The Credibility Of Compulsory Diplomacy

Coercive diplomacy is a very important foreign policy, which is often favored by countries, especially when there is a tension or crisis in their relations. During the Berlin Crisis of 1948-1949 and 1958-1961, two heads of the Soviet Union, attempting to protect its position, security, and national interests in Berlin and even in Eastern European, all resorted to coercive diplomacy to the western Occupation Powers led by America. During the First Berlin Crisis, the Soviet Union coerced the three Occupation Powers to revoke the circulation of B Mark and postpone and even give up their plan to divide Germany by blocking the land route to Berlin. In the Second Berlin Crisis, it issued several ultimatums to force the three countries to agree to turn the West Berlin into a demilitarized and free city and sign a peace treaty with Germany. This entire sort of foreign policies failed. There are many reasons for these failures, the Soviet Union failed to make the West believe that it has enough power to implement what it has threatened. The west also questioned whether the Soviet Union had a much bigger motivation and resolution to safeguard its interests in the disputing place than theirs. The Soviet Union also failed to convince the west that what it threatened would generate unacceptable consequence, and they didn’t believe compliance would bring larger interests than their previous confrontational measures. In other words, the Soviet Union lacked enough political, economic, and military power to support its coercive diplomacy, and it also failed to create a motivational asymmetry which benefits itself and convey its resolution and volition to defend its interests and fulfill its promise. In one word, the failure of its coercive diplomacy resulted from its lack of credibility. This thesis considers that although coercive diplomacy has many advantages, its success is constrained by plentiful factors. The core of coercive diplomacy is a psychological warfare between disputing countries. It always has fraudulence. Therefore, the key of its success is to enhance the credibility of coercive diplomacy.