ABSTRACT
To both political and strategic theorists it may seem at first sight that the place of coercion in politics and in strategy is radically different. We do know that politics may be predominantly either persuasive or coercive. But has not the purpose of genuine political thought–as distinguished from that form of political thinking that we call ideological–been to design institutions that would minimize the need for coercion, and by so doing to place coercion itself in the service of freedom and social rationality? Is not the ultimate justification of political and legal coercion that without it moral freedom and other goods cannot be had, and so the possibility of an even greater freedom–which anarchy is said to promise–is only a dangerous illusion? Strategic thought and action, on the other hand, presumably has to do with coercion essentially, with its rational uses, with how to use force economically, or with how best to resist and deflect coercive intentions and actions.
