The centrality of military coercion in contemporary Western crisis and
conflict management constitutes a major policy problem because the
United States and its allies are poor at translating their overwhelming
military superiority into adversary compliance. The standard explanation
provided by coercion theorists is that coercion is hard and that
miscalculation, misperception, or practical problems can defeat even a
perfectly executed strategy. What they ignore is that the problem also
stems from the limits of coercion theory, which has left us with an
unnecessarily poor understanding of how military coercion works and
how the practical problems involved could be addressed. Our understanding
of military coercion would be increased markedly if only coercion
theorists would make a greater efforts to do three things, namely
(1) provide clear operational definitions of key concepts and variables,
(2) engage in systematic and rigorous empirical analysis of generally
accepted propositions, and (3) seek to provide solutions to the many
policy problems that coercion theorists have identified to date. These
simple steps would enhance the degree of cumulativity within the field,
provide the principal theoretical propositions with a firmer empirical
foundation and make military coercion theory more useful for policy
makers.