a settlement as long as that settlement offers the leader the chance to remain in power.
The problem with obtaining a bargaining agreement, however, is that policymakers may not want to bear the costs necessary to secure them. Whether the stronger state uses a costly signal to convince the target to concede, uses force to wear down the adversary’s will or ability to resist, or uses positive incentives to induce concessions, agreements can be costly for the side seeking change. Costly signals, for example, must be costly to the state making the threat to be effective.31 Targeted leaders understand that a less resolved adversary will tolerate moderately costly signals to achieve its aims at the bargaining table. Thus, in order to convince the target to back down, the state making the threat must mobilize a large army or take some other costly action to prove its determination to win at all costs.32 The same holds for the use of limited force and the offer of positive inducements. The more resolved the target is to remain in power, the more is required to obtain the target’s concessions.
The expense of an agreement typically goes beyond monetary costs. These expenses can also include political, diplomatic, opportunity, humanitarian, reputational, and military costs. Mobilizing an army, for example, could generate diplomatic costs by alienating the stronger state’s allies. For example, Vietnam’s relations with China deteriorated after Vietnam responded militarily to Cambodia’s border incursions in 1977.33 War-preparation measures could also prove unpopular at home.34 The fear of incurring domestic political costs kept both the Reagan and George H. W. Bush administrations from publicly threatening to use military force in Panama to oust Noriega.35 Maintaining foreign bases, allies, and weapons systems to ensure a credible military threat against a foreign leader can create opportunity costs by drawing resources away from domestic priorities or from deterring other foreign threats. Bombing campaigns or sanctions can also entail costs. The 1998 NATO bombing campaign in Kosovo, for example, created diplomatic costs by aggravating US-Russia relations at a time when the two countries were reconciling.36 Sanctions and bombing campaigns that generate high civilian casualties can also create reputational costs, as the foreign power comes to be seen as the aggressor. States may attempt to avoid these costs by restricting the kinds of sanctions they use or the types of targets they bomb. But these efforts usually undermine the coercive threat by convincing the opponent that the foreign power’s resolve to win is indeed limited. Even inducements can carry costs. Offering rewards to a leader widely regarded as oppressive, for instance, could create domestic political, reputational, and/or humanitarian costs for the foreign power.
The size of the costs the coercer incurs depends on the strength of the target’s domestic opposition. The more severe the targeted leader’s domestic threat, the more resolved the leader will be to resist, and the larger the threat the coercer must make to convince the leader to back down. This means that the greater the leader’s domestic threat, the greater the foreign power’s mobilization must be, the larger the international coalition it must build, and/or the more bombs it must drop to overwhelm the target’s incentive to resist.37 In extreme cases, the foreign power may even have to achieve a military victory before a leader with a strong domestic incentive to resist agrees to a settlement.38 To be sure, foreign powers may encounter some of the same costs when carrying out regime change. However, as I will explain later, the key difference between expected coercion and regime change costs is that, as the opposition’s strength grows, the former will rise, while the latter will fall. All told, foreign powers may have to incur a variety of high costs to convince targeted leaders to accept politically risky settlements, and these costs could exceed the expected costs of regime change.
THE COSTS OF ENFORCEMENT
The long-term costs of enforcing a settlement can also inflate the cost of a bargaining agreement. As long as targeted leaders face domestic opposition that makes their compliance with a deal politically costly, they will be tempted to renege on their commitments as soon as the foreign power’s pressure diminishes. In the rationalist literature, actors who have an incentive to cheat on a settlement face what is known as a commitment problem. The stronger state anticipates the targeted leader will cheat once the opportunity arises and so rejects the possibility of bargaining and resorts to war. In some cases, the threat of renewed hostilities may deter the target from reneging. But if the target state doubts the stronger side’s willingness to enforce the settlement or if it acquires greater military capacity, it may attempt to renege. After World War I, for example, Germany challenged the Treaty of Versailles once it became apparent the victors were reluctant to enforce it. Similarly, Joseph Stalin authorized North Korea’s invasion of South Korea in 1950, believing that the Truman administration would not interfere.39
To assure compliance, the stronger state must convince the lesser power’s leaders that cheating would be detected and punished. To do this, it can use international observers to monitor compliance or it can take more invasive (and potentially more effective) measures, such as demanding partial policy control or stationing troops on the target state’s soil. France and Belgium, for example, occupied the German Ruhr region from 1923 to 1925 to enforce the reparation terms imposed on Germany after World War I. Less than two decades later, Nazi Germany enforced its armistice with Vichy France by occupying northern France. Other enforcement measures include peacekeeping missions, which are frequently deployed to monitor cease-fire agreements.
Much like coercion, enforcement measures can entail a variety of costs, ranging from monetary and military ones to domestic political and reputational costs. For example, the French and Belgian troops in the Ruhr encountered a campaign of passive resistance, which forced the French to increase their occupation force from 80,000 to 140,000.40 Fears of casualties and their attendant domestic political costs led US policymakers to push for the downsizing of the small United Nations (UN) peacekeeping mission in Rwanda during the 1994 genocide in that country.41 Enforcement measures must also be maintained as long as the target retains an incentive to renege. Over time, these costs add up. Peacekeeping missions in such places as Cyprus (1964), the Sinai (1981), and Kosovo (1999) are still in operation today, though the conflicts that generated them have long since ended.
The potentially high cost of indefinitely enforcing a settlement explains why the stronger state sometimes refuses the resignations of targeted leaders. If complying with a settlement will be just as politically costly for the targeted leader’s chosen successor as it was for the leader, then that successor will have the same incentive to renege. Unless the more powerful state installs a new leader who is reliant on a different set of supporters and/or political institutions, then it may find itself stuck paying high enforcement costs. This is why Soviet leader Brezhnev ignored Dubček’s offers to resign as first secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia in their phone call one week before the Warsaw Pact invasion. Letting Dubček resign would have left reformers in charge. Brezhnev hoped that an invasion would instead prompt Czechs aligned with Moscow to seize power and overturn the reforms of the Prague Spring.42
The costs of forcing a leader to accept and to abide by a settlement may tempt the more powerful state to pursue FIRC as a cheaper alternative, especially when domestic opposition drives the targeted leader’s refusal to concede. As I will explain, while the target’s domestic opposition can make a settlement appear costly to attain, that opposition can also make the leader appear cheaper to depose. As long as the opposition is marginally more willing to make concessions than the leader, then the stronger power may conclude that it can attain its policy aims at a lower cost by partnering with the opposition to overthrow the leader.
The Costs of Imposing Regime Change
Some of the costs of coercing a target to accept and abide by an agreement are the same as those associated with regime change. The financial, political, and diplomatic costs of launching an invasion to coerce the leader will also be borne if an invasion is required to depose the leader. The long-term costs of enforcing an agreement could also be matched by the long-term costs of propping up a puppet. But there is an important difference between the costs of bargaining with a leader and the costs of overthrowing a leader.
