Post-Cold War Conflict Deterrence (1997) / Chapter Skim
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Appendix G.3: Protecting Weak and Medium Strength States: Issues of Deterrence, Stability and Decision Making
Appendix G.3: Protecting Weak and Medium Strength States: Issues of Deterrence, Stability and Decision Making
Pages 153-181
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From page 153... ...
It then discusses how both immediate and general deterrence might be strengthened by a variety of political, economic, and military measures. The measures discussed include reasonably capable defensive forces that cannot easily be bypassed, operational arms control to make surprise attack more difficult, forward-deployed protector forces, and formal arrangements through regional security structures that would assure the long-term punishment of aggressors through political and economic isolation and, perhaps, military measures.
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Potential Threats The major states of the developed world want to deter international aggression as part of maintaining regional stability. Usually, however, the objective is discussed in abstract terms.
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planning: a renewed threat by Iraq against Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, or an invasion of South Korea by North Korea. A future invasion (or coercion)
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The reality is much less happy, however, when one looks at direct and extended conventional deterrence. Although it seems to have worked for NATO's Central Region, Huth and Russett have demonstrated that immediate deterrence has failed more often than it has succeeded over a large set of crises in the 1 9th and 20th centuries even though the aggressor ultimately failed roughly two-thirds of the time, which suggests that deterrence "should" have had a better track record.5 5See Huth (1988)
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They worry about being dragged incrementally into a quagmire, about depending on a trip wire that might be tripped with the loss of their soldiers, or about political authorities acting without first establishing consensus.6 Even this list is not long enough. Consider that aggressive personalities such as Saddam Hussein and Slobodan Milosevic still seem to ascend to power all too frequently.
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The issue here is not just modern air forces, but also the advent of highly accurate and lethal long-range artillery and shorter-range accurate mortar systems.7 · Conquering territory is arguably not as useful as it once was. Further, conquering territory no longer creates international respect.
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The approach represents this in a simple but unusual way by having He modeled adversary consider options and examine likely and possible 9For discussion of conventional deterrence theory, see Mearsheimer (1983) , Cimbala (1992)
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Model 2 is perhaps more ambitious, more risk taking, and quite unhappy with the status quo and mere marginal improvements. He chooses the aggressive option despite the substantial risks, primarily because he sees great upside potential and also assesses the likely outcome to be at least Good.
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To illustrate some of these concepts, Figure G.3. 1 shows contrasting cognitive maps or influence diagrams used in a study of Saddam Hussein (Davis and Arquilla, l991b)
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It includes additional factors such as Saddam's perception that his problems were the direct result of Iraq being squeezed deliberately by his enemies (the United States, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia among them)
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. For the case of Saddam Hussein before the invasion decision, the factors affecting perceived risks might have been as indicated in Figure G.3.3.
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Some of these dangerous ideas include deep-seated hatreds and paranoia, as when the target is felt to be the cause of all sorts of troubles. Examples here include Hitler's scapegoating of Jews, Saddam Hussein's belief that the Kuwaitis were conspiring with the Americans, or the belief of Crusade leaders that they were on a religious mission with God on their side against evil infidels.
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invasion of Canada or a French invasion of the Netherlands is "unthinkable"; Respect for international norms, notably including lhe prohibition on military actions that violate another nation's borders, except under highly circumscribed conditions; Fear of military defeat, a fear affected by the defender's and protector's military capabilities and readiness, their perceived will, and uncertainties affecting risk; Fear of consequences in terms of long, difficult, and costly operations, even if successful; and Fear of consequence in terms of longer-term punishment: Through near-term military actions (e.g., bombing of the aggressor's military forces, military infrastructure, or political and economic structure) ; 13Within a decision model the absence of strong incentives has at least two important effects.
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successfully in a number of strategic studies and models over the last decade. One of its primary virtues is that it highlights visually the various components of the problem on which one may wish to focus while developing strategy, i.e., while identifying ways to influence decisions and actions by one's opponent.
