HU Credits: 4

Degree/Cycle: 2nd degree (Master)

Responsible Department: international relations

Semester: Yearly

Teaching Languages: Hebrew

Campus: Mt. Scopus

Course/Module Coordinator: Dr. Daniel Sobelman

Coordinator Email: Daniel.sobelman@mail.huji.ac.il

Coordinator Office Hours:

Teaching Staff:
Dr. Daniel Sobelman

Course/Module description:
In international relations, actors aspire to achieve desirable outcome and prevent undesirable outcome. Whether one is a superpower, a state, or a violent non-state actor—all actors want their capabilities to matter. It is thus counter-intuitive that sheer military strength and a favorable balance of power do not guarantee that actors will get their way in international affairs, let alone achieve decisive outcomes. International Relations literature tells us that the United States, for example, practices successful coercion less than half the time. Conversely, weak actors such as Hamas and Hezbollah often get their way at the expense of militarily superior states. What is coercion and what is it a function of? What determines whether it fails or succeeds? Tackling these questions, this course will discuss the manner in which coercion is being impacted by the ever-increasing availability of advanced technology, the advent of globalization, and the diffusion of military power.

Course/Module aims:
The course will provide students with the conceptual tools, as well as with a contemporary and historical knowledge to grasp the manner in which actors pursue coercive strategies to impact others’ behavior and shape their own strategic environment.

Learning outcomes - On successful completion of this module, students should be able to:
Master the fundamental principles and scholarly vocabulary pertaining to coercion

Differentiate among the various theoretical phenomena and strategies associated with coercive behavior and strategy

Harness the knowledge acquired in the course in to analyze and explain crises and conflicts in the Israeli and global arenas

Critically analyze the manner in which actors have pursued coercive strategies in a bid to achieve their interests

Attendance requirements(%):
Up to three unexcused absences

Teaching arrangement and method of instruction: Seminar

Course/Module Content:
1. Introduction


2. Deterrence, Bargaining and Coercive Diplomacy: Structural and Strategic Elements

3. How does coercion “work”? What is military power good for?

4. Deterrence as a phenomenon before World War II

5. The age of the Absolute Weapon: The evolution of Deterrence Theory and Strategy after 1945

6. Credibility and Coercion: Why do actors struggle to establish and maintain credibility?

7. From Massive Retaliation to Mutually Assured Destruction: The evolution of the theoretical and strategic debate on deterrence in the early stages of the Cold War.

8. The Cuban Missile Crisis: Analyzing the most formative crisis in the Cold War. How did President Kennedy succeed at forcing the Soviet Union to withdraw its nuclear warheads from Cuba? Was it strategic success or mostly luck?

9. Film.

10. The Vietnam War: How and Why did the United States fail to coerce North Vietnam? Is airpower an effective coercive tool?

11. The coercive advantages and disadvantages of nuclear weapons: Are nukes good for anything besides strategic deterrence?

12. From Nuclear to Conventional Deterrence

13. Are the core prerequisites for successful deterrence realistic?

14. Signaling threat credibility: theory and practice.

15. Can Terrorism be Deterred? Complex Deterrence in the Post-9/11 Age.

16. Cyber Coercion: Can Deterrence Work in Cyberspace?

17. Economic Coercion: The Scholarly Debate on the Effectiveness of Sanctions as a Coercive Instrument.

18. Israel’s Deterrence Strategy.

19. Israel’s Deterrence Strategy (Continued).

20. Why Strong Actors Don’t Always Get Their Way and Vice Versa.

21. Asymmetrical Coercion: Can Israel Deter and Defeat its Enemies?

22. The Evolution of Israel’s Deterrence Relationship With Hezbollah: From Tactical Rules of the Game to Strategic Equations and Mutual Deterrence.

23. Israel-Hamas: Success and Failure in Israel’s Attempts to Deter Hamas

24. Deterrence and Compellence in Israel’s Efforts to Block Iran’s Path to the Bomb.

25. The Case of North Korea: Pyongyang Deters its Way to the Bomb.

26. Conclusion.

Required Reading:
Joseph S. Nye Jr., “Hard, Soft and Smart Power,” in Andrew F. Cooper, Jorge Heine, and Ramesh Thakur, The Oxford Handbook of International Diplomacy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), pp. 1-18.

Thomas C. Schelling, Arms and Influence (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), pp. 1-34.

Robert A. Pape, Bombing to Win: Air Power and Coercion in War (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996), pp. 12-18.


Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1960), pp. 1-20.

Alexander L. George and Richard Smoke, Deterrence in American Foreign Policy: Theory and Practice (New York: Columbia University Press, 1974), pp. 11-37.
Thomas C. Schelling, Arms and Influence (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), pp. 69-91, 116-125.

Samuel W. Wells, “The Origins of Massive Retaliation,” Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 96, No. 1 (Spring, 1981), pp. 31-52.

Stephen J. Cimbala, Coercive Military Strategy (Austin: Texas A&M University Press, 1998), pp. 43-68.

William Burr and Jeffrey Kimball, “Nixon’s Secret Nuclear Alert: Vietnam Diplomacy and the Joint Chiefs of Staff Readiness Test, October 1969,” Cold War History, Vol. 3, No. 2 (January 2003), pp. 113–156.

Robert Jervis, “The Utility of Nuclear Deterrence” in Robert J. Art and Kenneth N. Waltz (eds.) The Use of Force, pp. 108-115.

John J. Mearsheimer, Conventional Deterrence (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983), pp. 23-66.

Paul Huth and Bruce Russett, “What Makes Deterrence Work? Cases from 1900 to 1980,” World Politics, Vol. 36, No. 4 (July 1984), pp. 496–526.

Richard Ned Lebow and Janice Gross Stein, "Deterrence: The Elusive Dependent Variable," World Politics Vol. 42, No. 3 (April 1990), pp. 336-369.


James D. Fearon, “Signaling Foreign Policy Interests: Tying Hands versus Sinking Costs,” The Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 41, No. 1 (February, 1997), pp. 68-90.

Robert F. Trager and Dessislava P. Zagorcheva, “Deterring Terrorism: it Can Be Done,” International Security Vol. 30 No. 3 (Winter 2005/6), pp. 87-123.


Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Deterrence and Dissuasion in Cyberspace, International Security Vol. 41, No. 4 (Winter 2016/17), pp. 44-71.


Daniel W. Drezner, The Hidden Hand of Economic Coercion, International Organization, Vol. 57 (Summer 2003), pp. 643-659.

Uri Bar-Joseph, “Variations on a Theme: The Conceptualization of Deterrence in Israeli Strategic Thinking,” Security Studies, Vol. 7 No. 3 (Spring 1988), pp. 145-181.

יוסי בידץ ודימה אדמסקי, "התפתחות הגישה הישראלית להרתעה דיון ביקורתי בהיבטיה התאורטיים והפרקטיים", עשתונות, גיליון 8 (אוקטובר 2014), עמ' 7-43.

IDF Strategy, 2015, pp. 23-27.
English URL



Todd S. Sechser, “Goliath's Curse: Coercive Threats and Asymmetric Power,” International Organization, Vol. 64, No. 4 (October, 2010), pp. 627-660.

Itai Brun, "While You Were Busy Making Other Plans -- The Other RMA," The Journal of Strategic Studies Vol. 33, No. 4 (August 2010), pp. 535-565.

Daniel Sobelman, "Learning to Deter: Deterrence Failure and Success in the Israel-Hezbollah Conflict 2006-16," International Security (Winter 2016/17), pp. 151-196.

מוני חורב, ״מבצעי הרתעה: מה ניתן ללמוד מהניסיון הצה״לי ברצועת עזה?״ עיונים בביטחון המזרח התיכון מס׳ 15, (מרכז בגין-סאדאת למחקרים אסטרטגיים, אוקטובר 2015).

Robert Jervis, “Getting to Yes With Iran: The Challenges of Coercive Diplomacy,” Foreign Affairs Vol. 92 No. 1 (January/February 2013), pp. 105-115.

יאיר עברון, "יציבות מאזן ההרתעה", הארץ, 2 בספטמבר 2009.

Derek D. Smith, Deterrence and Counterproliferation in the Age of Weapons of Mass Destruction, Security Studies, Vol.12 No. 4 (Summer 2003), pp. 152-197.

J.F.O. McAllister, “Pyongyang’s Dangerous Game,” TIME, April 4, 1994.

Additional Reading Material:
Lawrence Freedman, Strategic Coercion: Concepts and Cases (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), pp. 2-14.

Alexander L. George, Coercive Diplomacy, in in Robert J. Art and Kenneth N. Waltz (eds.) The Use of Force (Seventh Edition), pp. 72-78.

