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APPENDIX F
Notes on the "Band" Between "Existential Deterrence" and the Actual
Use of Force
Helmut Sonnenfeldt, Brookings
Institution
1. Deterrence—used here roughly as defined in Sy
Deitchman's memorandum of February 22, 1995, to the Naval Studies
Board deterrence study participants—has been practiced in
various forms by states and other social organizations for much of
recorded history. In biblical times, God was thought to have an
infinite capacity for punishment (and reward). The record suggests
that potential sinners frequently were "deterred" from doing what
temptation, greed, and other motivations and impulses of mortal man
might have led them to do without fear of the consequences. But,
starting with Adam and Eve, there is a long and melancholy record
of deterrence failing.
God was also known to employ "compellence," both on the children
of Israel and on their tormentors, notably when he visited the 10
plagues on the Egyptians to force them to release the Israelites
from bondage. (Some of those plagues would nowadays fall into the
category of biological warfare.) The Bible also records instances
when entire populations were wiped out or forced into exile in the
course of wars. The Babylonians may well have calculated that the
example of physically removing the children of Israel from their
homeland would be a lesson to other people who might resist their
imperial ambitions.
Indeed, the notion of making an example of sinners or resisters
by inflicting severe punishment upon them has been a means of
maintaining "law and order" within social groups since time
immemorial and remains so today. Over time, states or their
predecessors have sought ways to provide some middle ground between
the threat, or example, of severe punishment and its actual
employment, including gradations of punitive action, e.g.,
beginning with a modest fine, as well as various forms of rewards
for good, and especially for compliant, behavior. The power of a
state to inflict capital punishment, albeit nowadays often
constrained by complex procedural safeguards, may be seen as an
effort to establish an "existential deterrence" to heinous
crimes.
2. Modem states have tried to approach the problems of crime by
searching for the root causes of antisocial or criminal behavior
and counteracting them by various kinds of reforms, medical
treatment, schooling, and so on. But except for a few intensely
idealistic communities, society has ultimately relied on the threat
and example of punishment to ensure domestic tranquility.
3. Interstate relations have always suffered from the absence of
a supreme secular authority operating by some agreed body of
universally applicable law upheld either by the consent of states
or by the threat of punitive action which
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confronts potential predators with the prospect of pain
sufficient to restrain them from breaking the peace. Even with a
vast body of international conventions and a U.N. Security Council
endowed with powers greater than any wielded by any previous
international institution, states ultimately rely on their own
ability to protect their interests and to dissuade those who would
attempt to damage those interests from doing so by the threat of
punishment greater than any gain that might be achieved. As noted,
this principle has been far from infallible— and not
necessarily because those who lead states are "evil" but because
state interests may clash and governments seek by one means or
another to enhance theirs, if necessary at the expense of those of
another state.
4. In the prenuclear age, rulers of states (and their
predecessor entities) were frequently deterred from seeking to
achieve gains at the expense of other states by fear of the cost.
Instead, they sought their goals by negotiation, dynastic
marriages, and other ways short of recourse to arms. But frequently
they did have recourse to arms, especially if the other state or
states were thought to be weaker. Often this involved
miscalculations and the enterprise was suspended; or perhaps a deal
was made. The costs incurred were frequently temporary: destruction
could be repaired; populations could be replenished; debts could be
paid, covered by loans, or ignored. Occasionally, of course,
damage, whether as a result of gains achieved or of losses suffered
or of merely a standoff, could be severe and long lasting (e.g.,
the Thirty Years' War and World Wars I and II). Sometimes states
ceased to exist or lost their independence. Major changes in the
international system could result. But over time the effects of
even the more cataclysmic conflicts and resulting transformations
in the state system would be absorbed and surmounted.
