The world is in a second nuclear age in which regional powers play an increasingly prominent role. These states have small nuclear arsenals, often face multiple active conflicts, and sometimes have ...weak institutions. How do these nuclear states-and potential future ones-manage their nuclear forces and influence international conflict? Examining the reasoning and deterrence consequences of regional power nuclear strategies, this book demonstrates that these strategies matter greatly to international stability and it provides new insights into conflict dynamics across important areas of the world such as the Middle East, East Asia, and South Asia.
Vipin Narang identifies the diversity of regional power nuclear strategies and describes in detail the posture each regional power has adopted over time. Developing a theory for the sources of regional power nuclear strategies, he offers the first systematic explanation of why states choose the postures they do and under what conditions they might shift strategies. Narang then analyzes the effects of these choices on a state's ability to deter conflict. Using both quantitative and qualitative analysis, he shows that, contrary to a bedrock article of faith in the canon of nuclear deterrence, the acquisition of nuclear weapons does not produce a uniform deterrent effect against opponents. Rather, some postures deter conflict more successfully than others.
Nuclear Strategy in the Modern Eraconsiders the range of nuclear choices made by regional powers and the critical challenges they pose to modern international security.
This open access volume surveys the state of the field to examine whether a fifth wave of deterrence theory is emerging. Bringing together insights from world-leading experts from three continents, ...the volume identifies the most pressing strategic challenges, frames theoretical concepts, and describes new strategies.The use and utility of deterrence in today's strategic environment is a topic of paramount concern to scholars, strategists and policymakers. Ours is a period of considerable strategic turbulence, which in recent years has featured a renewed emphasis on nuclear weapons used in defence postures across different theatres; a dramatic growth in the scale of military cyber capabilities and the frequency with which these are used; and rapid technological progress including the proliferation of long-range strike and unmanned systems. These military-strategic developments occur in a polarized international system, where cooperation between leading powers on arms control regimes is breaking down, states widely make use of hybrid conflict strategies, and the number of internationalized intrastate proxy conflicts has quintupled over the past two decades. Contemporary conflict actors exploit a wider gamut of coercive instruments, which they apply across a wider range of domains. The prevalence of multi-domain coercion across but also beyond traditional dimensions of armed conflict raises an important question: what does effective deterrence look like in the 21st century? Answering that question requires a re-appraisal of key theoretical concepts and dominant strategies of Western and non-Western actors in order to assess how they hold up in today's world.Air Commodore Professor Dr. Frans Osinga is the Chair of the War Studies Department of the Netherlands Defence Academy and the Special Chair in War Studies at the University Leiden. Dr. Tim Sweijs is the Director of Research at The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies and a Research Fellow at the Faculty of Military Sciences of the Netherlands Defence Academy in Breda.
This open access volume surveys the state of the field to examine whether a fifth wave of deterrence theory is emerging. Bringing together insights from world-leading experts from three continents, ...the volume identifies the most pressing strategic challenges, frames theoretical concepts, and describes new strategies. The use and utility of deterrence in today’s strategic environment is a topic of paramount concern to scholars, strategists and policymakers. Ours is a period of considerable strategic turbulence, which in recent years has featured a renewed emphasis on nuclear weapons used in defence postures across different theatres; a dramatic growth in the scale of military cyber capabilities and the frequency with which these are used; and rapid technological progress including the proliferation of long-range strike and unmanned systems. These military-strategic developments occur in a polarized international system, where cooperation between leading powers on arms control regimes is breaking down, states widely make use of hybrid conflict strategies, and the number of internationalized intrastate proxy conflicts has quintupled over the past two decades. Contemporary conflict actors exploit a wider gamut of coercive instruments, which they apply across a wider range of domains. The prevalence of multi-domain coercion across but also beyond traditional dimensions of armed conflict raises an important question: what does effective deterrence look like in the 21st century? Answering that question requires a re-appraisal of key theoretical concepts and dominant strategies of Western and non-Western actors in order to assess how they hold up in today’s world. Air Commodore Professor Dr. Frans Osinga is the Chair of the War Studies Department of the Netherlands Defence Academy and the Special Chair in War Studies at the University Leiden. Dr. Tim Sweijs is the Director of Research at The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies and a Research Fellow at the Faculty of Military Sciences of the Netherlands Defence Academy in Breda.
