Understanding Deterrence

Abstract

During the Cold War, academic theorists and senior U.S. policy makers planned strategies of nuclear deterrence according to a particularly narrow application of the rational actor model. Their assumptions were that the Soviet leadership would make decisions pertinent to deterrence per an instrumental rationality, and that the parameters of that rational decision making would be bounded by a familiar and largely Western worldview with regard to perceptions, values, goals, and behavioral norms. The fundamental problem with this narrow application of the rational actor model is that it typically does not take into account a wide range of factors that can shape decision making decisively and vary widely across time, place, and opponent.

Notes

1. See, for example, Peter Pry, Ideology as a Factor in Deterrence, Vol. 3 (Fairfax, VA: National Institute for Public Policy, June 2010); and Keith B. Payne, The Great American Gamble: Deterrence Theory and Practice from the Cold War to the Twenty-First Century (Fairfax, VA; National Institute Press, 2008), chapters 4–6.

2. Two comprehensive and useful discussions of rational decision making in deterrence theory are Stephen Maxwell, Rationality in Deterrence, Adelphi Papers, no. 50 (London: Institute for Strategic Studies, August 1968), and Frank Zagare, “Rationality and Deterrence,” World Politics, vol. 42, no. 2 (January 1990): 238–260.

3. See the useful discussion in Alex Hybel, Power over Rationality (Albany, NY: State University of New York, 1993), 16–19.

4. “Rational choice” has rightfully been described as the “most influential paradigm” in the study of international relations. Jack Levy, “Prospect Theory, Rational Choice, and International Relations,” International Studies Quarterly, no. 41 (1997): 87.

5. See, Payne, The Great American Gamble, chapters 3–6.

6. Filling in the rational decision making model in this fashion is a common tendency in Western democracies’ expectations of foreign behavior and has often led to mistaken expectations. See Lee Harris, “The Cosmopolitan Illusion,” Policy Review, no. 118 (April/May 2003): 45– 60.

7. A 2001 New York Times editorial reflects the same continuing confidence in deterrence of post–Cold War threats: “What deters them today is what will always deter them—the certainty that if they attack us with weapons of mass destruction their regimes will be destroyed. In other words, what is protecting us right now from the most likely rogue threat…is classic deterrence.” Thomas Friedman, “Who's Crazy Here,” The New York Times, June 25, 2001, p. 25. A former member of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence observes: “No regime, no matter how aggressive and risk-inclined, would be so foolish as to attack the United States, a move that would yield little advantage, and thereby incur an attack's clear consequence—utter destruction.” Elbridge Colby, “Restoring Deterrence,” Orbis, vol. 51, no. 3 (Summer 2007): 419. A 2006 account of official views of the possibility of a North Korean missile attack reflects this same continuing confidence and rationale: “In private, administration officials dismissed the threat the missile might pose…asserting that the logic of deterrence that worked throughout the cold war would do just fine. The North Koreans know, they said, that a missile attack on the United States would result in the vaporization of Pyongyang.” David Sanger, “Don't Shoot. We’re Not Ready,” The New York Times, July 25, 2006, p. 1.

8. There were, of course, some outstanding exceptions to this powerful tendency to “mirror-image.” Most prominently, see Nathan Leites, The Operational Code of the Politburo, The RAND Corporation (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1951). See the discussion of the distinction between rational and reasonable as applied to deterrence theory in Keith B. Payne, Deterrence in the Second Nuclear Age (Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 1996): 52–53.

9. Kenneth Waltz, “More May be Better,” in Scott D. Sagan and Kenneth N. Waltz, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons (New York: W.W. Norton, 2003), 9.

10. Ibid., 22.

11. Robert Jervis, “Why Nuclear Superiority Doesn't Matter,” Political Science Quarterly, vol. 94, no. 4 (Winter 1979–1980): 617–618.

12. Robert Norris and Hans Kristensen, “A Presidential Policy Directive for a New Nuclear Path,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, August 10, 2011, available at http://thebulletin.org//node/8823.

13. Glenn Snyder, Deterrence and Defense: Toward a Theory of National Security (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1961), 57.

14. The “basic postulate of all economics” is that, “incentives matter—choice is influenced in a predictable way by changes in incentives. This is probably the most important guidepost in economic thinking.” James D. Gwartney, et al., Microeconomics: Private and Public Choice (Mason, OH: South-Western Cengage Publishing, 2009), 10.

15. Quoted in Kathleen Archibald, ed., Strategic Interaction and Conflict: Original Papers and Discussion (Berkeley, CA: Institute of International Studies, University of California–Berkeley, 1966), 150.

16. See, for example, the testimony by Secretary of Defense Harold Brown on the study of Soviet views that contributed to Presidential Directive 59, in U.S. Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Nuclear War Strategy, Hearing, 96th Congress, 2nd Session (Washington, DC, USGPO, 1981), 8–11 (top secret hearing held on September 16, 1980; sanitized and printed on February 18, 1981). See also Leon Sloss and Marc Dean Millot, “U.S. Nuclear Strategy in Evolution,” Strategic Review, vol. 12. no, 1 (Winter 1984): 24.

17. Payne, The Great American Gamble, chapters 4–6.

18. Keith B. Payne, The Fallacies of Cold War Deterrence and a New Direction (Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 2001), 17–18.

19. U.S. Senate, Committee on Armed Services, Statement of General Eugene E. Habiger, March 134, 1997, p. 4 (mimeo).

20. “Waltz Responds to Sagan,” in Sagan and Waltz, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons, 153.

