For seven consecutive nights, the United States has maintained a sustained campaign of strikes against Iran which has responded with missile and drone attacks on American and regional targets. At this stage, I see this conflict as a continuation of coercive diplomacy and not war.

Coercive diplomacy is not war in the traditional sense. It is the calibrated use or threat of limited force designed to compel an opponent to alter its behaviour without seeking its outright military defeat. Technically, only when the US resorts to the use of brute force will the phase of coercive diplomacy in this conflict end. The transition of the US strategy from coercive diplomacy to a full-blown war would take place when the USA's higher sense of purpose in this conflict is no longer to influence Iran through coercive means but to impose its will by force and defeat it. History tells us that this will not be possible while fighting this war with limited force. The big question on the minds of the US political leadership and military strategists at this stage would be – Do we want a temporary/tactical success or do we want a strategic/lasting success?

Success could have come at a cheap cost if coercive diplomacy had succeeded. Even at this stage, if the use of limited force helps the US achieve its political goal, the success will be considered costly. The current escalation in the conflict demonstrates that the use of limited force by the US to achieve its political objective is on the threshold of failing. This means that the use of coercive diplomacy is also nearing its culminating point. Ideally, the use of coercive diplomacy should have........

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