Primacy is key to compellence, which de-escalates conflict
Kroenig 18, Professor in the Department of Government and the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University (Matthew Kroenig, 2018, “The Logic of American Nuclear Strategy: Why Strategic Superiority Matters,” Oxford University Press, ISBN: 9780190849207, Chapter 5: Nuclear Deterrence and Compellence)
In a separate article, colleagues and I conduct multivariate regression analysis on this data and find that nuclear inferior states are less likely to initiate MCTs and less likely to achieve compellent success.16 This chapter presents some simple descriptive statistics and cross-tabular analysis that clearly and powerfully reveal the same basic finding. I first explore the idea that nuclear superior states will be more likely to issue compellent threats. Turning to Table 5.1, I find overwhelming support for this hypothesis. Since 1945, nuclear-armed states have issued forty-nine militarized compellent threats, and all forty-nine of these threats were against inferior countries. Seven threats were against nuclear-armed states with fewer nuclear weapons and forty-two were against states that lacked nuclear weapons altogether, but zero were directed at nuclear states with larger nuclear arsenals. This finding is stunning. It suggests the nuclear balance of power is determinative when it comes to patterns of international coercion. Since 1945, nuclear-armed states have issued zero threats against nuclear superior countries. In other words, for nuclear-armed states, nuclear superiority has been a necessary condition for the issuance of a compellent threat.