Deterrence Posture Research Articles

Conventional Deterrence: Predictive Uncertainty and Policy Confidence

For over three decades the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has based its deterrent on the principle that the United States would retaliate with nuclear weapons if a Soviet conventional attack against Western Europe succeeded. This notion has long troubled most strategic analysts. It remained generally acceptable to political elites, however, when U.S. nuclear superiority appeared massive enough to make the doctrine credible (as in the 1950s); when the conventional military balance in Europe improved markedly (as in the 1960s); or when détente appeared to be making the credibility of deterrence a less pressing concern (as in the 1970s). None of these conditions exists in the 1980s, and anxiety over the danger of nuclear war has prompted renewed attention to the possibility of replacing NATO's Flexible Response doctrine (a mixture of nuclear and conventional deterrence) with a reliable conventional deterrence posture that might justify a nuclear no-first-use (NFU) doctrine.1

France's deterrent posture and security in Europe Part I: Capabilities and doctrine: Introduction

France's deterrent posture and security in Europe Part I: Capabilities and doctrine: Introduction

France's deterrent posture and security in Europe Part II: Strategic and arms control implications: Introduction

France's deterrent posture and security in Europe Part II: Strategic and arms control implications: Introduction

An Appraisal of U.S. Strategy in the Indian Ocean

intervention in Afghanistan, the Iran-Iraq war, and the deep-rooted problems in Turkey clearly suggest new patterns of instability in the area. This zone of crisis has undermined the U.S. and Western position and has opened new vistas of opportunity for the Soviet Union. It has been argued that the diminishing U.S. influence and power in the Indian Ocean region is the result of three decades of neglect.2 This region did not figure prominently in the postwar global strategy of the United States. The North Atlantic region and the Pacific basin remained the main foci of American power and strategic infrastructure. With the exception of a token U.S. Middle East Fleet of three old destroyers, the security of the Indian Ocean/Persian Gulf depended heavily on the residual elements of Great Britain's imperial power. Despite serious gaps in the capability of the British forces and early signs of a British retreat from the area, the U.S. abstained from establishing a credible presence. Even a prompt British withdrawal of forces from east of Suez in 1968 did not change the American perception of the Indian Ocean as a low priority area. However, the Soviet naval deployments following the British decision to withdraw totally from the region, the Soviet and Cuban involvement in Africa, and the repercussions of the Arab-Israeli conflict of 1973 and the ensuing oil embargo significantly sharpened a growing threat perception in the American defense community. It prompted and intensified efforts by the United States regarding future security policies in the area and the establishment of a credible deterrent posture.3

The Opportunity Costs of Acting as a Super Power: U.S. Military Strategy in the 1980s

For thirty years (1945-75), the super power roles performed by the United States were based upon its pre-eminent strength in military preparedness and economic wealth. Strategic analysts and political leaders assumed that as the leader of the Western alliance the U.S. would serve as a prime mover in resolving global or regional conflicts, and that its deterrence posture would help stabilize a durable world order. These assumptions have now been called into serious question. Challenged by the superior economic performance of its allies in the Atlantic and Pacific security zones, and by the OPEC oil cartel in its economic security, the U.S. can no longer exert itself as a formidable super power. Neither can the Soviet Union, since it too, is obstructed by the nationalist challenges posed by its alliance partners. The ability of the U.S. to restore its former pre-eminence is limited by pressing economic considerations. Faced by an unprecedented threat of inflation and slow economic growth, the U.S. must limit its defense efforts in the years ahead. If it invests too many resources in defense, industrial productivity and the value of the dollar will fall; and its vulnerability to the economic maneuvers of its allies and adversaries will sharply increase. If it should invest unwisely during the 1980s in its military appropriations, the U.S. will find its political leadership position severely undermined. There are three claimants for military appropriations to prepare for the 1980s: (1) the strategic deterrent forces are to be enlarged and modernized, (2) theatre force levels in Europe are to be increased, and (3) naval deployments are to be extended in the Third World. It is questioned whether any of these increments can be successfully enlarged and if there will be a gain in political power by actually doing so. Even if $1,000 billion should be spent to improve U.S. military capabilities in the next few years, as is now planned, the U.S. will not be able to fulfill the super power responsibilities that it shouldered in the opening rounds of the Cold War. As the leading military force in world affairs, the U.S. recognizes that it must calculate economic and political opportunity costs that can only inhibit its strategic ambitions. It is evident that a new formula must be found, both in theoretical and empirical terms, to revise the expectations of what super powers can hope to do in the next round of the Cold War. Eleven Figures presenting financial and defense data accompany the analysis. The last reveals that between 1958 and 1978 U.S. military expenditures fell from 46 to 25 percent of the world outlay for defense appropriations. This trend cannot be quickly or decisively reversed.