Jack. S. Levy, ״Deterrence and Coercive Diplomacy: The Contributions of Alexander George,״ Political Psychology, Vol. 29, No. 4 (August, 2008), pp. 537-552.


Robert J. Art, “To What Ends Military Power,” International Security, Vol. 4, No. 4, (Spring, 1980), pp. 3-35.


John A. Warden III, “Success in Modern War: A Response to Robert Pape’s Bombing to Win,” Security Studies, Vol. 7, No. 2 (Winter 1997/98), pp. 172-190.



R. J. Overy, “Airpower and the Logic of Deterrence Theory before 1939,” Journal of Strategic Studies, Vol. 15, No. 1 (1992), pp. 73-101.


George H. Quester, Deterrence Before Hiroshima: The Airpower Background of Modern Strategy (New York: Wiley, 1966), pp. 1-16.


Alan Alexandroff and Richard Rosecrance, “Deterrence in 1939,” World Politics, Vol. 29, No. 3 (April, 1977), pp. 404-424.


Bernard Brodie, “War in the Atomic Age,” in Bernard Brodie (ed.), The Absolute Weapon: Atomic Power and World Order (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1946), pp. 21-69.

Glenn Snyder, “The Balance of Power and the Balance of Terror,” in Paul Seabury (ed.) Balance of Power (San Francisco: Chandler, 1965), pp. 184-201.

Rudolf E. Peierls, Atomic Histories (New York: American Institute of Physics, 1997), pp. 187-194.
Herman Kahn, Thinking About the Unthinkable, (New York: Boulder, 1962).

Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1960), pp. 187-203.

Dianne Pfundstein Chamberlain, “It is Time to Drive a Stake Into the Heart of the American Credibility Myth,” War on the Rocks, September 27, 2016.

Robert Jervis, Perception and Misperception in International Politics 2nd edition (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2017), Introduction, chapter 1.

“The Evolution of NATO’s Strategy of Flexible Response: A Reinterpretation,” Security Studies, Vol. 1, No. 1 (Summer, 1991), pp. 132-156.

“Mutual Deterrence” Speech by Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara, San Francisco, September 18, 1967. Link.

Robert S. McNamara, “Appendix: The Nuclear Risks of the 1960s and Their Lessons for the Twenty-First Century,” in Robert S. McNamara, In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam (Random House, 1995), pp. 337-346.

Lawrence Freedman, The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy (London: Palgrave, 2003), pp. 215-242.

Alexander L. George, “The Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962,” in Alexander L. George, David K. Hall, and William E. Simons, The Limits of Coercive Diplomacy (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1971), pp. 86-143.

Stephen J. Cimbala, Coercive Military Strategy (Austin: Texas A&M University Press, 1998), pp. 97-113.

Robert A. Pape, Bombing to Win: Air Power and Coercion in War (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996), pp. 174-210.

Todd S. Sechser and Matthew Fuhrmann, Nuclear Weapons and Coercive Diplomacy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), pp. 235-258.

Jonathan Shimshoni, Israel and Conventional Deterrence (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990, pp. 5-33.


John Stone, “Conventional Deterrence and the Challenge of Credibility,” Contemporary Security Policy, Vol. 33, No. 1 (2012), pp. 108-123.

Keith B. Payne, “Understanding Deterrence,” Comparative Strategy, Vol. 30 No. 5 (2011), pp. 393-427.


Avner Cohen, “The Last Nuclear Moment,” New York Times, October 6, 2003.

Henry A. Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1982), pp. 575-611.

Amir Lupovici, “The Emerging Fourth Wave of Deterrence Theory—Toward a new Research Agenda,” International Studies Quarterly Vol. 54 (2010), pp. 705-732.

Emanuel Adler, “Complex Deterrence in Asymmetric-Warfare Era,” in T.V. Paul, Patrick M. Morgan, and James W. Wirtz (eds.) Complex Deterrence (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2009), pp. 85-108.

Alex S. Wilner, “Deterring the Undeterrable: Coercion, Denial and Delegitimization in Counterterrorism,” Journal of Strategic Studies, Vol. 34 No. 1 (2011), pp. 3-37.

Graham Allison, “Why ISIS Fears Israel,” The National Interest, August 8, 2016.

עמית שיניאק, ״התהוות המדינה במרחב הספר המקוון: השוואה תיאורטית והיסטורית״, בין הקטבים, גיליון 3 (דצמבר, 2014), עמ׳ 13-44.