21. Colby, “Restoring Deterrence,” 419.

22. “For Better: Nuclear Weapons Preserve an Imperfect Peace,” in Sagan and Waltz, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons, op. cit., p. 117.

23. Defense Science Board 2007 Summer Study, Challenges to Military Operations in Support of National Interests, Vol. 1: Executive Summary (Washington, DC: Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics, December 2008), 7.

24. Robert Jervis, Perceptions and Misperceptions in International Relations (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976), 280–281.

25. Anna Simons, Got Vision? Unity of Vision in Policy and Strategy: What It Is, and Why We Need It (Advancing Strategic Thought Series, Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army Strategic Studies Institute, July 2010), 21.

26. Henry Kissinger, Year of Upheaval (Boston: Little Brown & Co., 1982), 465.

27. See Hybel, op. cit., pp. 7, 51–52; and Payne, Deterrence in the Second Nuclear Age, op. cit., pp. 65–56.

28. Department of Defense, Deterrence Operations: Joint Operating Concept, Version 2.0 (August 2006), 3.

29. Department of Defense, Quadrennial Defense Review Report, February 2010, 14.

30. See reference 14 above.

31. Interview with Amb. Robert Joseph, September 16, 2010, Fairfax, VA, offices of the National Institute for Public Policy. See also Robert Joseph, Countering WMD: The Libyan Experience (Fairfax, VA: National Institute Press, 2009).

32. Ray Takeyh, “Domestic Politics Color Iran's Susceptibility to Western Courtship,” The Washington Post, September 19, 2010, p. A-21.

33. For the limits of that assumption when compared to evidence from history and behavioral studies, see this study's review of eight potential decision-making factors, and Jack S. Levy, “Prospect Theory,” 87–112.

34. For example, National Socialist leaders in Germany appear to have been driven in part by an aggressive ideological framework in extreme directions unexpected by many Western observers. For a relatively early analysis of that ideological framework see, Eberhard Jaeckel, Hitler's Weltanschauung: A Blueprint for Power, Translated from the German by Herbert Arnold (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1973); and Eberhard Jaeckel, Hitler in History (London: Brandeis University Press, 1984).

35. See, for example, National Institute for Public Policy, Influencing Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) Decision-Making on Nuclear Weapons (Fairfax, VA: National Institute for Public Policy, August 2006); National Institute for Public Policy, A New Deterrence Framework and Its Application to a Sino-American Crisis, Executive Summary (Fairfax, VA: National Institute for Public Policy, July 2000); National Institute for Public Policy, Deterring Syria, Briefing Slides and Supporting Material (Fairfax, VA: National Institute for Public Policy, October 4, 2007); and National Institute for Public Policy, Deterrence and the People's Republic of China, Summary Briefing (Fairfax, VA: National Institute for Public Policy, 2006).

36. See National Institute for Public Policy, Deterrence and the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) (Fairfax, VA: National Institute for Public Policy, August 2004).

37. See Walter C. Langer, The Mind of Adolf Hitler: The Secret Wartime Report (New York: Basic Books, 1972).

38. As discussed by Amatzia Baram in a seminar, “Knowing the Enemy: Iraqi Decisionmaking Under Saddam Hussein,” at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, September 20, 2010, Washington, DC, C-SPAN Broadcast.

39. Kevin Woods and Mark Stout, “Saddam's Perceptions and Misperceptions: The Case of ‘Desert Storm,’” The Journal of Strategic Studies, vol. 33, no. 1 (February 2010): 37.

40. See references 28 and 29 above.

41. See for example, Levy, “Prospect Theory,” 87–112; Jack Levy, “Prospect Theory and International Relations: Theoretical Applications and Analytical Problems,” Political Psychology, no. 13 (1992): 283–310. For early discussions of prospect theory, see Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman, “The Framing of Decisions and the Psychology of Choice,” Science, vol. 211, no. 4481 (January 30, 1981): 453–458; and Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, “Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk,” Econometrica, vol. 47, no. 2 (March 1979): 263–291.

42. See the lengthy discussion of this point in Payne, The Fallacies of Cold War Deterrence, 66–70.

43. Quoted in G. M. Gilbert, Nuremberg Diary (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1948), 160–161.

44. Woods and Stout, “Saddam's Perceptions and Misperceptions,” 26–27, 36–38.

45. Baram, “Knowing the Enemy: Iraqi Decisionmaking Under Saddam Hussein.”

46. An earlier list of factors and related discussion is presented in, Payne, The Fallacies of Cold War Deterrence, op. cit., pp. 104–105.

47. For a discussion of the role of kinship in the contemporary North Korean succession process see, Chico Harlan, “Kim Keeping Power in the Family,” The Washington Post, September 29, 2010, p. A-10. For a discussion of the importance of kinship ties within the contemporary Afghan government see, “Kin Use Ties to Afghan Leader to Weave a Web of Influence,” The New York Times, October 6, 2010, p. A-1.

48. See for example, Yehezkel Dror, “High-Intensity Aggressive Ideologies as an International Threat,” The Jerusalem Journal of International Relations, vol. 9, no. 1 (March 1987); and, Yehezkel Dror, Crazy States: A Counterconventional Strategic Problem (Lexington, MA: Heath Lexington Books, 1971).

49. For a discussion of how these social science tools may or may not be applied to a specific intelligence case see, Robert Jervis, “Reports, Politics, and Intelligence Failures: The Case of Iraq,” The Journal of Strategic Studies, vol. 29, no. 1 (February 2006), pp. 3–52.