Practicing coercion - Revisiting successes and failures using Boolean logic and comparative methods

When do coercive threats succeed or fail? Does success depend on a uniform set of necessary conditions or do core prerequisites vary depending on cont ext? If prerequisites vary, are some combinations more likely than others t o lead to success or provoke challenges? The evidence to date is far from d efinitive. Critics cite proof from comparative case studies that rational d eterrence has failed as a strategy and theory, whereas proponents have comp iled an equally impressive body of material to support the same theory. Bec ause each side offers compelling reasons to accept its respective, often co ntradictory, interpretations of events in relevant crises, the debate over deterrence is nor likely to be resolved solely with reference to historical records. This article reevaluates the "crucial" evidence put forward by Le bow and Stein in what has become the most widely cited critique of rational deterrence theory. Viewed through the prism of necessity and sufficiency, their data produce stronger support for the theory's core hypotheses than c orresponding evidence complied by proponents. The author develops this argu ment further by applying Boolean logic and set theory to data compiled by H uth and Russett and Lebow and Stein. Boolean minimization techniques are us ed to derive models from competing interpretations of behavior in these cas es, which are then compared and evaluated in terms of the theory's predicti ons.