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Compellence

Thomas Schelling's term for persuading an adversary to stop an ongoing action or take an action they would not otherwise take — a harder, riskier project than deterrence, since it demands a visible, often humiliating change of behavior and requires specifying exactly what would satisfy the demand. Western military and economic support for Ukraine after February 2022 functioned largely as compellence against Russia: an attempt to raise the costs of continued war high enough to force a change in behavior, rather than to deter an action not yet taken.

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