Aryan Rajagopal | Originally Published: 21 March 2026
The tense rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War was defined by several critical moments, such as the launch of the Soviet-made Sputnik, the world’s first artificial satellite. Already falling behind in the Space Race, American leadership described the Russian achievement as a boost to their “prestige and credibility overseas while reducing public confidence in US leadership,” making the calculation and execution of effective response measures critical. A policy document from the period details three main criteria in response to Soviet scientific advances: the “Military Posture of the Free World,” the “Increasing US and Free World Scientific Strength,” and the “Continuing Search for Peace.” Several analytical tools in International Relations (IR), such as compellence strategy and reactance theory, can potentially be employed to decipher, analyze and compare the proposed American initiatives to respond to Soviet advances.
Compellence is defined by Thomas Schelling as “initiating an action (or an irrevocable commitment to action) that can cease, or become harmless, only if the opponent responds.” Thereby, compellence strategy sharply contrasts deterrence strategy, as it forces adversaries to take evasive actions to prevent harm. Unlike deterrence, compellence is far more definite, requiring stringent action timelines. Recognizing that a promised action with an indefinite timeline will be perceived as a posture, supporters of compellence argue that states will only achieve their objectives when they are taken seriously by the global community. When analyzing the prepared American response to the Sputnik launch, examples of compellence strategy can be identified among the aforementioned criteria. Regarding the “Military Posture of the Free World,” the American stance was that “free world deterrent and retaliatory military strength [was] at a high degree of effectiveness.” However, it remained imperfect and required constant improvement. Considering the lack of a timeline provided for these endeavours and the generalization of Western military pedigree, deterrence is displayed more prominently in this archival document than a compellence strategy. This is largely because, as Schelling notes, the necessary existence of “some commitment” attached to compellent threats is not demonstrated by the American document. The circular airgram generally commits itself to deterrence-based action, for example, by supporting “scientific education and basic research” in the United States. These proposals included promoting the “exchange of scientific information with friendly countries” as a countermeasure to prove that the cooperative, mutually beneficial nature of Western scientific initiatives superseded Soviet advancements. Compellence strategy inherently relies on one actor putting another in a compromising position, with sufficient, but not excessive, pressure to force an evasive action.
Where the archival circular airgram leans toward a deterrence-based strategy over Schelling’s proposed compellence strategy, it can be better analyzed through reactance theory. As proposed by Kathleen Powers and Dan Altman, reactance is best described as any action taken by a political actor to “restore their freedom through defiance and aggression” when they feel their autonomy is being constrained. Reactance scholars theorize that fundamental threats to freedom, both of states and individuals, will elicit some degree of probable resistance, even if the inevitable result of a challenge is capitulation. The three criteria of the document, specifying military posture, scientific strength and commitments to world peace, are all reactive to an antagonistic challenge against Western values and freedoms. The circular airgram reports that, unlike Soviet scientific advancement, the “direct material benefits to millions of people in every country” was a notable advantage that the United States and its allies had to reaffirm. The Americans chose to dictate policy, which would sustain a long-term reaction to a foreign challenger, spur technological advancement and maintain a commitment to peace-focused initiatives. These efforts and outcomes contrasted those of a potential compellent response, which would have been both instigative and statistically undesirable; Powers and Altman identified that only “39% of 242 explicit threats from 1918 to 2001 obtained target compliance,” proving the ineffectiveness of coercion-based engagement in IR under tense circumstances.
The archival circular airgram recognizes that the Sputnik launch, while not a deafening incident in the world of IR, represents a threat to global perceptions of American strength and Western scientific advancement at the expense of the Soviets. This event constituted an existential challenge to the United States, not a militaristic one, making direct compellent action and the issuance of demands unreasonable to entertain. The more obvious choice, demonstrated by the language used in the circular airgram, was to reaffirm that America was “growing in strength in all departments, scientific, military, [and] economic,” while sustaining its commitment to global peace initiatives that prioritized American interests. A strategically compellent response to the Sputnik response would have necessitated direct, irreversible demands made by the US government, ones that would have unnecessarily escalated rather than spurring American scientific advancement. Under the tense circumstances of the Cold War, the US government chose to act in ways which would invigorate military expansion, scientific advancement and the pursuit of world peace. Recognizing the effects of psychological reactance theory, which identifies the attainment of self-control and dislike of manipulation as key components, it is no wonder that a direct, compellent response to the Sputnik launch would have had disastrous effects on geopolitical relations between two global superpowers, making the reactant response issued through the archival circular airgram practical.
References
1. Powers, Kathleen E. and Altman, D. “The Psychology of Coercion Failure: How Reactance Explains Resistance to Threats.” American Journal of Political Science 67, no. 1 (2023): 221-238.
2. Schelling, Thomas C. Arms and Influence. Yale University Press, 1928.
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