Martina Sprague
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Apr 24 2026
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In the months main as much as the transient however violent 12-Day War in June 2025, when U.S. and Israeli strikes focused Iranian nuclear websites, Tehran quietly however steadily crossed essential nuclear thresholds. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported that, by May 17, 2025, Irans stockpile had reached 408.6 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60 p.c purity. This didn’t signify a marginal improve however marked a pointy and deliberate acceleration from earlier within the 12 months, leaving the regime solely a brief step away from weapons-grade functionality (Al Jazeera 2025). What makes this surge essential is that it unfolded whereas diplomats tried to proceed negotiations to finish Irans nuclear ambitions (European Parliamentary Research Service 2025).
Irans expanded operations and deployment of superior centrifuges at key amenities, comparable to Natanz and Fordow, have been considerably decreasing the breakout time required to supply a nuclear weapon (Psaropoulos 2025). Yet the nuclear program shaped just one dimension of a broader strategic posture. Tehran had additionally expanded its regional attain, pairing advances in missile know-how with sustained assist for accomplice militias in Yemen, Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria. Through these efforts, it projected affect throughout the Middle East with notable consistency. Decades of heavy sanctions, extended diplomatic isolation, and intermittent negotiations designed to curb these actions had finished little to sluggish this trajectory previous to the 12-day battle (Atlantic Council 2024).
When we have a look at these traits collectively, they level to a basic query in worldwide safety: why has the continual utility of coercive strain did not generate lasting strategic restraint inside the Iranian management? This article proposes a theoretical refinement of how we view coercive diplomacy, contending that failure stems not from an absence of strain, however from a persistent credibility deficit concerning the goal regimes survival. It suggests a must combine insights from comparative authoritarian politics into the research of nuclear decision-making. Classical frameworks are inclined to deal with coercion as a comparatively straight ahead bargaining interplay between states, emphasizing credibility, signaling, and price imposition, whereas rational fashions usually assume that unitary actors will reply to exterior incentives. However, a rising physique of scholarship means that international coverage is regularly filtered by way of the messy actuality of home buildings and the survival instincts of the ruling elite.
Drawing on the works ofBruce Bueno de MesquitaandJessica L. P. Weeks, this text argues that we can not really grasp coercive outcomes if we ignore the interior constraints that bind political leaders. By evaluating the trajectories of Iran, Iraq, North Korea, and Libya, we are able to see clear and recurring patterns in how regimes react to exterior strain. Rather than treating these as remoted occasions, this text makes use of them to refine concept by demonstrating that regime survival assurance operates as a non-negotiable situation for efficient coercion (Ameli 2026). Stripped to its necessities, the argument is that coercive diplomacy is doomed to fail the second {that a} goal regime views compliance as a path to its personal destruction as a substitute of a path to safety.
Beyond the Four Pillars
For many years, coercive diplomacyor the artwork of utilizing sticks and carrots to vary an adversarys conduct with out beginning a full-scale warhas been the go-to instrument for U.S. international coverage. Classical concept says that this works when 4 pillars are in place: threats should be credible, calls for should be clear, aims must be restricted, and the incentives should be significant (Jakobsen 1998, 54). But the Iranian case demonstrates that these 4 pillars aren’t sufficient to carry the burden of existential stakes. Even below intense strain and substantial incentives, an authoritarian regime will virtually all the time select resistance if it believes that concessions may set off elite fragmentation, a palace coup, or a preferred rebellion.
This represents a essential hole in how we take into consideration coercive diplomacy. To deal with this hole, a fifth pillar proposes that the goal state should be satisfied that complying with calls for won’t outcome within the overthrow of the ruling elite. Without this assurance, coercive methods are inclined to backfire, hardening resistance as a substitute of encouraging compromise. This creates a safety dilemma, the place sanctions and threats meant to safe worldwide stability as a substitute make the goal regime really feel so existentially susceptible that it views nuclearization as its solely rational defend. This fifth pillar is rooted within the inside logic of authoritarian governance. Power in such programs is concentrated amongst a slender coalition of political leaders, safety officers, and navy elites. These actors should repeatedly handle each exterior threats and inside vulnerabilities. In these extremely centralized states, the notion of power usually carries as a lot weight as materials functionality. When leaders interpret sanctions and diplomatic strain as instruments designed to weaken them forward of regime change, they’ll conclude that resistance affords the safer path to survival.