5. In the last 150 years or so, the prompt damage and injury
inflicted by weapons of war greatly increased; cumulative damage
and injury extended well beyond the military forces of warring
parties; weapons could be delivered against military and civilian
targets over ever-increasing distances and with ever-greater
rapidity. Combined with ever-more effective means of conflict, like
blockades and displacements and destruction of civilian
populations, prenuclear conflicts in the 20th century came to
resemble the most destructive conflicts in the Middle Ages and
antiquity. Many people came to conclude in the early 20th century,
especially after World War I, that modern war was not worth any
conceivable gain. As it turned out, the deterrent effect of war
itself was far from universal. Indeed, the destructiveness of
modern prenuclear war was exploited by the most ruthless political
movements and leaders between the world wars to advance their
ambitions. The famous Leni Riefenstahl movie "Triumph of the Will"
was designed both to imbue the German public with a sense of
destiny and to intimidate the rest of Europe into meeting German
demands and to persuade it that resistance would be senseless
should Germany use force to impose them.
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The British sought at the time to acquire some room for maneuver
by speeding rearmament, guaranteeing Poland, and, half-heartedly,
trying to persuade the Soviet Union to join an anti-Hitler front.
Hitler trumped the latter and moved against Poland while Britain
and France still had no means of directly aiding Poland other than
declaring general war ill prepared. He and some of his advisors
thought the West would remain deterred. They miscalculated.
After Poland's conquest, Hitler engaged in what 20 years later
would have been called "intrawar deterrence"; i.e., he sought to
persuade the British and French that escalation of the war to
redeem a commitment to a Poland that by then had disappeared risked
the massive destruction of modern war. He miscalculated again. The
only "intrawar deterrence" that worked during World War II (and
again in the Gulf War) was that both sides abstained from using
their chemical arsenals against each other. (The Germans, of
course, used theirs in the extermination camps, and the Iraqis used
theirs domestically and against Iran.)
6. The advent of the nuclear age, with the demonstrated
immediate and anticipated future effects of atomic weapons, led to
a far more systematic development of the theory and practice of
deterrence than had existed before. As it happened, the advent of
the nuclear age coincided with that of the Cold War, a largely
bipolar confrontation that was to last almost half a century.
7. The overriding concern of American policy during the Cold War
was to avoid all-out war while at the same time preventing Soviet
political and territorial gains, particularly in Europe. In the
early years of the Cold War, with Soviet conventional forces in
Central and Eastern Europe thought to be greatly superior to
Western forces in Germany and Western Europe, the United States
relied on its atomic superiority well into the 1950s to deter
Soviet encroachments. This threat of massive retaliation "at places
and times of our choosing" was buttressed by a series of alliances.
In the case of NATO, the alliance was transformed into an
integrated multinational military force which over time became
increasingly formidable. In Germany it was deployed along the
east-west dividing line as well as in depth (until France in 1967
precluded stationed forces on its soil). These dispositions were
intended both to deter the Soviets and to reassure the allies,
allowing them, with U.S. aid, to reconstruct their societies and
economies. "Reassurance" became a crucial adjunct of deterrence,
which itself therefore came to include the concept of "extended
deterrence." This extension was the logical consequence of the
geographic remoteness of the United States from regions it had
concluded fell within its area of interests.
8. If there ever was any serious thought in the West of
liberating Soviet-dominated Eastern Europe, it was dissipated by
Moscow's acquisition of a nuclear arsenal of its own. Deterrence
thus began to operate in both directions;
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in the late 1950s ''massive retaliation" lost credibility (would
the United States trade New York for Hamburg, and so on?) and,
within the requirements of "extended deterrence," gradually came to
be replaced by "flexible response." This was in turn followed by
major Soviet forward deployments of shorterrange nuclear weapons.
Although there was much controversy about how "stable" these
arrangements were—Germans became especially sensitive about
nuclear deployments on or near their soil—the system in fact
kept Europe free of war until the Soviet collapse.
9. The mutual deterrence system was less stable outside Europe:
major wars occurred in Korea (clearly encouraged and supported by
the Soviets), Vietnam (with Soviet involvement more ambiguous), and
with lesser intensity elsewhere. Moscow, as it were, hurdled the
containment barriers. The United States did not fare well in
several of these conflicts, but the damage to its interests was far
from fatal. Moscow and "international Communism" appeared to be the
gainer, but in fact the problems and costs of managing a far-flung
and disparate pseudoempire contributed to the eventual demise of
the Soviet Union itself.