RUSSO-AMERICAN STRATEGIC NUCLEAR ARMS CONTROL Cimbala, Stephen J.; Lowther, Adam B.
Æther: A Journal of Strategic Airpower & Spacepower,
12/2023, Volume:
2, Issue:
4
Journal Article
This article considers whether the temporarily iced New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) can continue to serve as a fulcrum for the renewal of Russo-American strategic nuclear arms control. ...Going forward, the political and military-technical challenges to rebooting the New START and/or leapfrogging over it are formidable but not insurmountable. The article first considers the existing status of New START and both Russian and American strategic nuclear forces. Second, it discusses the fivefold context of challenges that face decisionmakers and negotiators in Washington and Moscow, and, although unlikely, Beijing. Third, the article analyzes the adequacy of New START-compatible forces to provide for surety in deterrence, crisis, and arms race stability, allowing for various levels of performance under exigent conditions.
All progress toward a more peaceful, nuclear-free world made both during and since the Cold War seems to be receding. The United States is returning to a strategic situation not seen since the 1950s, ...and yet one that is also far more complex. The need to understand nuclear weapons and their deterrent value has never been higher. Given this era of unbalanced nuclear multipolarity, ten propositions can help guide leaders, strategists, and planners as they establish and execute policy overseeing the most important deterrent effort of humankind, that of nuclear war.
Given Russia's aggressive actions in Ukraine and its hostile remarks toward its NATO neighbours, the question of why the credible deterrence posture of the Alliance is not producing the desired ...results is becoming increasingly important. Either Russian political leaders do not want to comply with the Western credible deterrence posture, or they do not understand what is expected from them. Linguistic factors (e.g., the ‘lost in translation’ effect) affect the effectiveness of the conversation on deterrence between Russia and the West, including NATO. The Russian language does not have one unambiguous equivalent for the Western term “deterrence.” There are several possible translations for deterrence in Russian, including sderzhivaniye, ustrasheniye, sderzhivaniye putem ustrasheniya, sderzhivaniye prinuzhdeniyem, as well as others. These terms are not synonymous, with each having its own different meaning and some being used in Russian military-political theory, where they refer to different concepts. The current study focuses on the most visible linguistic complications in the deterrence dialogue between Russia and the West. Based on the current study, it would often be more reasonable to talk to the Russian political and military elite about containment or coercion, which are more common and have clear, specific meanings in Russian.
Learning to Deter Sobelman, Daniel
International security,
01/2017, Volume:
41, Issue:
3
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
What are the sources of deterrence stability and under what conditions can weak actors deter stronger adversaries? To deter a superior adversary, the weak actor must convince it that if conflict ...breaks out, the weak actor would be capable of rendering its opponent’s strategic capabilities tactical and its own tactical capabilities strategic. The deterrence relationship that has evolved between Israel and the Lebanese Hezbollah in the decade since—and as a result of—the 2006 Lebanon War (a.k.a. the Second Lebanon War or the July War) confirms this observation. A comparison of these two actors’ deterrence behavior in the years preceding the war and in its aftermath shows that one of the leading explanations for the ongoing stability along the Israeli-Lebanese border is that Israel and Hezbollah have learned to apply deterrence in a manner that meets the prerequisites of rational deterrence theory.
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This article introduces the ‘deterrence failure’ concept and applies it to North Korea’s nuclear threat situation. For this purpose, it selects five factors, including retaliation posture; ...credibility of retaliation; probability of the challenger’s success; challenger’s irrational leader; and situational desperateness, to evaluate the US–South Korea nuclear deterrence posture against North Korea. Except for the retaliation posture, most factors are very concerning. Therefore, to strengthen their deterrence posture against North Korea, the United States and South Korea should take a few practical measures to ensure the implementation of the US extended deterrence, including the forward-deployment of more US retaliation assets around the Korean Peninsula.
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