By: Reza Nasri
Vice-President for Advocacy and Legal Strategy – PAIAB Institute
Abstract
Drawing inspiration from A. Wess Mitchell’s Great Power Diplomacy (2025), this article examines the limitations of coercive power in sustaining international order and the enduring primacy of diplomatic statecraft. It argues that historical experience demonstrates stability is achieved through the disciplined management of influence—through persuasion, alliances, and economic interdependence—rather than through military dominance. The Trump administration’s “peace through strength” doctrine is analyzed as a distortion of classical statecraft, equating coercion with stability and normalizing the unlawful use of force as an instrument of policy. The article explores the consequences of this approach in the Middle East, where U.S. militarism and unconditional support for Israel’s regional actions have undermined legitimacy, provoked resistance, and accelerated the alignment of Arab states and Iran with China. Beijing’s diplomacy, characterized by mediation, non-coercive engagement, and infrastructural integration, demonstrates that influence can be exercised effectively without coercion. The study concludes that unless the United States undertakes a fundamental shift in paradigm, it will increasingly rely on force to pursue objectives, locking itself into a systematic doctrine of military intervention that threatens both regional and international security.
Part I: Historical Lessons in Managing Power for Enduring Peace
Successful diplomacy, as A. Wess Mitchell (2025) notes, often involves outwitting stronger foes rather than overwhelming them with arms. Great powers from Rome’s eastern heir to modern superstates have survived and thrived—not through tanks or battleships but—by skillfully managing their power through negotiation, alliances, and persuasion. As John Lewis Gaddis (2005) reminds us, the “art” of diplomacy—anchored in intelligence, psychological understanding, and flexible engagement—has consistently trumped a single-minded reliance on military might. The management of power, rather than its sheer use, has yielded more durable influence and stability. This perspective runs through Mitchell’s Great Power Diplomacy, whose narrative from Attila the Hun to Kissinger illustrates how empires outmaneuvered military threats through the mastery of statecraft.
Throughout history, enduring states have relied on subtlety and strategy to survive. The Byzantine Empire, which faced centuries of invasion with fewer troops and resources than its enemies, offers a model of diplomatic statecraft at its finest. As Edward Luttwak (2009) explains, Byzantine leaders perfected a grand strategy that preferred bribery, subsidies, and political intrigue to open conflict. They “praised the use of diplomacy, the paying of subsidies, and the employment of stratagems, craft, wiles, [and] bribery” to deceive enemies and preserve manpower (Luttwak, 2009). Rather than rushing to battle, emperors paid off invaders or exploited divisions among hostile tribes. Such delay-and-deceive tactics became the empire’s elixir of longevity. Where war proved unavoidable, Byzantine generals fought as much with negotiation as with arms, securing allied reinforcements and favorable terms to minimize losses. Byzantium’s survival thus rested on the management of power, subtly shaping regional politics rather than annihilating foes.
After Napoleon’s defeat, a different form of grand diplomacy emerged in Europe. British foreign secretary Viscount Castlereagh and Austrian chancellor Klemens von Metternich engineered the Congress of Vienna (1814–15) and the subsequent Concert of Europe. Their aim was lasting peace sustained by negotiation rather than perpetual mobilization. As Paul Schroeder (1994) writes, instead of a “balance of power” founded on military deterrence, they created a “balance of negotiation,” a cooperative equilibrium built through consultation and restraint. The Vienna settlement produced one of history’s most impressive diplomatic architectures, where monarchs used conferences and commissions—rather than conquests—to manage rivalries. By pooling influence and intervening collectively, such as in Italy and Spain, Metternich and Castlereagh secured nearly four decades of relative peace. They restored dynasties and redrew frontiers with pen and ink instead of gun and powder. This “balance of diplomacy” demonstrated that diplomacy, properly institutionalized, could reconfigure power politics more peacefully than war.
