Deterrence Theory

Deterrence is an old practice, readily defined and described, widely employed but unevenly
effective and of questionable reliability. Elevated to prominence after World War II and the
arrival of nuclear weapons, deterrence became the central recourse for sustaining international
and internal security and stability among and within states in an era of serious conflict. The
greatest success has been that no nuclear weapons have been used for destructive purposes
since the end of World War II in 1945
Deterrence is a strategy intended to dissuade an adversary from taking
an action that has not yet started by means of threat of reprisal, or to
prevent it from doing something that another state desires. The strategy
is based on the psychological concept of the same name. A credible nuclear
deterrent, Bernard Brodie wrote in 1959, must be always ready but never
used.
Thomas Schelling's (1966) classic work on deterrence presents the concept
that military strategy can no longer be defined as the science of military
victory. Instead, it is argued that military strategy was now equally, if not
more, the art of coercion, intimidation and deterrence.

Deterrence has been intensively studied and tested as to its use in terms of strategy in
international relations and the maintenance of stability in international relations. Since
deterrence is the use of threats to block or reduce the inflicting of serious harm, the existence of
capacities for inflicting harm are readily maintained and periodically applied, so available
deterrence capabilities provide a degree of continuing concern and a regular desire to at least
do away with nuclear weapons and threats.

A brief period in the ending of the Cold War saw a serious effort to reduce the reliance on
deterrence, particularly nuclear deterrence, in international politics but it was soon replaced by
serious movement in the opposite direction. Yet efforts to reduce the need for and use of
deterrence continue.
The conduct of deterrence is now broader and deeper than before. It is under greater pressure
due to technological, political, and cultural developments, and operates in a much more
elaborate overall environment including space, cyberspace, and oceanic environs.
The study of deterrence focuses on how to prevent being attacked by threatening the
potential attacker with serious harm.
Deterrence became the central preoccupation in international security because of World War II
and the atom bombs dropped on Japan. The two bombs were so destructive that the possibility
of another world war and more nuclear attacks made deterrence, and eventually deterrence
theory, terribly important in offering hope of avoiding all that.

Deterrence is also employed for a variant of deterrence, Compellence, for preventing an

opponent from continuing an attack or other harmful acts by threatening significant retaliation
to “compel” potential aggressors into doing something they did not want to do, like abandoning
a nuclear weapons development program or breaking off a war. Compellence and deterrence
overlap, but compellence has been considered harder to use successfully.
Deterrence has following categories—
1. General Vs Immediate; -General deterrence conveys a somewhat vague, broad, and
often steadily continuous threat of retaliation for a possible future attack. In contrast,
Immediate deterrence involves threatening retaliation because an attack is close at hand
or in its early stages and has to be halted.
2. Direct Vs Extended:
 preventing an armed attack against a state's own territory (known as direct
deterrence) or
 preventing an armed attack against another state (known as extended deterrence)

Deterrence theory in international relations and its prospects:-

Deterrence is a key component of security management in modern interstate interactions. By
threatening serious harm as a preventative measure, deterrence ideally does little or no harm at
all. But it is also used to punish, producing significant death and destruction, when its initial
threats lack the desired effect.
Since 1949, nuclear weapons have been a dominant factor in modern deterrence and the study
of it, confined to a small number of states. The stability of the international system rested
primarily on the United States bloc and the USSR and Chinese blocs plus their huge conventional
forces, with the leaders working to enlarge their blocs and power. The resulting security
arrangement has been successful but expensive, the United States and USSR providing the
critical security and stability while paying much of the cost. Tensions between the bloc leaders
(and some bloc members) generated expensive and dangerous situations in places like Berlin,
Vietnam, Cuba, and Korea involving serious casualties and threats. However, the overall security
system remained stable.
From early in the Cold War nuclear weapons and nuclear deterrence have played a major role in
“extended deterrence,” which is when a state not only seeks to deter attacks on itself but to
prevent attacks on another state or states. Each superpower provided this for its bloc members
as well as nonmembers considered important to protect, usually because they were considered
important in the context of the Cold War.

Theoretical, political, social, and psychological components of deterrence:

1. Each side grasped the importance and danger of nuclear weapons, and thus of conventional
weapons which could drag states into nuclear wars nuclear and conventional forces. Therefore
they even shared information at times on how to sustain deterrence stability—keep nuclear
arsenals safe, prevent accidents and mistakes, and so on—and they carefully handled intensely
dangerous situations;

2. Each was seriously concerned about nuclear proliferation and at least partially tried to
prevent it;

3. Each used extended deterrence to maintain bloc cohesion, reinforcing this via huge nuclear
arsenals and conventional forces, and calming fears about first-strike threats and surprise
attacks by remaining able to retaliate disastrously—the core component of their relationship.

