League Situation Type Test Coercive Diplomacy Behavior Analysis

Alliance has always been one of the core issues in the study of international politics, but its role in coercive diplomacy attracts less attention than expected in the academic community. Current researches on coercive diplomacy tend to marginalize the role of alliance.The object of this paper is to examine coercive diplomacy under alliance. In this new type, the coercer country turns to the threat of force or using of limited force in order to test an opposing alliance in terms of the resolve and scope of the commitments by members of the alliance. We call this this new type probing coercive diplomacy. Specifically, there are three choices of implementation strategy for probing coercive diplomacy:brink of war strategy,"cobra" strategy and coward game strategy. Through examining the1901Morocco crisis and the1939Czechoslovak crisis, the authors argue that the vital factors to the success of coercive diplomacy lie in environment and strategy. While environmental factors take into consideration the contrast in power, the importance of the undertaken country to its ally, to which extent for the two sides to endure a war and whether the probing target is in an asymmetric alliance, the strategic factor is comprised of proper moment, legitimizing self-behaviors and provide lure to compromise.