The twentieth century added new tools to this tradition. After World War II, the United States leveraged its economic might to bind allies and deter communism without permanent occupation. The Marshall Plan (1948–52) exemplified this economic statecraft: more than $12 billion flowed into Western Europe to rebuild industries, stabilize currencies, and restore trade. It “generated a resurgence of European industrialization and brought extensive investment into the region” (Gaddis, 2005). Crucially, it achieved this without vast armies, using grants and loans to create interdependence and goodwill. Likewise, the 1944 Bretton Woods Conference established the IMF and World Bank, embedding a cooperative economic order that would shape postwar politics. By tying Western Europe into a system of shared prosperity, Washington ensured stability and influence. The Cold War, as George Kennan (1947) argued, was as much a contest of ideas and institutions as of weapons. In all these cases, the United States practiced what Kennan called the “psychological containment” of adversaries—exerting power through reassurance and persuasion rather than force.
In the twenty-first century, Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) embodies a similar fusion of economics and diplomacy. As Elizabeth Economy (2018) observes, the BRI is “not merely a development initiative, but a blueprint for China’s emergence as a global power through economic connectivity.” By funding ports, railways, and power grids across Asia, Africa, and Europe, Beijing has built influence through interdependence. The initiative redefines global engagement, blending infrastructure investment with strategic ties that expand China’s political reach. Projects like the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor or railway networks in Central Asia have made partner nations deeply reliant on Chinese financing. In exchange, Beijing gains diplomatic leverage on issues from UN voting to maritime disputes. In this way, the BRI demonstrates that in modern geopolitics, influence is often constructed with trade routes, not troop movements.
Equally instructive are the diplomatic achievements of small, neutral states. Switzerland, Norway, and Qatar—nations with minimal military power—have built global reputations as mediators and peace brokers. Switzerland has leveraged its neutrality and legal tradition to host major negotiations, from humanitarian conventions to nuclear talks. Norway, as Geir Lundestad (2003) highlights, has quietly mediated more than forty peace processes since the 1990s, practicing what he calls “NGO-like diplomacy” rooted in discretion and trust. Qatar, though a small petrostate, has used its economic resources and broad network of relationships to act as a pivotal go-between, mediating ceasefires and prisoner exchanges in conflicts ranging from Gaza to Afghanistan. These cases confirm that credibility, neutrality, and creative engagement can produce influence far exceeding military scale.
Together, these examples challenge the simplistic realist notion that military hardware alone determines diplomatic success. Classical realism, from Thucydides to Morgenthau, assumes that coercive capacity is the cornerstone of influence. Yet strategic narrative and normative power – the capacity to shape perception, legitimacy, and preferences through stories, values, and credible conduct – has become equally decisive. In today’s world, influence rests as much on defining meaning and establishing norms as on projecting strength. Narratives, reputations, and legitimacy organize alliances much like deterrence once did. States that advance constructive narratives and uphold recognized norms attract partners, while those that rely on coercion or fear invite opposition. Economic ties and institutions create webs of interdependence that even the powerful cannot ignore. As Mitchell (2025) emphasizes, diplomacy remains an indispensable pillar of national power and a skill that great powers must master in an era where credibility, wealth, and values weigh as heavily as battalions.
Part II: The Limits of “Peace Through Strength” in Trump’s Second Term
History reveals a consistent truth: the survival of great powers depends less on the size of their armies than on the sophistication with which they manage power. The art of statecraft—the capacity to govern strength through persuasion, alliances, and foresight—has repeatedly proven more durable than brute force. From Byzantium’s subtle diplomacy to Vienna’s balance of powers, from postwar economic reconstruction to the Belt and Road Initiative, enduring orders have been built not by domination but by the intelligent use of all instruments of national power.
This historical record frames a pressing concern in the present era. The foreign policy approach that has shaped international affairs under Donald Trump’s second term, encapsulated in the slogan “peace through strength,” reflects a vision of power that equates coercion with stability. Within this framework, “peace” itself is arbitrarily defined—often meaning little more than the absence of resistance to imposed authority—while “strength” becomes synonymous with the illegal use of force. The doctrine trivializes violations of international law and rebrands them as legitimate tools of statecraft. By normalizing coercion as a path to order, it blurs the boundary between defense and aggression, between stability and domination.