It became clear early on that deterrence could operate via threats to respond by either attacking
the opponents directly or by defending against them so vigorously that their plans failed—
deterrence by either threating/inflicting punishment or threatening denial of success for their
actions.
Deterrence was used to convince a rational, or even irrational, opponent not to attack—to
forestall irrationality or at least restrain it, and manipulate the opponent into acting rationally
or being so fearful as to do the rational thing in confronting “unacceptable damage.” This
obviously required that deterrence threats be at least reasonably credible, which could be
difficult.
Success lay in sustaining stability (peace) within any serious conflict. The Cold War was
successful this way without grievous harm until it ended in 1990. Immediate deterrence was
rarely crucial but quite significant at times (i.e., Cuban Missile Crisis). General deterrence was
crucial throughout. And deterrence was often practiced by Cold War participants or other
states, successfully and less so, beyond or out on the edge of the Cold War, sometimes by
participants concerned about or even seeking possible disruptions of Cold War stability.
The post–Cold War period began enthusiastically and was initially rewarding but since then has
not gone well. Deterrence reemerged as the core of international security management, and
that remains unlikely to change in the foreseeable future.

Deterrence in the Nuclear Age:

Deterrence theory largely developed out of the necessity to live with a serious East–West
conflict (Soviet bloc vs. NATO alliance), with massive conventional forces and arsenals making
a serious war likely be catastrophic. Deterrence theory described deterrence situations
(indicating what takes place), explained how deterrence works (what determined its outcomes),
and prescribed best steps for governments and decision makers.
Deterrence theory handled the serious mistakes problem by asserting that each side had so
much at stake it would be only rational to threaten the other with total devastation—or Mutual
Assured Destruction—so it was rational for both to avoid war, not start one.
An important element in deterrence theory was that a number of analysts turned to rational
choice approaches to provide the logic behind all this.

Things needed for effective deterrence

Credibility is obviously crucial for effective deterrence, so states,
officials, and analysts have given it much attention. Often
unreliable, fluctuating, and unpredictable, it is quite important
not just against opponents but in relations among allies and
associates.
Deterrence involves issuing threats, but what if the opponent
ignores them? The answer: think carefully about what would
convince the other side—what statements, promises, and preparations should be made? A
deterrer should make its threats as clear and obvious as possible and build a reputation for
upholding threats and taking the necessary steps (e.g., moving forces into place).

On the related problem of resolve, threats may be dismissed if seen by the challenger as not
credible, even though the threat looks dangerous, if the deterrer seems to lack the necessary
resolve. Deterrence may then fail unless imposed by some forceful initial action.

Some analysts were highly critical of rational deterrence theory. Conflicts must arise from
someone’s misperceptions, imperfect information, poor calculations, and the like. Analysts
noted how conflicts often spring from misperceptions, mistakes, and other potential threats to
deterrence stability. Alternative theories, therefore, have challenged the rational deterrence
theory and have focused on organizational theory and cognitive psychology.

The Cold War’s sudden end stunned the participants, and it seemed the result would include a
sharp reduction in the role, presence, and importance of deterrence in international relations.
Deterrence lost much of its presence and importance; then made an unwelcome but necessary
comeback.
The initial problem was that almost no one was properly prepared to handle things in the abrupt
1989–1990 circumstances—they were too unfamiliar. Cold War collapse came too abruptly, and
what replaced it had too little time to evolve.
The Cold War and deterrence had some underappreciated roots and effects.
The “Revolution in Military Affairs” emerging from at least three broad scientific and technical
developments.
1. First, in surveillance—improvements in detection, observation, and tracking via
better satellite reconnaissance, sound monitoring, improved radar and other
tracking systems.
2. Second, there was information processing, delivery, and presentation—
particularly via rapidly evolving computers and their offspring. The cyber
revolution soon began to affect deterrence as well.
3. Third, there was the rising capacity to hit what is detected whenever necessary.
All this began shifting and changing many aspects of conflict and warfare, such
as the shrinking size of forces, using force with much more precision, and
therefore the resulting ability to do more with much smaller forces.

