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Abstract
This is a short commentary on Dmitry Adamsky’s recent article ‘The 1983 Nuclear Crisis – Lessons for Deterrence Theory and Practice’. First, it teases out nuances in the relationship between deterrence and strategy and considers deterrence to be both a strategy and an effect. Second, it explores the culminating point of deterrence in theory and considers it untenable, as it does not conform to the logic of, or to any logic analogous to, Clausewitz’s culminating point of victory. Deterrence logically cannot culminate. Moreover, any culminating point of deterrence would ignore why the potential deteree should perceive the actions of his deterrer in such a way as to render strengthened strategies of deterrence counterproductive. It is the deteree who is the only strategic actor to determine whether the deterrer is actually practising a successful strategy of deterrence or not.
Notes
1 André Beaufre, Deterrence and Strategy, trans. R.H. Barry (London: Faber 1965), 171.
2 Janice Gross Stein, ‘Calculation, Miscalculation, and Conventional Deterrence I: The View from Cairo’, in Robert Jervis, Richard New Lebow and Janice Gross Stein (eds), Psychology and Deterrence (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP 1985), 35.
3 Colin S. Gray, ‘Deterrence and the Nature of Strategy’, Small Wars & Insurgencies 11/2 (2000), 20.
4 Colin S. Gray, ‘The Definitions and Assumptions of Deterrence: Questions of Theory and Practice’, Journal of Strategic Studies 13/4 (1990), 13.
5 Dmitry (Dima) Adamsky. ‘The 1983 Nuclear Crisis – Lessons for Deterrence Theory and Practice’, Journal of Strategic Studies 36/1 (Feb. 2013), 8.
6 See Kaufmann, ‘The Requirements of Deterrence’, in William W. Kaufmann (ed.), Military Policy and National Security (Princeton UP 1956), 12–28.
7 J.C. Wylie. Military Strategy: A General Theory of Power Control (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press 1989), 14.
8 Stephen J. Cimbala, ‘Revisiting the Nuclear “War Scare” of 1983: Lessons Retro- and Prospectively’, Journal of Slavic Military Studies 27/2 (April–June 2014), 253.
9 Adamsky, ‘The 1983 Nuclear Crisis’, 33.
10 Carl von Clausewitz, On War, (eds and trans.) Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton UP 1984), 566.
11 Ibid., 177.
12 Bernard Brodie, ‘Implications for Military Policy’, in Bernard Brodie (ed.), The Absolute Weapon: Atomic Power and World Order (New York: Harcourt, Brace 1946), 76.
13 Bernard Brodie, War and Politics (New York: Macmillan 1973), 376.
14 Adamsky, ‘The 1983 Nuclear Crisis’, 8.
15 Patrick M. Morgan, Deterrence: A Conceptual Analysis (Beverly Hills: Sage Publications 1977), 28.
16 Patrick M. Morgan, Deterrence Now (Cambridge: CUP 2003), 52.
17 Ibid.¸ 27.
18 Robert Jervis, The Illogic of American Nuclear Strategy (Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP 1984), 165.
19 Ibid., 166.
20 Cimbala, ‘Revisiting the Nuclear “War Scare” of 1983’, 236.
21 Ibid., 238.
22 Vojtech Mastny, ‘How Able was “Able Archer”? Nuclear Trigger and Intelligence in Perspective’, Journal of Cold War Studies 11/1 (Winter 2009), 117.
23 Ibid., 120–1.
24 Glenn H. Snyder, Deterrence by Denial and Punishment (Princeton Univ. Center of International Studies 1959).
25 Geoffrey Jukes, ‘The Military Approach to Deterrence and Defense’, in Michael MccGwire, Ken Booth and John McDonnell (eds), Soviet Naval Policy: Objectives and Constraints (New York: Praeger 1975), 484.
26 Mastny, ‘How Able was “Able Archer”?’, 115–16.
27 Gordon S. Barrass, The Great Cold War: A Journey Through the Hall of Mirrors (Stanford UP 2009), Chapter 22.
28 Stein, ‘Calculation, Miscalculation, and Conventional Deterrence I’, 47.
29 Ken Booth, Strategy and Ethnocentrism (London: Croom Helm 1979).
30 Colin S. Gray, Strategic Studies: A Critical Assessment (London: Aldwych Press 1982), 151.
31 Len Scott, ‘Intelligence and the Risk of Nuclear War: Able Archer-83 Revisited’, Intelligence and National Security 26/6 (Dec. 2011), 761.
32 Robert Jervis, ‘Cooperation Under the Security Dilemma’, World Politics 30/2 (Jan. 1978), 169, 187.
33 William Liscum Borden, There Will Be No Time: The Revolution in Strategy (New York: The Macmillan Company 1946).
34 Scott, ‘Intelligence and the Risk of Nuclear War’, 777.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Lukas Milevski
Lukas Milevski is a visiting fellow at Oxford University’s Changing Character of War Programme. He is the 2010 winner of the RUSI Trench Gascoigne essay competition and a member of Infinity Journal’s Special Advisory Group. He has published numerous articles in journals including Journal of Strategic Studies, Joint Force Quarterly, Parameters, and Infinity Journal, a number of which have been incorporated into curricula at various universities and war colleges.