More pertinent perhaps, the policies of the Reagan
administration of contesting Soviet footholds around the world more
actively and of forcing the pace of the U.S. military buildup while
avoiding, by instinct as much as calculus, a breach of mutual
deterrence rules eventually led Gorbachev to seek relief by
negotiation and attempts to reform the Soviet system. Crucially in
the circumstances, the U.S. policy of pressure and cost raising
came to be accompanied by an embrace of Gorbachev as the instrument
for dismantling the Cold War and, along with it, the Soviet empire.
The Soviet side of the mutual deterrence equation had failed to
prevent the West from substantially achieving its political aims
without war.
10. Deterrence in the post-Cold War world is not a two-sided
game. Nor, with exceptions noted below, are there frontlines as
clearly defined as those of the Cold War which ran through the
center of Europe and around the periphery of the old Soviet Union.
It is already clear that the panoply of U.S. military power,
although impressive, is not capable by its mere, but shrinking,
existence of deterring military conflicts across international
frontiers or within them. This may in large part be because the
United States is not prepared to employ its forces on a large scale
or even credibly to threaten their use in many of the cases that
have so far arisen. The demonstration effect of the Gulf War may
deter large-scale aggression like that by Iraq against Kuwait, but
that effect may fade even in strategically important areas like the
Gulf unless there is a visible U.S. military presence in or near
the region. In Bosnia the threat of NATO—largely U.S.—air
power initially had an inhibiting effect on Serb violations of the
no-fly and heavy-weapons exclusion zones. But that ended when the
highly restrictive tactics of its use and the cumbersome nature of
NATO/U.N. command arrangements became apparent to the Serbs.
Moreover, NATO governments
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with forces on the ground were always reluctant to use air power
because of fears of Serb retaliation, such as hostage taking.
11. The United States has not so far been able to clarify, i.e.,
achieve political consensus, as to where and under what conditions
it would be prepared to intervene militarily. The Bottom-up Review
identified two potential such cases—the "major regional
conflicts" in the Gulf and Korea. That has not prevented North
Korea and Iraq—and to a lesser extent Iran-from testing U.S.
reactions to various military moves. In response, the United States
beefed up its presence in the Gulf and reinforced its forces in
Korea.
As significant, in the case of North Korea, the threat of an
emerging nuclear capability and the formidable, if vulnerable,
North Korean conventional forces arrayed along the 38th parallel,
led the United States to seek a negotiated resolution of the
nuclear issue. For the time being, the Korean peninsula may
represent the closest instance of two-sided mutual deterrence in
the post-Cold War world (the Indian subcontinent may be another
such case, though not directly involving the United States). This
may allow room for some negotiated compromises on the nuclear and
other issues, especially those between the North and the South. But
in view of the nature of the North Korean regime and its inherent
weakness, the situation is likely to remain fragile. If the Soviet
collapse has any precedential significance, mutual deterrence may
prevent war but may not preclude the collapse of one of the
parties—which in the case of North Korea may not be as gentle
as that of the Soviet Union and all but one of its satellites.
12. As has frequently been pointed out, deterrence chiefly
affects the intentions of decision makers, that is, their
calculus of whether the risks and potential costs of a course of
action are worth the gains that might be achieved. The United
States will continue to have formidable military forces of all
kinds, even though substantially smaller than during the Cold War.
But their deterrent effect on others who might be inclined or
impelled toward aggrandizing policies will be less a result of
their size and destructive capacity than of judgments concerning
the readiness of the United States actually to employ those forces
either alone or in coalitions.
The resulting uncertainties can lead to at least two dangers:
(1) that a country may make a move which the United States then
decides is sufficiently detrimental to its interests to require a
military riposte, and (2) that the United States, concerned that
its credibility is so much in question, decides that it must
undertake a demonstrative military move which will then be
interpreted as provocative and induce overt military action by
another party. There is no easy way out of this kind of dilemma. It
is, however, not likely to arise in too many instances until a
major power appears on the scene determined to assert hegemony, or
territorial control, over adjacent areas which the United States
then deems to be of importance to its security. The most likely
foreseeable case of this sort is a future China with ambitions to
clearly establish control of the
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South China Sea. Other nearby states will be even more concerned
than the United States in this instance.
This may produce a de facto coalition which would either seek to
resist Chinese ambitions or to work out a modus vivendi.
