Research
Trump's "maximum pressure" and annihilation rhetoric toward Iran exemplifies the gap between deterrence (preventing action) and compellence (forcing policy reversal), with evidence suggesting the campaign accelerated Iran's uranium enrichment to near-weapons-grade (182kg at 60% purity) while devastating its civilian economy, rather than securing negotiated compliance. Legal scholars and human rights organizations across the political spectrum converge on a key distinction largely lost in the rhetoric: conditional, bounded threats may constitute lawful coercive diplomacy, but unconditional threats against civilian infrastructure risk violating proportionality requirements and collapsing the line between deterrence and collective punishment. Non-Western frameworks (Chinese structural restraint, Indian strategic autonomy, ASEAN normative saturation) offer alternative models emphasizing institutional legit
**28 April 2026: ** On average across 31 countries, 81% think their country should avoid getting involved in the Iran war, with 48% strongly agreeing their country should stay out of the conflict. 33% think the war will last until 2027 or beyond. 31% think it will end by the end of the year, 26% wit...
For their part, most Americans see little upside to continuing the war. According to a Chicago Council on Global Affairs-Ipsos survey conducted May 1-3, 2026, the US public thinks the US action has been successful at degrading Iranian military assets. But at the same time, Americans tend to think th...
Most Americans believe recent U.S. military action against Iran has gone too far, and many are worried about affording gasoline, according to a new AP-NORC poll. ... As the war launched by the U.S. and Israel continues in its fourth week, the survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public A...
### Fewer than one in six Americans say the U.S. is winning the war ... Public opinion polls have consistently shown public opposition to the war the United States and Israel initiated against Iran, making it unique among modern American wars, which often benefit from initial public support or at le...
The latest Economist / YouGov poll finds that majorities of Americans believe the war with Iran was a mistake and want a quick deal to end it. An increasing share expect the war will last at least another year. Americans are only slightly more likely to think the U.S. is winning the war than to thin...
As the Iran War stretches past its sixth month, polls about Americans’ support for the conflict have slowed down. **As of today, about 33 percent of Americans support the war while 58 percent oppose, according to our average**. In terms of individual surveys, the latest New York Times/Siena poll fou...
WASHINGTON, D.C. — About three months after the U.S. and Israel first launched airstrikes against Iran, and just before Iran and the U.S. agreed to a peace deal, 34% of Americans said they approved of the military action the United States took against Iran. These data, collected June 1-15, indicate ...
# INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE ISSUES ADVISORY OPINION ON LEGALITY OF THREAT OR USE OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS ... #### INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE ISSUES ADVISORY OPINION ON LEGALITY OF THREAT OR USE OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS19960708 THE HAGUE, 8 July (ICJ) -- The International Court of Justice today handed ...
The question posed by the General Assembly was: ‘Is the threat or use of nuclear weapons in any circumstance permitted under international law?’2 ... Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons (Advisory Opinion of 8 July 1996) [1996] ICJ Rep. 226 (ICJ Nuclear Opinion). ... Famously, the Court ...
On January 3, 2020, the U.S. military conducted a drone strike near Baghdad International Airport that killed Qasem Soleimani, the leader within the Iranian military of the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The Trump administration initially appeared to justify the strike a...
The 1996 Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons remains a pivotal reference in international law and disarmament debates. While the Opinion did not categorically prohibit nuclear weapons, its reasoning has been widely ...
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — President Donald Trump warned Iran early on Monday not to threaten the United States again or it’ll face its “official end,” shortly after a rocket landed near the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad overnight. If Iran wants to fight, that will be the official end of Iran. Nev...
Thomas Schelling’s 1966 classic, *Arms and Influence*, became one of the major strategic works of the Cold War, and it remains the clearest argument for the implicit logic of American and Russian coercive forms of diplomacy. Schelling is incisive about the credibility of deterrence, but the credibil...
The Organization and its Members, in pursuit of the purposes stated in Article 1, shall act in accordance with the following principles. … 4. All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of a...
As military tensions between the U.S. and Iran appeared to be gradually cooling despite dangerous provocations from the White House, President Donald Trump — who said publicly last week that he hopes there is not another war in the Middle East — took to Twitter Sunday to threaten “the official end o...
In late 2011, the Movement adopted a momentous resolution on nuclear weapons, calling on states to negotiate a legally binding international agreement to prohibit the use of and completely eliminate nuclear weapons, based on existing international obligations and commitments.5 The Movement's positio...
A wider nuclear conflict would have catastrophic effects on people and societies around the globe, on human health, the environment, the climate, food production and socio-economic development. - ### What are the humanitarian consequences of using nuclear weapons? The use of nuclear weapons would ca...
Nuclear deterrence theory, with its roots in the Cold War era, may not account for all eventualities in the 21st century. Researchers at Chatham House have worked with eight experts to produce this collection of essays examining four contested themes in contemporary policymaking on deterrence. ... O...
US President Donald J. Trump, in a late-night, all-caps tweet on July 22, threatened Iran with “consequences the likes of which few throughout history have suffered before” if Iranian leaders continued to threaten the United States with war. ... “Trump is hoping that tweeting a threat of war, simila...
Coercive diplomacy—when both elements of the approach are carefully synchronized—can deliver. On the other hand, coercion without diplomacy can lead to huge blunders. ... A year after abandoning the Iran nuclear agreement, President Donald Trump is doubling down on a risky and an ill-fated “maximum ...
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