# Diplomacy, security, and the “Art of Coercion” Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/trending-globally-politics-and-policy-745507/diplomacy-security-and-the-art-of-coercion Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/trending-globally-politics-and-policy-745507/diplomacy-security-and-the-art-of-coercion.md Podcast: [Trending Globally: Politics and Policy](https://stenobird.com/podcast/trending-globally-politics-and-policy-745507) Published: 2025-08-27T18:20:00+00:00 Episode link: https://trending-globally.captivate.fm/episode/diplomacy-security-and-the-art-of-coercion Audio file: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/episodes.captivate.fm/episode/f84b54ff-e847-43bb-91e6-6f67bd3be091.mp3 Processing state: not_requested JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/trending-globally-politics-and-policy-745507/episodes/diplomacy-security-and-the-art-of-coercion Duration seconds: 2868 ## Resource In his new book “The Art of Coercion,” Watson political scientist Reid Pauly provides a seemingly straightforward definition of coercion: “The practice of convincing a target by the use of threats, to bend to your will.” However, the simplicity of the definition belies the difficulty of doing it effectively – especially in the world of international security and relations. As Pauly explains to Dan Richards on this episode of “Trending Globally”: “The history of coercive bargaining, coercive diplomacy is really a litany of mostly failures.”   This is a problem not only for countries seeking to coerce others, whether it’s through tariffs, sanctions, or threats of military action. It’s also a problem because when coercion fails, countries usually find themselves one step closer to war.  Why do so many attempts at coercive diplomacy fail, and why do some succeed? The answer may surprise you.  Learn more about and purchase “The Art of Coercion” Read Pauly’s July article in MIT’s International Security  ## Actions - request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/trending-globally-politics-and-policy-745507/episodes/diplomacy-security-and-the-art-of-coercion/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode. - read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/trending-globally-politics-and-policy-745507/diplomacy-security-and-the-art-of-coercion.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource. A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed. ## Transcript Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.