Episode Notes:

On this episode of Thinking the Unthinkable, Ankit is joined by Reid Pauly, assistant professor at Brown University and author of The Art of Coercion: Credible Threats and the Assurance Dilemma (Cornell University Press, 2025). They discuss the often-overlooked counterpart to deterrence — assurance — and why making promises believable can be as difficult as making threats credible. The conversation unpacks the theory of coercive assurance, the credibility dilemmas facing powerful states, and how these dynamics shape today’s challenges from the Korean Peninsula to Taiwan to sanctions and beyond.

Image: Office of the President of the Russian Federation via Wikimedia Commons