Tailored Deterrence

With many scholars and analysts questioning the relevance of deterrence as a valid strategic concept, this volume moves beyond Cold War nuclear deterrence to show the many ways in which deterrence is applicable to contemporary security. It examines the possibility of applying deterrence theory and practice to space, to cyberspace, and against non-state actors. It also examines the role of nuclear deterrence in the twenty-first century and reaches surprising conclusions.

Deterrence thinking has evolved from the Cold War to the present. During the period from 1945-1991 when the United States sought to deter attacks by the U.S.S.R. and Warsaw Pact, U.S. nuclear forces were fielded primarily to prevent nuclear war or escalation of war. However, with the breakup of the Soviet Union, as an immediate threat to the United States, and the rise of lesser nuclear states proliferating nuclear technologies, deterrence is once again reexamined for newer solutions.During the Cold War, deterrence strategy evolved over time as officials and defense strategists thought through the changes brought by nuclear weapons. Clearly after 1945, warfare had a new component. Long-range airpower gave states an intercontinental reach. The first A-bombs had an explosive power a thousand times more powerful than an equivalent weight of high explosive bombs like TNT. When thermonuclear weapons were created half a decade later, they, in turn, were a thousand times more powerful per unit weight than the A-bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. So in a period of four or five years, bomb explosive yields per unit weight increased a thousand times a thousand. This combination of long-range delivery vehicles coupled with warheads or bombs a million times more powerful than their World War II conventional counterparts led to a revolution in the way wars might be fought in the future if such weapons were employed.Abbreviations * 1 New Thinking on Deterrence - Dr. Barry Schneider and Mr. Patrick Ellis * Part One - Deterring State and Non-State Actors: Case Studies * 2 Actor-Specific Behavioral Models of Adversaries: A Key Requirement for Tailored Deterrence - Dr. Jerrold Post * 3 Tailoring U.S. Strategic Deterrence Effects on Russia - Mr. Franklin Miller * 4 Crisis Deterrence in the Taiwan Strait - Dr. Douglas McCready * 5 Deterring a Nuclear-Armed Iran from Adventurism and Nuclear Use - Mr. Gregory F. Giles * 6 Deterring North Korea from Employment of WMD in Future Korean Conflicts and Crises - Dr. Bruce Bennett * 7 Deterrence & Saddam Hussein: Lessons from the 1990-1991 Gulf War - Dr. Barry Schneider * 8 Influencing Terrorists' Acquisition and Use of Weapons of Mass Destruction - Exploring a Possible Strategy - Dr. Lewis Dunn * Part Two - Deterrence Issues and Challenges: A Topical Approach * 9 U.S. Extended Deterrence: How Much Strategic Force Is Too Little? - Mr. David Trachtenberg * 10 Deterrence Issues in a World of Very Few or Zero Nuclear Weapons - Dr. Barry Blechman * 11 Deterrence, the Triad, and Possible Dyads - Mr. Kurt Guthe * 12 The Role of Strategic Communications in Deterrence: Lesson from History - Mr. Richard Estes * 13 A Nation's Resilience as a Deterrence Factor - Mr. Patrick D. Ellis * 14 Summary and Conclusions - Dr. Barry Schneider and Mr. Patrick Ellis

Changes in the 21st century security environment require new analytic approaches to support strategic deterrence. Because current adversaries may be deterred from the use of nuclear weapons differently than were Cold War adversaries, the Air Force needs an analytic process and tools that can help determine those Air Force capabilities that will successfully deter or defeat these new nuclear-armed adversaries and assure U.S. allies. While some analytic tools are available, a coherent approach for their use in developing strategy and policy appears to be lacking. Without a coherent analytic approach that addresses the nuances of today's security environment, Air Force views of its strategic deterrence needs may not be understood or accepted by the appropriate decision makers. A coherent approach will support Air Force decisions about its strategic force priorities and needs, deter actual or potential adversaries, and assure U.S. allies. In this context, the Air Force in 2012 requested that the Air Force Studies Board of the National Research Council undertake a workshop to bring together national experts to discuss current challenges relating strategic deterrence and potential new tools and methods that the Air Force might leverage in its strategic deterrence mission. The workshop consisted of two 3-day sessions held in Washington, DC on September 26-28, 2012 and January 29-31, 2013 and was attended by a very diverse set of participants with expertise in strategic deterrence and a range of analytic tools of potential interest to the Air Force. U.S. Air Force Strategic Deterrence Capabilities in the 21st Century Security Environment summarizes this workshop.