U.S. policy toward Iran exemplifies this mindset. The attacks on its nuclear facilities and the sustained reliance on sanctions were intended to demonstrate strength, yet they produced the opposite effect. The strikes discouraged diplomacy, deepened mistrust, and eliminated pathways for constructive engagement. In doing so, Washington deprived itself—and the broader international community—of the stabilizing benefits that cooperation with a state of considerable regional influence could have generated. Actions presented as demonstrations of resolve instead diminished the incentives for dialogue and eroded the foundations of collective security.
The Abraham Accords further reveal how this doctrine manifests in practice. Arab governments were pressured into formal normalization with Israel while the Palestinian question was pushed aside. Agreements secured under such pressure may produce the appearance of peace, but they rest on conditional loyalty rather than mutual legitimacy. Devoid of inclusivity and moral foundation, these arrangements remain brittle, vulnerable to regional shocks, and incapable of producing lasting reconciliation.
In the economic domain, the principle of coercion has taken a similar form. Sweeping tariffs and punitive measures, deployed as instruments of leverage, have disrupted markets, strained global supply chains, and weakened the interdependence that underpins modern stability. Economic policy, when used as a weapon, corrodes the very networks that sustain peace and prosperity.
Across regions and domains, these methods—pressured agreements, unilateral strikes, and economic coercion—produce short-term results that mask deeper fragility. They generate a world governed by transactions rather than trust, a system in which power commands compliance but fails to inspire cooperation. Peace founded on intimidation lacks endurance; it trembles under pressure because it lacks the legitimacy that makes order self-sustaining.
History leaves little ambiguity. States that endure balance power with prudence, force with persuasion, and ambition with restraint. Those that rely on coercion alone eventually confront the limits of fear as a political instrument. The doctrine of “peace through strength,” as practiced today, builds an order that is brittle and combustible, an architecture of control that fractures under stress. A stable world cannot be coerced into being; it must be cultivated through legitimacy, reciprocity, and foresight. When power loses these qualities, it ceases to serve peace and begins to imperil it.
Part III: U.S. Coercion and China’s Statecraft in the Middle East
This paradox of America’s “peace through strength” doctrine has reverberated across volatile regions, particularly the Middle East, where states increasingly recognize that the U.S. seeks to construct a new regional order through force rather than diplomacy. Arab governments and Iran alike now perceive greater strategic and economic benefit in cultivating ties with China—a power that, instead of coercion, advances influence through economic interdependence, patient mediation, and the disciplined use of diplomacy. In a region long fatigued by military interventions and zero-sum calculations, Beijing’s restraint contrasts sharply with Washington’s punitive maximalism, offering a model of statecraft rooted in stability rather than subjugation.
The credibility of Washington’s message of “peace through strength” has been further eroded by the conduct of its closest regional ally. Israel’s military campaign in Gaza—widely described by jurists, UN experts, and humanitarian organizations as amounting to genocide and grave breaches of international humanitarian law—together with its systematic attacks on Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Iran, and even Qatar, has underscored a broader pattern of impunity and disregard for international law. These acts, carried out with consistent U.S. political and military backing, have repeatedly violated the sovereignty of neighboring states and, in the eyes of many across the region, increasingly appear to form part of a deliberate effort to realize the so-called “Greater Israel” project. The perception that Washington either enables or rationalizes these violations has further alienated Arab publics and governments, reinforcing the belief that the U.S.-led order in the Middle East rests not on diplomacy or legitimacy, but on coercion.
Under Donald Trump’s second term, the U.S. revived its “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran, imposing severe sanctions and conditioning any dialogue on Tehran’s capitulation to a more restrictive nuclear deal, with explicit threats of force if demands were unmet. This coercive posture culminated in joint U.S.–Israeli attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities during the 12-Day War of June 2025, an operation that marked a significant escalation beyond covert actions. The strikes resulted in extensive human and infrastructural losses, killing more than a thousand civilians and inflicting serious damage on Iran’s safeguarded nuclear infrastructure. Far from deterring Iran, the attacks hardened its resolve, intensified anti-American sentiment, and reaffirmed regional perceptions of the United States as a destabilizing actor willing to violate international law in pursuit of dominance. The episode demonstrated that alignment with an America defined by coercion carries growing political, economic, and security costs.