Comparative Lessons from Iraq, North Korea, and Libya
History gives some brutal reminders of this dynamic. Take Iraq. The 1991 Gulf War demonstrated that coercion can work when the navy menace is overwhelming and the objective (getting Iraq out of Kuwait) is slender (Alterman 2003, 277). But as soon as the battle ended, the sanctions program provided no credible assure that Saddam Hussein can be allowed to stay in energy if he cooperated. Saddam Hussein ultimately noticed the nuclear inspections as a precursor to his personal execution, main him to decide on strategic defiance over transparency and cooperation.
North Korea affords an analogous story. The 1994 Agreed Framework briefly paused Pyongyangs nuclear ambitions in trade for vitality support and a transfer towards normalization. But because the implementation grew shaky and the North Korean management started to doubt their long-term safety, they went again to the drafting board. Every diplomatic effort since then has hit the identical wall: how you can supply a regime safety with out showing to reward a dictator (Park 2012, 189-218).
Then there’s Libya, the case that seemingly haunts Tehran essentially the most. In 2003, Muammar Gaddafi agreed to scrap his Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) packages in trade for getting again into the worlds good graces. At the time, it appeared like a win for diplomacy as a result of the deal was framed as a profit to the elite (Kerr 2004). But the 2011 intervention that culminated in Gaddafis overthrow and loss of life modified the narrative. For the Iranian management, the Libya Model just isn’t a hit story however a warning that giving up your nukes is a one-way ticket to vulnerability.
This worry could also be additional bolstered by a parallel state of affairs in Ukraine. The Iranian management has seemingly famous that Ukraine, which relinquished its nuclear arsenal below the Budapest Memorandum of 1994, ultimately confronted a full-scale invasion. This, in flip, has cemented the assumption that solely a nuclear deterrent, and never worldwide legislation, ensures sovereignty. These instances collectively counsel that profitable coercive diplomacy just isn’t primarily based merely on successfully utilized strain. Target regimes should additionally understand that compliance as strategically protected.
Irans Strategic Calculus and the Fragility of Nuclear Diplomacy
Iran affords a transparent illustration of how political centralization and deep-seated distrust can paralyze diplomacy. The Islamic Republic organizes political authority across the Supreme Leader and reinforces it by way of highly effective establishments such because the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which holds huge sway over the financial system and the navy (Majidyar 2018). This construction enhances regime resilience towards exterior shocks however creates excessive prices for the management. For the Supreme Leader, the IRGC represents a essential inside viewers that views compromise as a menace to its financial and ideological pursuits. Giving in to Western strain is a large political threat that may sign weak spot, set off infighting among the many elite, or give native rivals an opportunity to strike.
The historical past of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) captures each the potential and fragility of coercive diplomacy. For a time, the settlement appeared to validate the effectiveness of coercive diplomacy. Iran accepted constraints on its nuclear program in trade for financial reintegration. But the U.S. withdrawal from the settlement in 2018 undermined the credibility of those commitments (Holmes 2025). From Tehrans perspective, this reversal demonstrated that compliance doesn’t assure both reciprocity or long-term stability. This led to a strategic pivot the place Iran started chopping its ties to the settlement, ramping up enrichment, and locking out inspectors (Loft and Mills 2025). Iran additionally doubled down on its regional proxy technique. While the West sees these teams as a menace to stability, the Iranian regime views them as a ahead protection meant to maintain a possible battle away from Iranian soil (Kam 2021).
Furthermore, whereas classical bargaining fashions assume that the goal state finally wishes reintegration into the liberal worldwide order, the emergence of a strong Russia-China-Iran axis means that Tehran is not looking for a seat at a Western-led desk. Instead, it’s actively constructing a counter-hegemonic various (Middle East Council 2023). When a goal regime efficiently pivots its commerce and safety dependencies towards various great-power patrons, the sticks of Western diplomacy lose their kinetic vitality, and the carrots lose their perceived worth. This structural shift signifies that the strain meant to pressure a alternative between regime collapse and compliance has as a substitute catalyzed resilience and decoupling, the place the regime finds safety not by way of worldwide legislation however by way of systemic realignment.