David E. Sanger and Eric Schmitt, “U.S. Cyberweapons, Used against Iran and North Korea, Are a Disappointment Against ISIS,” New York Times, June 12, 2017.

Erica D. Borghard & Shawn W. Lonergan, “The Logic of Coercion in Cyberspace,” Security Studies, Vol. 26, No. 3 (2017), pp. 452-481.

Travis Sharp, “On Cyber Coercion: Lessons from the Sony Hack that We Should Have Learned, But Didn’t,” War on the Rocks, June 1, 2017.

Nader Habibi, “The Iranian Economy in the Shadow of Economic Sanctions,” Middle East Brief, Crown Center for Middle East Studies, No. 31 (October, 2008).


Robert A. Pape, Why Economic Sanctions Do Not Work, International Security, Vol. 22, No. 2, (Autumn, 1997), 90-136.


מיכה בר, קווים אדומים באסטרטגיית ההרתעה הישראלית (תל-אביב: מערכות, 1990), עמ׳ 14-48.

Boaz Atzili and Wendy Pearlman, Triadic Deterrence: Coercing Strength, Beaten by
Weakness, Security Studies, Vol. 21, No. 2 (2012), pp. 301-335.


Dmitry (Dima) Adamsky, “From Israel with Deterrence: Strategic Culture, Intra-war Coercion and Brute Force,” Security Studies, Vol. 26 No. 1 (2017), pp. 157-184.

Amir Lupovici, The Power of Deterrence: Emotions, Identity and American and Israeli Wars of Resolve (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016).

פיליפ גורדון, עמוס ידלין וארי הייסטין, ״משבר קטאר: סיבות, השלכות, סיכונים והצורך בפשרה״, פרסום מיוחד, המכון למחקרי ביטחון לאומי, 13 ביוני 2017.

Nicholas Parasie and Summer Said, “Arab States Demand Qatar Close Al Jazeera, Shut Turkish Base,” Wall Street Journal, June 23, 2017. Link to article.


Nicholas Parasie and Summer Said, “Qatar Seeks New Air, Sea Links Amid Rift,” Wall Street Journal, June 14, 2017. Link to article.


Charles D. Freilich, “Why Israel Can’t Win Wars Anymore,” Survival (March 2015), pp. 72-92.

Edward L. Katzenbach, Jr. and Gene Z. Hanrahan, “The Revolutionary Strategy of Mao Tse-Tung,” Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 70, No. 3 (September, 1955), p. 325., Vol. 70, No. 3 (Sep., 1955), pp. 321-340.

Ivan Arreguin-Toft, “How the Weak Win Wars: A Theory of Asymmetric Conflict,” International Security, Vol. 26 No. (2001), pp. 93-128.

Andrew Mack, “Why Big Nations Lose Small Wars: The Politics of Asymmetric Conflict,” World Politics, Vol. 27, No. 2 (1975), pp. 175-200.


יגיל הנקין, "ומה את לא הרתענו את חזבאללה?", צבא ואסטרטגיה, כרך 6, גיליון 3 (דצמבר 2014), עמ' 109-130.

רס״ן א׳, ״ניצחון מהאוויר: אסטרטגיה של מלחמות הרתעה״, בין הקטבים גיליון 11-12 , עמ׳ 65-78.

ראיון עם ראש המוסד לשעבר אפרים הלוי בעקבות מבצע ״צוק איתן״ (קישור).

Gil Merom, “The Logic and Illogic of an Israeli Unilateral Preventive Strike on Iran,” The Middle East Journal, Vol. 71, No. 1 (Winter, 2017), pp. 87-110.


Graham Allison, “The Cuban Missile Crisis at 50: Lessons for U.S. Foreign Policy Today,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 91. No. 4 (July/August 2012), pp. 11-16.



Kenneth N. Waltz, “Why Iran Should Get the Bomb: Nuclear Balancing Would Mean Stability,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 91 No. 2 (July/August 2012), pp. 2-5.

Van Jackson, Rival Reputations: Coercion and Credibility in US-North Korea Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), pp. 138-169.

Course/Module evaluation:
End of year written/oral examination 50 %
Presentation 0 %
Participation in Tutorials 0 %
Project work 0 %
Assignments 25 %
Reports 25 %
Research project 0 %
Quizzes 0 %
Other 0 %

Additional information:
End of year written examination 50%


Mid-Year Assignment 25%
Reports throughout year 25%