Since the early 1960s, the U.S. strategic nuclear posture has been composed of a triad of nuclear-certified long-range bombers, intercontinental ballistic missiles, and submarine-launched ballistic missiles. Since the early 1970s, U.S. nuclear forces have been subject to strategic arms control agreements. The large numbers and diversified nature of the U.S. nonstrategic (tactical) nuclear forces, which cannot be ignored as part of the overall nuclear deterrent, have decreased substantially since the Cold War. While there is domestic consensus today on the need to maintain an effective deterrent, there is no consensus on precisely what that requires, especially in a changing geopolitical environment and with continued reductions in nuclear arms. This places a premium on having the best possible analytic tools, methods, and approaches for understanding how nuclear deterrence and assurance work, how they might fail, and how failure can be averted by U.S. nuclear forces. U.S. Air Force Strategic Deterrence Analytic Capabilities identifies the broad analytic issues and factors that must be considered in seeking nuclear deterrence of adversaries and assurance of allies in the 21st century. This report describes and assesses tools, methods - including behavioral science-based methods - and approaches for improving the understanding of how nuclear deterrence and assurance work or may fail in the 21st century and the extent to which such failures might be averted or mitigated by the proper choice of nuclear systems, technological capabilities, postures, and concepts of operation of American nuclear forces. The report recommends criteria and a framework for validating the tools, methods, and approaches and for identifying those most promising for Air Force usage.

The national security of the United States depends on a secure, reliable and resilient cyberspace. The inclusion of digital systems into every aspect of US national security has been underway since World War II and has increased with the proliferation of Internet-enabled devices. There is an increasing need to develop a robust deterrence framework within which the United States and its allies can dissuade would-be adversaries from engaging in various cyber activities. Yet despite a desire to deter adversaries, the problems associated with dissuasion remain complex, multifaceted, poorly understood and imprecisely specified. Challenges, including credibility, attribution, escalation and conflict management, remain ever-present and challenge the United States in its efforts to foster security in cyberspace. These challenges need to be addressed in a deliberate and multidisciplinary approach that combines political and technical realities to provide a robust set of policy options to decision makers. The Cyber Deterrence Problem brings together a multidisciplinary team of scholars with expertise in computer science, deterrence theory, cognitive psychology, intelligence studies and conflict management to analyze and develop a robust assessment of the necessary requirements and attributes for achieving deterrence in cyberspace. Beyond simply addressing the base challenges associated with deterrence, many of the chapters also propose strategies and tactics to enhance deterrence in cyberspace and emphasize conceptualizing how the United States deters adversaries.

The U.S. embraced "tailored deterrence" in its 2006 and 2010 National Security Strategies. Tailored deterrence seeks to customize whole-of-government deterrence strategies to specific actors and scenarios through a deterministic approach that combines rational deterrence theory with effects-based operations concepts. Consequently, tailored deterrence neglects some of the most important elements of contemporary deterrence theory, including the uncertainty and cognitive biases inherent to both intelligence assessments and international relations. While deterrence remains relevant, the U.S. objective to "decisively influence the adversary's decision-making calculus" overstates tailored deterrence's potential and does not adequately acknowledge its shortfalls. The U.S. approach to tailored deterrence is flawed because of its reliance on two erroneous assumptions: that the U.S. can reliably assess adversaries' decision calculus; and that the U.S. can decisively influence adversaries' choices. The U.S. should recognize that deterrence is a blunt instrument, not a scalpel, and modify its deterrence strategies accordingly.

The authors examine the application of classical deterrence theory to the space domain and argue that to build a tailored deterrence strategy for China in space, China's own objectives should be considered.

For decades, the rational actor model served as the preferred guide for U.S. deterrence policy. It has been a convenient and comforting guide because it requires little detailed knowledge of an opponent’s unique decision-making process and yet typically provides confident generalizations about how deterrence works. The model tends to postulate common decision-making parameters across the globe to reach generalizations about how deterrence will function and the types of forces that will be "stabilizing" or "destabilizing." Yet a broad spectrum of unique factors can influence an opponent’s perceptions and his calculations, and these are not easily captured by the rational actor model. The absence of uniformity means there can be very few deterrence generalizations generated by the use of the rational actor model that are applicable to the entire range of opponents. Understanding Deterrence considers how factors such as psychology, history, religion, ideology, geography, political structure, culture, proliferation and geopolitics can shape a leadership’s decision-making process, in ways that are specific and unique to each opponent. Understanding Deterrence demonstrates how using a multidisciplinary approach to deterrence analysis can better identify and assess factors that influence an opponent’s decision-making process. This identification and assessment process can facilitate the tailoring of deterrence strategies to specific purposes and result in a higher likelihood of success than strategies guided by the generalizations about opponent decision-making typically contained in the rational actor model. This book was published as a special issue of Comparative Strategy.