Beyond the instant survival instincts of the elite, the Iranian case illustrates a course of the place many years of coercive strain forge home buildings which can be essentially optimized for defiance. Having invested many years of capital into clandestine procurement networks, the Iranian state has developed a large bureaucratic equipment for the principle function of managing exterior strain. A profitable diplomatic decision, then, just isn’t a strategic victory, however an existential menace to the regimes institutional relevance.
A dimension that sharpens this evaluation lies within the temporal credibility of coercive commitments. Much of the literature treats credibility as a operate of instant signaling; that’s, whether or not threats might be carried out or incentives delivered. But in protracted rivalries comparable to that between Iran and the United States, credibility turns into inherently intertemporal. Regimes don’t consider affords in a single bargaining second, however as a substitute assess the sturdiness of commitments throughout electoral cycles, management transitions, and shifting geopolitical alignments. From Tehrans vantage level, the collapse of the JCPOA was not merely a failed settlement however some extent in an extended sample of strategic volatility. This introduces an inconstancy in time with respect to coercion. Even if present policymakers intend to uphold assurances, goal regimes low cost these guarantees if future leaders can simply reverse them later (Fearon 1995, 401; Powell 2006, 169-203). This, in flip, reinforces the logic that irreversible concessions, comparable to dismantling nuclear infrastructure, are strategically irrational.
This temporal drawback additionally interacts with a deeper structural problem, specifically the asymmetry between reversible and irreversible actions in coercive diplomacy. While the United States can re-impose sanctions shortly and withdraw political commitments with relative ease, a nuclear rollback in Iran, significantly at superior levels of technological growth, would seemingly entail irreversible losses in functionality, data, and deterrent potential. This asymmetry creates an imbalance, the place the coercing state retains flexibility whereas the goal state bears the long-term dangers of compliance. For authoritarian regimes, whose survival is dependent upon sustaining each inside cohesion and exterior deterrence, this imbalance is very acute. In Irans case, dismantling components of its nuclear program wouldn’t merely sign cooperation, however would additionally materially constrain its future strategic choices in an setting that it perceives as essentially unsure and adversarial. Thus, even well-designed coercive methods are inclined to falter once they fail to handle this structural asymmetry. A sturdy answer would require not solely credible assurances of regime survival, however mechanisms that extra evenly distribute threat over time. This is an exceedingly troublesome activity, but one which sits on the coronary heart of why coercive diplomacy so usually struggles in a high-stakes proliferation disaster.
Addressing Alternative Explanations
Some analysts could argue that coercive diplomacy has failed in Iran as a result of poor implementation slightly than theoretical limitations. From this attitude, inconsistent signaling, inadequate incentives, or shifting political priorities within the United States clarify the breakdown of negotiations. Others could contend that Irans ideological orientation makes it uniquely proof against coercion. While these explanations seize essential components of the issue, they continue to be incomplete. Implementation failures and ideological components can not absolutely account for the constant cross-case sample noticed in Iraq, North Korea, and Libya. In every case, regime conduct aligned intently with perceptions of survival threat, no matter ideological variations or variations in coverage execution. This means that the core problem lies not solely in how coercion is utilized, however in how it’s perceived by regimes whose main goal is survival.
A historic parallel in a distinct setting may be drawn to Japans assault on Pearl Harbor in 1941. The oil embargo imposed by the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands threatened the soundness of the Japanese Empire by chopping off entry to essential sources. Although Japan acknowledged that attacking Pearl Harbor can be a high-risk gamble, its leaders judged that failing to answer the embargo would seemingly outcome within the empires collapse inside a couple of years (Pape 2026). Thus, in an analogous approach to the specter of regime change in Iran, the oil embargo threatened the very survival of the regime in Japan. Withdrawing from China or French Indochina within the hope of lifting the embargo was not thought of a viable possibility for Japan, because of the humiliation and political collapse it might seemingly trigger.
Rethinking the Strategy
The deeper problem to coercive diplomacy in Iran lies not solely within the psychology of regime survival but additionally within the construction of the worldwide system itself. As great-power competitors intensifies, the credibility of U.S.-led coercion erodes when adversaries discover various sources of political, financial, and navy assist. Structural realists comparable to Kenneth Waltz remind us that the worldwide order circumstances state conduct extra profoundly than bilateral strain does. States search safety and never merely reassurance in a self-help system (Joyner 2013). For Iran, the emergence of a multi-polar world, anchored by Chinas financial leverage and Russias willingness to defy Western sanctions, creates a permissive setting for resistance. This underscores that coercive diplomacy at this time operates not in isolation however inside a geopolitical market the place assurances and alignments offset deterrent prices.
