threats due to perceived political constraints and lack of vital stakes for the U.S.
Nonstate Actors – Driven by ideological, nationalist, or survival motives; often see resisting outsiders as path to legitimacy; may value martyrdom, making punishment and risk strategies less effective.
Allies & Coalition Partners – Seek burden sharing, legitimacy, and avoidance of entrapment; prefer low‑risk participation (airpower, basing) over high‑risk ground deployments.
Local Populations – Can swing between supporting coercer, remaining neutral, or rallying to targeted actors, heavily influenced by civilian casualties, propaganda, and humanitarian conditions.

🕰 Timeline of Major Events (Representative Cases)

(Approximate; focus on coercive airpower episodes emphasized in the book)

1950–53 – Korean War: U.S. air and nuclear threats contribute to armistice and acceptance of division.
1962 – Cuban Missile Crisis: U.S. escalation dominance (nuclear) underpins successful blockade and Soviet withdrawal.
1965–73 – Vietnam Air Campaigns: Rolling Thunder, Linebacker; mixed coercive results; denial effective against conventional operations but limited against broader North Vietnamese war aims.
1975 – Iraq vs Kurds: Iranian‑backed Kurds plus U.S. support magnify third‑party threat and eventually coerce Baghdad to compromise.
1982 – Falklands War: British air–sea denial of Argentina’s strategy helps compel surrender despite limited ability to threaten Argentine homeland.
1990–91 – Operation Desert Storm: Massive air campaign facilitates escalation dominance and denial of Iraqi strategy, compelling withdrawal from Kuwait.
1993 – Somalia: Air/heli strikes against Aideed backfire, strengthening his legitimacy and undermining mission.
1993–96 – Israeli Air Operations vs Hezbollah: Punishment and indirect coercion largely backfire, boosting Hezbollah support.
1995 – Operation Deliberate Force: NATO airpower, combined with Croat/Muslim offensive, exemplifies successful blend of escalation dominance, denial, and third‑party magnification.

📖 Historiographical Context

Builds on Schelling (coercion vs brute force, salience, escalation) but insists on spectrum measures and multidimensional success conditions rather than elegant but thin models.
Engages Pape by adopting his denial concept but rejecting the idea that denial is the only effective air strategy; instead, denial is one pillar among three.
Echoes George & Simons in focusing on coercive diplomacy and contextual judgment rather than universal rules.
Offers early corrective to Warden-style system‑centric airpower theory, emphasizing adversary adaptation and the limits of infrastructure targeting.
Connects with public opinion literature (Larson, Jentleson) by explicitly modeling domestic support and casualty sensitivity as integral to coercive credibility.

🧩 Frameworks & Methods

Conceptual Framework:
- Coercion modeled with cost–benefit logic, but with emphasis on dynamic interaction, partial outcomes, and backfire.
- Three success factors + three challenge dimensions yield a 3×3 analytical grid.
Case Method:
- Structured, focused comparison of major crises over 50 years, with appendices coding conditions and challenges for each case.
Spectrum Coding:
- Conditions like escalation dominance and intelligence quality measured along a spectrum from strongly positive to strongly negative (exemplified in Deliberate Force table).
USAF-Oriented Normative Analysis:
- Final chapter translates analytic findings into capability and doctrine recommendations (UAVs, PGMs, information warfare, denial capabilities).

🔄 Learning Over Time

Adversary Learning:
- Adversaries have learned to avoid conventional strategies vulnerable to air denial and to exploit U.S. domestic and coalition constraints.
U.S. Learning:
- Shift from punishment-focused strategic bombing to more denial-based, precision operations and integration with ground and third‑party forces (Desert Storm, Deliberate Force).
- Growing reliance on “low‑risk” airpower for politically constrained missions (Somalia, Bosnia, Iraq no‑fly zones).
Institutional Learning:
- USAF adaptation toward technological solutions for casualty and collateral-damage constraints (UAVs, PGMs, standoff weapons).

🧐 Critical Reflections

Strengths:
- Integrates coercion theory with detailed airpower cases and domestic/coalition politics.
- Offers a realistic, non‑doctrinaire view: airpower can coerce, but only sometimes and only under certain conditions.
- Anticipates later struggles with terrorism, WMD proliferation, and humanitarian intervention.
Limitations:
- Still largely rationalist; cultural, emotional, and identity-based drivers are acknowledged but not theorized deeply.
- U.S.-centric perspective; less exploration of how adversaries conceptualize coercion doctrineally.
- Coding of cases into the 3+3 framework may oversimplify multi‑causal historical episodes (classic RAND trade‑off).
SAASS Angle:
- Excellent bridge reading that connects Schelling, Pape, and Jentleson; particularly useful for critiquing airpower‑centric theories of victory.

