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This paper examines the role of economic sanctions in Taiwan's decision to reverse its nuclear weapons efforts. Sanctions have long been derided as an ineffective tool of foreign policy, particularly in "high politics" issues such as nuclear weapons programs. Contrary to the prevalent view, in this paper I demonstrate that economic sanctions led to nuclear reversal in Taiwan through the "compellence" mechanism. Drawing on the literature on coercive diplomacy, the paper concludes that Taiwan's dependence on the United States for its very survival facilitated successful US coercion to reverse its nuclear weapons program. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In previous work I argue for a connection between different military doctrinal cultures and the failure of coercive diplomacy. Different military cultures in the United States and China affected signaling, communication, perception, and assessments of the balance of power. This led to failures of deterrence and coercion during the Korean War. In this paper, I extend this idea into two additional naval cases: the deterrence of conflict in the Taiwan Strait in 1950 and today. I argue that Chinese naval doctrine today is, for cultural and organizational reasons, distinct from that of the United States. I assess the potential dangers this poses to the conduct of military diplomacy in the Taiwan Strait, and offer proposals to overcome or limit these challenges. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]