By contrast, China’s conduct in the same period highlights how strategic restraint and economic engagement can generate influence without military entanglement. Beijing’s quiet diplomacy between Tehran and Riyadh in 2023, which culminated in the restoration of diplomatic relations after seven years of rupture, remains a defining example of effective mediation rooted in trust-building rather than coercion. Through sustained investment, dialogue, and a focus on shared development, China has positioned itself as a credible interlocutor among rivals who view the U.S. as partial or overbearing.
Furthermore, the 25-year Iran–China cooperation agreement and the Belt and Road Initiative have deepened Iran’s integration into Asian markets, while shared infrastructure projects, enhance regional connectivity and trade. Simultaneously, Beijing has strengthened its economic and diplomatic footprint with Persian Gulf monarchies, including Saudi Arabia and the UAE, through energy partnerships, technology transfers, and high-level strategic dialogues. Such ties demonstrate how China wields power through attraction rather than intimidation, fostering a network of interdependence that blunts the impact of Western sanctions and military threats alike.
Still, China’s approach is not without calculation. Its mediation efforts and investment strategies also serve its long-term goals of securing energy access, expanding trade corridors, and legitimizing an alternative to Western-led global governance. Yet the distinction lies in method: where Washington often enforces alignment through conditionality and coercion, Beijing builds it through economic incentives and diplomatic initiatives. This pragmatic restraint, even if self-interested, has proven far more compatible with regional aspirations for sovereignty, stability, and balanced engagement.
Conclusion
The doctrine of “peace through strength” misrepresents the nature of power by equating coercion with stability and redefining peace as the mere absence of resistance to imposed authority. Unless Washington undertakes a fundamental shift of paradigm, it will increasingly be compelled to rely on military force to achieve objectives that diplomacy and engagement could otherwise accomplish. By treating coercion as the default instrument of statecraft, the United States risks locking itself into a self-reinforcing cycle in which force becomes both the means and the end, institutionalizing military intervention as the core mechanism of policy.
This trajectory has multiple consequences. Each deployment of force, whether through strikes, sanctions, or military posturing, generates new resistance and drives targeted states toward alternative partnerships, including China, which employs influence through economic integration, mediation, and restraint. Reliance on coercion diminishes opportunities for negotiation, erodes legitimacy, and incentivizes adversaries to adopt countermeasures, producing escalating tensions that no display of military superiority alone can resolve. Over time, the United States faces a narrowing of strategic options: as regional actors diversify their alliances, coercion becomes the primary lever left to achieve policy goals, further entrenching a doctrine of systematic force.
The pattern observed in the Middle East illustrates the broader risks for global security. A state that defaults to coercion undermines its own strategic objectives while destabilizing the environment in which it operates. The continued application of “peace through strength” threatens to normalize conflict, diminish prospects for collective security, and lock the United States into a reactive, militarized posture that increases the likelihood of confrontation and unintended escalation. Only a genuine shift in paradigm—anchoring policy in diplomacy, economic engagement, and legitimacy—can break this cycle and prevent the systematic use of force from defining U.S. foreign policy.
References
• Economy, Elizabeth (2018). The Third Revolution: Xi Jinping and the New Chinese State. Oxford University Press.
• Gaddis, John Lewis (2005). The Cold War: A New History. Penguin Press.
• Kennan, George F. (1947). “The Sources of Soviet Conduct.” Foreign Affairs.
• Luttwak, Edward N. (2009). The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire. Harvard University Press.
• Lundestad, Geir (2003). The United States and Western Europe Since 1945: From “Empire” by Invitation to Transatlantic Drift. Oxford University Press.
• Mitchell, A. Wess (2025). Great Power Diplomacy: The Skill of Statecraft from Attila the Hun to Kissinger. Princeton University Press.
• Nye, Joseph S. (2004). Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics. PublicAffairs.
• Schroeder, Paul W. (1994). The Transformation of European Politics, 1763–1848. Clarendon Press.