This particular example is of contemporaneous interest, since China
is clearly already asserting claims to the Spratlys and its
surrounding wider ocean areas. But it still lacks the military
forces to prevent serious challenges from other claimants. The
United States has been neutral about the conflicting claims but
recently asserted its interest by asserting rights of passage
through the contested waters and insisting on peaceful settlement
of claims. The United States may have to become more explicit in
asserting its position and will need periodically to exercise its
asserted maritime rights to avoid later misunderstandings and
potential clashes with a by-then much stronger China.
13. For a while, in the Bush administration, it appeared that
the United States would look to the United Nations as an effective
instrument to enhance deterrence of local aggressions and serious
indigenous conflicts by the interposition of international forces
in critical situations. Although the Security Council, with U.S.
support, has continued to issue decisions along these lines, the
United States has meanwhile severely restricted its own
participation in such ventures. But without U.S. participation,
U.N. effectiveness, as peace maker or enforcer, is limited. As
matters stand, the United States will participate only if it (or
SACEUR) is in clear command of the operations involved. But this
will not be acceptable to key Security Council members except in
rare cases which in practice will be coterminous with those in
which the United States is prepared to intervene unilaterally,
e.g., at present in the Gulf and Korea. At some less inflamed time,
the United States might reconsider possible U.N. activities which
could lessen the risk or severity of conflicts and which it could
support.
14. Elements of nuclear deterrence will continue between
Russia and the United States because of the size of their
respective nuclear arsenals and the uncertainties of Russia's
political evolution. But for now the prospects for direct military
engagements between the United States and Russia are remote. The
United States is not prepared to challenge Russian assertions of
special rights, including military ones, in the "near abroad." The
effectiveness of "extended deterrence" of Russian military actions
and pressures outside the former Soviet space will remain moot at
least for some time to come. Except as noted below, there is thus
strictly speaking no "band" between existential deterrence and a
shooting war between the two major nuclear powers. But there is a
strong American interest in Russia's transformation into a
democratic, constitutionally governed state with the role of the
military establishment circumscribed. U.S. capacity to influence
developments along these directions in Russia is modest, but
conceptually the effort to do so is the equivalent of filling the
area between deterrence and conflict.
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15. The situation with respect to the Baltic states and Ukraine
poses more difficult problems. Neither the United States nor the
West generally is prepared to provide these countries with
iron-clad security guarantees. In a military sense, deterrence thus
does not operate, except to the extent that Russian leaders may
think there is some possibility of military intervention from the
West in the event of Russian incursions or brazen interference in
domestic affairs or other efforts of coercion. The "existential
deterrence" that may operate is the almost certain political and
economic isolation that Russia would suffer. There could also be
internal Russian protest and opposition against a leadership that
moved against one or more of the countries cited. That leadership
would also have to consider the difficulties and direct costs of
actually attempting to exercise physical control in these
countries.
The United States and others can further intensify relations
with the Baltic states and Ukraine so that they increasingly tend
toward de facto membership in Western institutions. This may create
incentives for Russia to pursue constructive and beneficial rather
than antagonistic and coercive relationships with these countries.
The West should also provide support for resolution of actual
disputes between Russia and these countries (e.g., on minority
rights and on residual military matters stemming from the Soviet
period). Such actions would tend to buttress their security by
widening the scope of "political deterrence."
16. With time the United States will face the appearance of new
major powers. These would be regional in the first instance but
would almost certainly acquire some military and other capabilities
that could also threaten U.S. interests up to and including the
United States itself. In such circumstances the United States will
find itself reverting to a basic deterrent posture, i.e., one that
would threaten punishment for damage to U.S. interests up to and
including upon the homeland of the perpetrator. Nuclear weapons
would almost certainly come into play only in the event that
nuclear threats were directed against the United States or one of
its allies. Threats involving chemical and biological warfare would
probably be countered with threats of retribution by conventional
means, although in severe cases threats of nuclear retaliation
could not be ruled out. Air defenses against delivery systems
capable of reaching the United States should augment the threat of
punishment, if necessary by amending the Antiballistic Missile
Treaty. Passive defenses could play some role as reassurance.
(Note: Chemical and biological warfare threats merge with terrorist
dangers and involve issues of domestic security policy.)