Theater-Nuclear Force Modernization and NATO's Flexible Response Strategy

In October 1979 the North Atlantic Treaty Organization adopted a resolution that recommended modernization of NATO's long-range theater-nuclear forces. Based upon the deployment in Western Europe of 108 Pershing II missile and 464 ground-launched cruise missile launchers, the NATO decision was widely regraded as an essential step in redressing the deteriorating military balance in Europe. The perceived erosion of the European balance is rooted in the momentum of programs undertaken by the Soviet Union both in nuclear and nonnuclear forces. From a European perspective, however, the most worrisome aspect of Soviet modernization programs relates to improvements in theater-nuclear systems which, when juxtaposed with the development of a potential counterforce capability (against U.S. ICBMs), have reinforced doubts about the ability of the Alliance to ensure deterrence by means of the agreed strategy of Flexible Response, with its attendant concepts of defensive planning and graduated response providing for conventional and nuclear options. To enhance the deterrence posture of NATO and to provide for a contingency in which the actual use of NATO's nuclear-capable systems might become necestheater-nuclear forces and, at the same time, revitalize its tactical planning options.

A dynamic view of deterrence

For several years, U.S. strategic deterrence policy has been built around, and most of the strategic debate in the U.S. has focused on, certain big strategic systems, each of them involving many years and extensive resources for their creation. This approach has resulted in a relatively unchanging and predictable U.S. strategic deterrent posture. Should the basis for selecting strategic systems, though, rest on developing a “permanent” or “static” posture? This article outlines an alternative: to think in terms of a “dynamic” deterrent posture—one which utilizes newly built strategic capabilities or alterations to pose a changing threat to the enemy and thereby create and sustain an off‐balance situation. The emphasis would be on quality rather than quantity, and the reductions in time and effort required for system deployment would be likely to make many more options available for response.

The Role of Deterrence in NATO Defense Strategy: Implications for Doctrine and Posture

The basis of NATO deterrence strategy is the manipulation of the nuclear "threshold." When NATO's conventional component is strong and the exact nature of its nuclear threshold is uncertain to Warsaw Pact countries, NATO's deterrent will be strong. Attempts to improve the “quality” of the nuclear arsenal by making the outcome of nuclear conflict more predictable weaken NATO's deterrent power. It is the possibility that NATO may use nuclear weapons, as well as the uncertainty of the consequences of such use, that strengthens the deterrent. The number of nuclear weapons in the NATO arsenal could be reduced with no appreciable damage to the deterrent posture. Qualitative improvements in the conventional component, while increasing deterrent strength, also serve as safeguards in case of deterrence failures. To the extent that political unity within NATO increases the predictability of a NATO response to Warsaw Pact aggression, it is possible that political disunity actually adds to deterrent strength.

Deterrence in the MIRV Era

In one of the landmark contributions to the strategic literature of the late 1950's, Albert Wohlstetter advanced the disquieting thesis that the vulnerability of our strategic retaliatory force (then consisting largely of overseas-based manned bombers and rather primitive, unhardened IRBM's) to a well-orchestrated Soviet surprise attack had come to suggest worrisome implications for continued U.S. security. The credibility of a deterrent posture, he pointedly emphasized, presupposed the ability of the deterring power to convey to its opponent an absolute certainty that any attack, however massive, would be answered by an unacceptably devastating reprisal.

Some Computational Techniques and Theorems Concerning Mutual Deterrence Relationships

In a previous paper [1], an analysis of static and dynamic considerations for achieving multilateral deterrence postures among nations was presented in summary form. This paper presents the computational techniques and theoretical results which were not included in the prior paper. In order to keep this paper relatively brief we shall use the notation in [1] and presume familiarity with its contents. To maintain coherence of this paper the reader must use [1] as a guide. In particular, the paper will discuss analytical and computational results for the n-country static case, the boundedness conditions for the dynamic 2-party case, and the optimization problems which arise with the introduction of unambiguous and ambiguous ABM capabilities. In addition, reliability and statistical confidence questions will be examined.