Coercive Diplomacy: The India-Pakistan Case

What are the factors behind successful coercive diplomacy? How Pakistan and India employed coercive diplomacy in attaining leverage, starting from Kargil War till date? How India increasingly resorted to coercive diplomacy against Pakistan especially with the advent of BJP government in 2014? This paper comprehensively deals with these questions by examining the concept of coercive diplomacyand probe the extent of leverage brought by it to the two countries. This paper elucidates the difference between coercion and compellence. Besides, theoretical and conceptual analysis of coercive diplomacy it delves into how India used the coercive diplomacy against Pakistan in different degrees in 5 major conflicts i.e Kargil (1999), Twin Peak Crisis (2001), Mumbai attacks (2008), Uri attacks (2016) and Pulwama terror attacks (2019). In the end, the paper analysis the factors that contributed to the enhanced employment of coercive diplomacy against Pakistan over the years and the crucial role played by US in support of India. Paper also analyse the Indiandilemma in employing coercive diplomacy against Pakistan and how it was overcome. Paper concludes that coercive diplomacy will remain a powerful tool in the arsenal of these nations to extract the desired results.