Containment strategies, including the use of existing alliances
and newly formed coalitions, would probably be the most effective
and affordable instruments to avoid or postpone direct military
conflicts. But in some instances this may be easier said than done
because even close allies may have different assessments of the
seriousness of a threat or of the most effective ways to deal with
it. (Note: Japan and much of Europe at present reject economic
sanctions against Iran; Japan and South Korea had grave doubts
about the use of
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sanctions, let alone military actions, against North Korea over
the nuclear issue.)
17. Containment strategies for some time to come will be
regional in scope rather than global, as was the case with the
Soviet Union. In view of the uncertain war-preventing role of
"existential deterrence," various forms of "extended deterrence"
will be required to give substance to containment strategies.
"Forward" stationing of forces, as noted earlier, will be necessary
in particularly critical situations such as those in Korea and the
Gulf. Some forward stationing, as well as forward operations of
forces based in the United States, will be required as forms of
presence designed to inhibit the development of potential into
actual threats. The relatively large stationed U.S. forces
remaining in Europe may be seen as this kind of presence. But these
forces, which perform important political functions assuring a
significant U.S. role in a future European security
"architecture,'' may not be optimally positioned to cope with
threats that may arise in other parts of the world. Lift and other
support requirements to deploy them to places of more direct
relevance to an emerging threat may be as demanding as for forces
normally located in the United States.
Some "show of force" or "showing the flag" operations may have
greater psychological effect if they are mounted from the United
States. More generally, forces and equipment forward deployed for
specific contingencies cannot be as readily utilized elsewhere as
those maintained in the United States or at "crisis-neutral"
locations. Naval and air forces usable for long-range bombardment
of land targets are inherently more flexible than land forces and
can be permanently based in facilities remote from potential areas
of conflict in which U.S. interests might become engaged. They
should, however, be visibly exercised.
Measures to augment "existential deterrence" should include
diplomacy and various inducements for parties involved to resolve
issues giving rise to friction, crises, and conflict. Agreements
can be internationally policed and, if necessary, enforced. If so,
based on unfortunate experience in these matters, mandates and
rules of engagement for international enforcement should be clearly
established and forces adequate to the task provided.
Apart from problems of command, it is generally not advisable
for American forces to participate directly in such missions unless
there is a credibly definable American interest in a particular
situation. Although it is desirable for U.S. forces to be trained,
physically and psychologically, for military operations that have
no "enemy"—although there would be "violators" of agreements
subject to countermeasures—or a victor in the traditional
sense, the United States must avoid dissipating its forces or
participating in too many operations with ambiguous outcomes. Both
undermine the credibility of deterrence, existential or
extended.
18. It should also be noted that not all aspiring regional
powers necessarily seek to encroach on U.S. interests. Their
aspirations, and associated military
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programs, may be principally intended to balance, deter, or
threaten rival regional powers. In such situations the United
States may elect neutrality, good offices to resolve differences
and limit arms races, or tilting toward the party less likely at
some point to collide with U.S. interests. As regards the last of
these options, the United States will need to take care not to
become so deeply tied to one of the parties in a two-party regional
rivalry that it loses room for maneuver or encourages that party to
assume the United States will support it militarily in a possible
war. (The United States may choose to do so but ordinarily should
not give so much support in advance that its preferred party starts
the war itself. This consideration should also limit the types and
quantities of military equipment the United States might supply to
the preferred party.)
19. A tentative conclusion: In the post-Cold War world,
"existential deterrence," i.e., the sheer weight of American power,
will not prevent many conflicts nor even threats or actions against
American interests. If a threat is perceived, more directly
applicable and visible force will be required to deter and contain
it. It will be desirable to undertake such countermeasures in
association with other states, but this may often be difficult
because of differing threat assessments and judgments as to the
most effective means to be used. There will be numerous aspiring
powers over time, including some with at least a rudimentary
ability to injure the continental United States. In the latter
case, a Cold War-type of deterrence, combined with defenses and
containment strategies, may be the most desirable option. When
aspiring powers are regional rivals of each other, it is in the
U.S. interest to help prevent war; in so doing the United States
should not tilt so far toward one of the parties as to run the risk
of getting dragged in or of encouraging that party to start a
war.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
containment strategies
