Who "Won" Libya? The Force-Diplomacy Debate and Its Implications for Theory and Policy.

After involvement in terrorism and the pursuit of weapons of mass destruction for most of the period following Qaddafi's arrival in power in 1969, Libya has renounced terrorism and in December 2003 it abandoned its WMD programs. This paper proposes an analytical framework for understanding the role that United States coercive diplomacy played in leading to this dramatic change. The paper argues that American coercive diplomacy was most successful when it combined the qualities of proportionality, coercive credibility and reciprocity. The paper also examines how political and economic developments inside Libya made it more sensitive to the coercive pressure exerted by the United States. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]