Iran, not like smaller authoritarian regimes, possesses sufficient strategic depth to stability between main powers, bargaining for survival whereas exploiting systemic fragmentation. This equilibrium dynamic reduces vulnerability, makes coercion much less credible, and strengthens the logic of nuclear latency as a hedging technique. From a theoretical standpoint, understanding coercive failure thus requires a dual-level mannequin that integrates regime survival instincts (home degree) with systemic incentives for defiance (worldwide degree). Diplomacy falters not merely as a result of Tehran fears for its regime, however as a result of the worldwide construction more and more affords it viable escape routes. Recognizing this intersection marks an important step towards extra adaptive and theoretically grounded approaches to nonproliferation.
Against this backdrop, the Iranian case underscores the necessity to rethink coercive diplomacy past a slender deal with strain and incentives, sticks and carrots. While credible threats stay important, policymakers should pair them with credible, institutionalized assurances that compliance won’t jeopardize regime survival. This doesn’t require abandoning sanctions or deterrence. Rather, it calls for recalibrating technique to align exterior aims with inside political realities.
Within such a recalibrated framework, a number of design rules change into essential. First, policymakers ought to hyperlink sanctions to small, verifiable milestones. This method permits each side to understand tangible advantages whereas decreasing the dangers related to massive, irreversible concessions. Second, they need to design incentives that may face up to political transitions in Western governments. Mechanisms comparable to multilateral agreements or institutional ensures can assist mitigate the danger of abrupt coverage reversals. Third, consistency is essential. If the coverage shifts each 4 years with the election of a brand new president and congress within the United States, no adversary will belief the peace of mind of survival. Finally, communication performs a central function. Signaling by way of institutional channels that the target is behavioral change slightly than regime change could scale back existential fears that drive resistance. While such assurances are inherently troublesome to ensure, their absence considerably reduces the chance of profitable coercive diplomacy.
Closing Thoughts
Coercive diplomacy stays a central instrument of worldwide statecraft, significantly in efforts to handle nuclear proliferation. The failure to restrain Iran doesn’t mirror an absence of strain; it displays a failure to account for the interior logic that governs state conduct. No regime will willingly commerce away a strategic functionality if it believes that doing so invitations its personal collapse. Introducing the idea of a fifth pillar representing regime survival assurance helps clarify why years of coercion have failed to supply sturdy restraint. Regimes modify their conduct once they understand compliance as protected; they resist once they understand it as existentially threatening. The central problem for policymakers lies not in intensifying strain alone, however in reconciling exterior safety aims with the interior survival imperatives of goal regimes. Without this alignment, coercive methods will proceed to fall quick, leaving underlying conflicts unresolved and rising the chance of future confrontation.
These implications attain far past the borders of Iran. Without incorporating regime survival into coercive technique, future nuclear crises are prone to observe related trajectories of escalation and distrust. For students, they function reminders that worldwide safety concept is incomplete with out the nuance of comparative politics. For policymakers, they illuminate a irritating paradox: methods designed to compel behavioral change usually persuade goal regimes that compliance carries higher threat than defiance. Without resolving this rigidity, coercive diplomacy will proceed to fall quick, leaving underlying conflicts unresolved and rising the chance of future confrontation.
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Further Reading on E-International Relations
- Iran at a Historical Crossroads
- Iran at War: Deterrence, National Identity, and Existential Stakes
- The US-Iran-China Nexus: Towards a New Strategic Alignment
- Sanctions as Violence
- US Sanctions towards Iran and Their Implications for the Indo-Pacific
- Irans Nuclear Ambitions below the Shah and Ayatollahs: Strikingly Analogous however More Dangerous
About The Author(s)
Martina Spragueholds a PhD in International Relations and is the writer ofSwedish Volunteers within the Russo-Finnish Winter War, 1939-1940(McFarland 2010). Her scholarship examines alliance dynamics, strategic decision-making, and the evolving conduct of safety cooperation in up to date statecraft. Drawing on each historic and trendy case research, her work explores how states navigate shifting menace environments, stability nationwide pursuits with collective protection commitments, and adapt political discourse in instances of geopolitical change. Her analysis contributes to broader debates on safety coverage, civil-military relations, and the function of alliances in an more and more multi-polar world.
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