⚔️ Comparative Insights (vs Other 628 Readings)

vs Schelling:
- Byman et al. operationalize Schelling’s concepts in modern air campaigns and stress domestic/coalition ceilings that Schelling mostly treats as exogenous.
vs Pape (Bombing to Win):
- Pape: denial is essentially the only working coercive strategy; airpower alone rarely succeeds.
- Byman et al.: denial is vital but joined by escalation dominance and third‑party threats; more optimistic about airpower under favorable conditions, more pessimistic when conditions are bad.
vs Warden & “Effects-Based Operations”:
- Warden: systemic strategic paralysis via air strikes.
- Byman et al.: warn that system attacks often fail because adversaries adapt and may not depend on modern infrastructure; “system” vulnerability is highly variable.
vs George & Simons / Jentleson:
- Extend coercive‑diplomacy insights with structured airpower analysis and detailed domestic opinion data.
- Affirm Jentleson’s findings about conditional public support; show how those conditions shape coercive credibility.

✍️ Key Terms / Acronyms (Quick Reference)

USAF – United States Air Force
ROE – Rules of Engagement
WMD – Weapons of Mass Destruction
UAV – Unmanned Aerial Vehicle
Escalation Dominance – Ability to raise costs while preventing adversary from counterescalating.
Denial Strategy – Coercion via thwarting adversary’s military strategy and perceived benefits.
Third‑Party Threat Magnification – Using force to change the balance so others threaten the adversary more.
Feasibility Challenge – When adversary structurally cannot implement the demanded change.
Coercive Paradox – Greater coercive strength leads adversaries to prepare better, often reducing observed success.

❓ Open Questions (Instructor Focus Questions)

Under what conditions can airpower alone (without ground operations) generate effective denial coercion?
How should the U.S. weigh the risk of backfire when designing coercive strategies, especially against nonstate actors?
Do modern authoritarian regimes face domestic constraints comparable to U.S. democracies, or does asymmetry in constraints structurally favor adversary counter‑coercion?
How might the “coercive paradox” apply to future great‑power competitors who have studied U.S. air campaigns in Iraq and the Balkans?
In what ways does third‑party threat magnification blur the line between coercion and proxy warfare?
How should measures of effectiveness for coercion be structured in real operations given the authors’ critique of binary success metrics?
Does Byman et al.’s framework imply that certain crisis types should never rely on coercive airpower as the main tool?

🗂 Notable Quotes & Thoughts

(All kept under 25 words)

“The true object of coercion…is the change in behavior sought, not the destruction of particular targets.”
“Successful coercive strategies not only build upon the three success factors but avoid common pitfalls in intelligence, credibility, and feasibility.”
“The more formidable air power becomes, the more likely adversaries are to be prepared for it.”
“Viewing success in absolute terms ignores the positive probability that the adversary would have complied even without additional coercion.”
“Air power’s greatest impact on successful coercion may not even be observed.”
“Nonstate actors often prove more resilient than expected with respect to seemingly vulnerable assets or nodes.”

🧾 Final-Paper Hooks

“Escalation Dominance in Practice” – Compare Byman et al.’s escalation dominance to Schelling/Kahn across cases (Cuba, Korea, Desert Storm, Deliberate Force); test how domestic constraints alter predicted outcomes.
“Denial and Beyond: Revisiting Pape” – Use the 3+3 framework to reassess Pape’s Bombing to Win cases; argue for or against his denial‑only thesis.
“The Coercive Paradox in the Drone Age” – Extend Byman’s paradox to modern UAV and precision‑strike regimes; analyze how adversaries adapt (ISIS, Taliban, Houthis).
“Coercing Nonstate Actors: Limits of Airpower” – Compare Somalia, Hezbollah, and post‑2001 campaigns to evaluate when, if ever, airpower can effectively coerce nonstate groups.
“Domestic Politics as Center of Gravity” – Use Larson’s domestic‑constraint chapter with Jentleson/Mueller readings to build a theory of how U.S. public opinion shapes coercive credibility.
“Third‑Party Threat Magnification and Proxy Warfare” – Explore whether magnifying third‑party threats is sustainable or destabilizing; engage literature on proxy warfare and civil wars.
“Coalitions and Coercion: NATO Then and Now” – Use Bosnia and Iraq as baselines to analyze current NATO coercive operations, testing authors’ claims about shared control and legitimacy constraints.