While campaigning for the US elections, American President Donald Trump had promised his voter base that he would end the Ukraine war within 24 hours of being sworn in. Initial outreach to the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, felt like magic to Trump’s ears. In one of the first calls to Putin, Trump was confident of stopping this deadly war of attrition. Ukraine and Europe felt betrayed when they were left behind in direct talks with Russia. Trump even put immense pressure on Ukraine to come to the table, to resolve the conflict, on Russian terms, to the extent of humiliating the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in the White House.
Months have passed now. The chances of an easy resolution to the conflict seem surreal. Trump has grown frustrated over his inability to compel Russia and Ukraine to resolve the conflict. Multiple phone calls with Putin have added to his frustration. Speaking to one reporter, he said, ‘[I am] very disappointed with President Putin, and I thought he was somebody that meant what he said. And, he will talk so beautifully and then bomb people at night. We don’t like that.’ However variable and transient his stance on whether to supply Ukraine with weapons has been, Trump seems to be reifying former US president Joe Biden’s approach recently— bracing Ukraine with weapons over diplomacy with Russia. Recently, in a dramatic shift, it has been reported that he asked Zelenskyy if the latter could ‘hit deep inside Russia.’ Moreover, Trump issued a 50-day ultimatum to Russia to resolve the war; otherwise, 100 per cent of secondary tariffs would follow.
These moves are aimed at compelling Russia to come to the table to resolve the conflict early. However, compellence is even more difficult than deterrence. In the Western parlance, the former refers to action or threat of action intended to make an adversary do something, while the latter refers to action or threat of action to prevent an adversary from doing what he intends to do. Thomas Schelling argues that deterrence tends to be indefinite, i.e. if the aggressor crosses the line, the defender would shoot. But, when? Whenever the aggressor crosses the threshold. In contrast, compellence has a definite timeline. ‘There has to be a deadline, otherwise tomorrow never comes. […] Too little time, and compliance becomes impossible; too much time, and compliance becomes unnecessary.’
However, looking at the Chinese or Russian approach to deterrence, such a distinction between the two concepts is missing. In the Russian approach, deterrence, compellence, and coercion are holistically integrated. At times, during the war, the idea of deterrence by punishment gets merged with compellence. The distinction between the two concepts gets fuzzy. The separation in such cases is made by looking at the distinction between operational (or tactical) and strategic levels. While the decision to strike inside Russia can be seen as deterrence by punishment at the tactical level (that is, to deter further territorial encroachment or attacks by punishing Russia), it can also be categorised under compellence at the strategic level (that is, compelling the actor to come to the negotiation table using the threat of punishment). Thus, the argument can be a double-edged sword. Despite these complexities in operationalising the concepts, having such distinctions for analytical purposes is useful.
It is explicit that Trump’s ultimatum is borne out of his frustration to wind up this ‘bloody war’. It constitutes ‘compellence’ to force Russia to resolve the conflict. However, preventing someone from doing something is relatively easier than compelling him to initiate a particular action. Compellence involves questions not only of ‘when’, but also ‘what’ and ‘how much’. Trump’s threat to Putin has the elements of ‘when’ and ‘what’ only, i.e. resolving war within 50 days. However, this compelling communication is vague in terms of understanding the complexities of demands being proposed by both sides in the conflict and assessing the duration that would take to resolve it entirely. For Schelling, coercive threat should be accompanied with assurances, too, i.e. ‘One more step and I shoot’ and ‘And if you stop I won’t.’ At the same time, making the intent to shoot appear inevitable gives the adversary no choice. At a juncture, where Russia has invested immense wherewithal and human resources in this war of attrition, such compelling threat (if being acquiesced to) would make Putin look succumbed to Western pressure in the eyes of his own people. That is why Schelling has opined that the ‘manner of threatened compliance must not entail costs in prestige, reputation, or self-respect that outweigh the threat.’ Moreover, assurances accompanying compelling threats are difficult to showcase in advance, especially when the compelling party has a record of not sticking to their words. On this note, Trump’s assurance (if any) would not be taken seriously in the Kremlin.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, though stressing that Russia prefers diplomacy over confrontation, said, ‘any attempts to make demands, especially in the form of ultimatums, are unacceptable to us.’ Former President Dmitry Medvedev added, ‘The world shuddered, expecting the consequences. Belligerent Europe was disappointed, Russia didn’t care.’ Likewise, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov affirmed that Russia will cope with any new sanctions. Moreover, in a show of defiance, Russia fired hundreds of drones, artillery and a ballistic missile at Ukraine. Compelling an adversary to do something, during an ongoing war or otherwise, had always been more challenging than preventing him from doing something. The strategy of compellence always faces the challenge of miscommunicating aims and threats. Compellence comes with a reputational cost, unlike deterrence. Issuing compelling threats to Russia— which is already bearing the brunt of war, from unfathomable sanctions, high troop casualties, high inflation, and declined productivity in the non-defence sector of the economy, to declined demography —would simply not work as intended.
[Photo by The White House, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons]
Anshu Kumar is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Russian and Central Asian Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, School of International Studies, JNU. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author.
