Abstract
Revisionist actors are increasingly operationalising a broad number of non-violent threats in their quest to change the status quo, popularly described as hybrid conflict. From a defensive point of view, this proliferation of threats compels nations to make difficult choices in terms of force posture and composition. We examine the choice process associated with this contemporary form of state competition by modelling the interactions between two actors, i.e., a defender and a challenger. As these choices are characterised by a high degree of uncertainty, we study the choice from the framework of prospect theory. This behavioural–economic perspective indicates that the defender will give a higher weight and a higher subjective value to conventional threats, inducing a higher vulnerability in the domain of hybrid deterrence. As future conflict will increasingly involve choice dilemmas, we must balance threats according to their probability of occurrence and their consequences. This article raises awareness regarding our cognitive biases when making these choices.
Highlights
The re-emergence of long-term, strategic competition by so-called revisionist actors such as China and Russia, constitutes one of the main contemporary security challenges [1]
While conventional conflict rarely takes place, hybrid threats occur continuously; they are more difficult to attribute to a perpetrator, and it is more difficult to assess the effects and the consequences associated with these types of threats
We refer to the terminology of hybrid threats as it has been adopted by North Atlantic TreatyOrganization (NATO)
Summary
The re-emergence of long-term, strategic competition by so-called revisionist actors (i.e., states that are dissatisfied with the current distribution of power and that aim to reshape the world in their favour) such as China and Russia, constitutes one of the main contemporary security challenges [1]. The competition in the informational (e.g., cyber and disinformation) and nonmilitary domains, popularly known as ‘hybrid threats’, has created a grey zone where the traditional physical boundaries of conflict are eroded so that countries can be destabilised without a single soldier crossing the (physical) border [2,3,4] These threats give rise to a number of challenges. As a more differentiated portfolio of options makes trade-offs more difficult, we venture in the strategic question: “How do we decide on allocating available budgetary means across different domains when striving to deter the wide range of threats we are confronted with?” We study this broad research question by means of a traditional game theoretical deterrence model, resembling the interactions between a defender and a challenger that wishes to revise the status quo.
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