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DETERRING STRONG NEIGHBORS: STRATEGIES FOR WEAK OR MEDIUM-STRONG STATES Potential Insights from a Decision-Modeling Perspective If one takes a decision-modeling perspective, what kinds of insights emerge about how weak or medium-strong states might deter strong neighbors? What kinds of advice might be given to states such as Kuwait, Ukraine, Poland, Taiwan, or a unified Korea in the shadow of China?
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to misconceptions that are important in particular crises. As an example here, when Yugoslavia began to fall apart, one factor influencing Western Europeans and Americans to stand aside was the widespread and fatalistic notion that the people of the BaLkans were backward, tribally oriented, highly disputatious, and still fired with the same ethnic hatreds as in the early part of the century.
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Saddam Hussein and Serbia's Slobodan Milosevic fit the pattern. Psychiatrist and professor Jerrold Post has worked on such matters for years, much of it with the Central Intelligence Agency where he did personality profiling.
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Use Arms Control to Enhance Military Security and Political Relationships One of the most fruitful classes of measures generically appears to be arms control focused on how forces are located and postured, rather than on their precise size and configuration. Many proposals for arms control can be counterproductive, but others can substantially improve stability.
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Also, be very skeptical about claims that conventional deterrence is infeasible. Unless the neighbor has strong incentives for invasion, a moderate defense may very well be adequate.
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In a situation where religious or ethnic-hatred issues reign, we should not expect the normal rules of conventional deterrence to apply readily. Ideologues are willing to take greater risks, greater casualties, and even losses in pursuit of their goals.l9 EXTENDING DETERRENCE IN DEFENSE OF WEAK OR MEDIUMSTRONG STATES Let us next turn to what major states can do to extend deterrence to weak or medium-strong states.
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president could take appropriate hedging measures without being savagely attacked on the political front. Beware of "Deterrent Actions" Without Backup Many of those who would support early intervention to deter invasion of weak states or debacles such as In the BaLkans tend to assume that a clear show 20A good example of this is the refusal by General Colin Powell to deploy American maritime propositioning ships from Diego Garcia and elsewhere when strategic warning existed of a possible Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.
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Another form of "smart" intervention might be to supplement the defender's forces with high-quality indirect fire weapons that would greatly increase the vulnerability of attacker tanks and permit a kind of defense in depth (see also Kelley, Fox, and Wilson, 1994~. Deter Use of Weapons of Mass Destruction An important element of extended deterrence is avoiding self-deterrence, as well as coercion of regional allies.
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Operational arms control in particular (e.g., limits on the deployment locations and states of readiness) of forces can drastically alter the quality of strategic warning, even to the point of making justified preemptive attacks plausible.
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Punishment options should be tailored to address what matters to the decision makers of interest. Military planning should recognize the potential necessity of operations to restore lost territory, perhaps over a period of many months or years, and perhaps with operations launched over many hundreds of kilometers away because of the original invasion having been successful and established defenses.
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Enhancement of immediate deterrence through threat of punishment will be a risky proposition, but competition in risk taking is hardly a new issue. CONCLUSIONS: CHALLENGES FOR SECURITY STRATEGY, DEFENSE PLANNING, AND CRISIS DECISION MAKING What, then, can be said in summary about deterrence in defense of weak states, especially when one takes the perspective that deterrence is ultimately about influencing decisions?
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Arms control could also help shepherd the movement of force structures toward compositions more suitable for defense of borders and internal-security actions than for long-distance offensive force projection. Because immediate deterrence will not always work, especially if it depends on denial capability or prompt actions such as the dispatch of trip wires backed up by protector states, the United States and the international community more generally need to focus more on the development of credible and effective punishment options.
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(1988) , Toward a ConceptualFrameworkforOperationalArms Control in Europe's Central Region, R-3704-USDP, Rand, Santa Monica, California.
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, Conventional Deterrence, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, New York. M011er, Bjorn (1995)
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APPENDIX G.3 Wilkening, Dean and Kenneth Watman (1995) , Deterring Nuclear Threats from Regional Adversaries, Rand, Santa Monica, California.
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