Damned If They Do, Damned If They Don’t: The Assurance Dilemma in International Coercion

The concept of coercive assurance is an understudied type of commitment problem in the coercion literature. Coercers must assure their target that their threats are conditional on the target’s behavior. Even highly credible and severe threats can fail when the coercer’s assurance is not credible. A novel theory, the assurance dilemma, helps to answer important questions about coercion failure. The case of coercive bargaining over the Iranian nuclear program demonstrates the logic and effectiveness of the use of assurance.