FPRI On Comprehensive Compellence

At the Foreign Policy Research Institute Frank G. Hoffman has an article calling for a policy of “comprehensive compellence”. Here is its opening:

The Biden administration has formulated a unprecedented response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The coordination of transatlantic diplomacy, including the condemnation of Russia at the United Nations and the implementation of a massive sanctions package, is truly impressive. The president’s recent request for an additional $33 billion from Congress in security, economic, and humanitarian aid for Ukraine demonstrates the seriousness of America’s commitment to European security.

While the White House should be applauded for its response to Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, this only tells part of the story. Indeed, none of these diplomatic initiatives would have been necessary had the United States and its allies successfully deterred Russia from attacking Ukraine in the first place. Deterrence failed because the United States and its allies signaled, in advance, that it was not prepared to apply direct military force in Ukraine. It did so because it was afraid of Vladimir Putin’s nuclear threats. America’s risk calculus was framed by the fear of nuclear escalation and Washington’s overestimation of Russian military power.

While initial efforts to deter Russia have failed, the West should now pursue a different approach. Rather than deterrence, the United States should focus on compellence. A comprehensive compellence strategy toward Russia would entail the focused integration of covert and overt military power, as well as a greater efforts to conduct information operations inside Russia to weaken Putin’s fragile political control.

The goal of such a strategy could be to force Putin to stop the war, not merely help Ukraine stave off defeat. It strives to achieve this by raising costs to Moscow beyond sanctions and political isolation. The strategy would help the West coalesce around the objective of ending the war in the near term, but also forcing a negotiated conclusion to hostilities that would be more advantageous to Ukrainian and Western interests. The West’s aim should be to ensure Putin suffers an operational failure, not accede to Russia’s subjugation of Ukraine or some tortured negotiated compromise.

He goes on to characterize the scope of what such a regime:

• Diplomatic and political
• Informational
• Military
• Economic
• Legal

I do have a couple of questions for Mr. Hoffmann:

1. Can he provide an example of how such a program has been used successfully used to deter a major power from anything? Of particular interest would be how such a program could be used to deter the U. S. from, say, invading Iraq or bombing Serbia or Libya.
2. How likely is such a program to succeed with in effect only the G7 participating? And with Germany refusing to do anything that might hurt Germany?

Finally, what is Russia response to such a program likely to be?