JONATHAN CHAIT, equivocating about whether or not the threat of force in Libya is working, writes:

The neocon model of standing up to aggression, while frequently wrong, is not always wrong. The model holds that dictators are like bullies, and if you make clear you'll stand up to them, they'll back down...Opponents of intervening in Libya all seemed to assume that the threat of force would automatically mean employing force. This may not turn out to be a correct assumption.

On Libya, I'm prepared to equivocate with the best of them, but it's worth noting that research on bullies suggests that they are not generally boastful cowards who will back down when you stand up to them. Bullies in fact tend to be confident, popular, and socially adept, and to be more likely than non-bullies to endorse "retaliation" as the appropriate response to perceived aggression, suggesting that if you stand up to them, they will fight rather than back down.

However, you can certainly make a case that the data suggest that Muammar Qaddafi will back down when stronger outside opponents credibly threaten him. In 1981, when Libya claimed the Gulf of Sidra as its territorial waters in contravention of international standards and sent Su-22 fighters to buzz United States naval forces on exercise, American F-14 Tomcats shot them down. Libya didn't retaliate with an all-out attack on the Sixth Fleet. The 1988 Lockerbie bombing may have been retaliation for Ronald Reagan's 1986 bombing of Tripoli, itself in response to Libya's 1986 support for the terrorist bombing of a Berlin nightclub; but it was an odd and twisted kind of retaliation. And Mr Qaddafi's renunciation of his nuclear programme in 2003 was pretty clearly linked to the American invasion of Iraq. Mr Qaddafi certainly seems like the kind of guy who would take an offer of cushy exile if the alternative appears bleak and violent. But who knows? Who would have thought that of all the sodden dictators of Eastern Europe, Nicolae Ceausescu would be the one who fought to the bitter end?