The Problem with "Mixed" Strategies: Revisiting Libya's Decision to Give Up its Nuclear Program

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It is an article of faith among policy practitioners and scholars alike that an optimal strategy of coercive diplomacy mixes both sticks and carrots ("mixed" strategies). Yet scholars have left this assumption mostly untested. Despite a voluminous literature on economic sanctions and military coercion (and a smaller one on positive inducements), these tools are almost always treated in isolation.

Libya's decision to give up its nuclear weapons ambitions has been interpreted by most observers as support for the idea that mixed strategies are good policy. Although they disagree over which particular tools of influence were most important, most agree that some mixture of coercion and inducements explains Gaddafi's decision to disarm.

This is not, however, supported by the evidence. Efforts to make the threat of sanctions more credible led U.S. policymakers to forgo diplomacy and avoid offers of positive inducements, even as Tripoli repeatedly signaled its willingness to compromise, out of concern that diplomacy could be used by the Libyans to exploit the vulnerabilities of the sanctions regime. The result was a series of missed opportunities for engagement. Ultimately, the United States turned to an inducement-based strategy only after the sanctions regime had collapsed.

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