“Cross domain deterrence” efforts began emerging, involving new and surprising blends of
different capabilities, such as using armed drones for penetration, monitoring and tracking,
identification, and destruction in league with ground forces. Deterrence now extends to using
costly sanctions, such as those against North Korea, Russia and, until recently, Iran—inflicting
punishment without fighting. Deterrence in the 21st century can encompass use of small groups
of raiders or machines for sizable reconnaissance, attacks, and disruptions. Technically, some
cross- domain deterrence is also now used by terrorists in assassinations; industrial, chemical,
and biological attacks; and cyberattacks—expanding their disruption and damage capabilities.
Analysts predict cyberattacks will also become more dangerous in the future.
The State of Deterrence Today
At the dawn of the 21st century, shifting attitudes and behavior began producing a significantly
different deterrence environment. In many parts of the non-Western world political figures,
groups, and other elements have worked to offset or avoid the West’s impact, seeking to avoid
the dominance of things Western. There is still Western military intervention in various
countries, sometimes for extended periods, and still present in some places to tackle deplorable
human rights situations. Substantial Western influence often met with rejection from religious,
tribal, cultural, or other elements, and from political elites or dictatorial regimes maneuvering to
retain power and national wealth in Africa and parts of Asia. In the Middle East political and
social unrest is initiated by dissatisfied ethnic groups, plus sizable and well-organized terrorist
groups driven by disgust with ineffective, often repressive regimes, by religion, and by anti-
Western cultural beliefs attached to a willingness to die.
In other cases, that rejection drew on deeply rooted national political elements—particularly in
China and Russia where Communist Party leaders or former leaders, and like-minded rulers
elsewhere mounted campaigns to shrink contact with the West and Western culture, attacking
it for seeking to deliberately undermine their countries, cultures, and economies. This includes
rebuilding Cold War antagonism around old assertions of being at war with the West. The
Kremlin talks this way, so does North Korea—with better justification—and even more
energetically. And China continues tightening controls over citizens, the party, and interactions
with the West, particularly the United States.
In a January 2007 article in The Wall Street Journal, veteran Cold War policy makers Henry
Kissinger, Bill Perry, George Shultz, and Sam Nunn reversed their previous position and
asserted that far from making the world safer, nuclear weapons had become a source of
extreme risk. Their rationale and conclusion was based not on the old world with only a few
nuclear players but on the instability in many states with the technologies and the lack of
wherewithal for the proper maintenance and upgrading of existing weapons.
The risk of accidents, misjudgments or unauthorised launches, they argued, was growing more
acute in a world of rivalries between relatively new nuclear states that lacked the security
safeguards developed over many years by America and the Soviet Union. The emergence of
pariah states, such as North Korea (possibly soon to be joined by Iran), armed with nuclear
weapons was adding to the fear as was the declared ambition of terrorists to steal, buy or build
a nuclear device.

Nuclear deterrence is criticised as being far less persuasive strategic response to a world of
potential regional nuclear arms races and nuclear terrorism than it was to the cold war.
 A successful nuclear deterrent requires a country to preserve its ability to retaliate by
responding before its own weapons are destroyed or ensuring a second-strike capability. A
nuclear deterrent is sometimes composed of a nuclear triad, as in the case of the nuclear
weapons owned by the United States, Russia, the China and India. Other countries, such as
the United Kingdom and France, have only sea-based and air-based nuclear weapons.

Stability-Instability Paradox

In 1966, Schelling is prescriptive in outlining the impact of the development of nuclear

weapons in the analysis of military power and deterrence. In his analysis, before the
widespread use of assured second strike capability, or immediate reprisal, in the form of SSBN
submarines, Schelling argues that nuclear weapons give nations the potential to destroy their
enemies but also the rest of humanity without drawing immediate reprisal because of the lack
of a conceivable defense system and the speed with which nuclear weapons can be deployed.
A nation's credible threat of such severe damage empowers their deterrence policies and fuels
political coercion and military deadlock, which can produce proxy warfare.

Historical analysis of nuclear weapons deterrent capabilities has led modern researchers to
the concept of the stability–instability paradox. Nuclear weapons confer large-scale stability
between nuclear weapon states, as in over 60 years, none has engaged in large-scale direct
warfare, primarily because of nuclear weapons deterrence capabilities, but they are forced
into pursuing political aims by military means in the form of comparatively smaller scale acts
of instability, such as proxy wars and minor conflicts.

Criticism
Deterrence theory is criticized for its assumptions about opponent rationales.
It is argued that suicidal or psychotic opponents may not be deterred by either forms of
deterrence. Also, diplomatic misunderstandings and/or opposing political ideologies may lead
to escalating mutual perceptions of threat and a subsequent arms race that elevates the risk of
actual war.
It is believed that deterrence theory is logically inconsistent, not empirically accurate, and that
it is deficient as a theory. In place of classical deterrence, rational choice scholars have argued
for perfect deterrence, which assumes that states may vary in their internal characteristics and
especially in the credibility of their threats of retaliation.