Yardsticks for deterrence

Abstract

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine confirmed that revived great-power competition has heightened the prospect of global conflict, while restoring the concept of deterrence to centre stage. The stakes in a conflict in East Asia, however, would be even higher than those in Ukraine. A war over Taiwan could bring the United States and China, the world’s two greatest powers, into a direct military conflict which would represent a contest for regional or global leadership and would be likely to draw other powers into the fight. Such a war – in which the nuclear question would be ever-present – can currently be described as ‘possible, avoidable, but potentially catastrophic’.

In this Adelphi book, Bill Emmott evaluates the diplomatic and deterrence strategies that countries in and outside the Indo-Pacific region are using to try to reduce the risk of that conflict occurring. This book examines these strategies in the light of the lessons of the Ukraine war and identifies yardsticks with which to gauge their potential effectiveness and sustainability. Our goal, Emmott argues, must be for all sides to regard such a US–China conflict as ‘inevitably catastrophic and therefore inconceivable’.

Notes

1 In Deterrence (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2004), Lawrence Freedman discusses how deterrence in the post-Cold War period was for a time superseded by the idea of pre-emption, in part because new adversaries such as al-Qaeda and the Islamic State (ISIS) were less susceptible to the threat of punishment or in any general sense to the idea of deterrence by denial. Michael J. Mazarr refocuses the concept on inter-state conflict while underlining the need for deterrence to be clearly directed at a specific objective. See Michael J. Mazarr, ‘Understanding Deterrence’, RAND Corporation, 19 April 2018, https://www.rand.org/pubs/perspectives/PE295.html.

2 Jim Garamone, US Department of Defense, ‘Concept of Integrated Deterrence Will Be Key to National Defense Strategy, DOD Official Says’, DOD News, 8 December 2021, https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/2866963/concept-of-integrated-deterrence-will-be-key-to-national-defense-strategy-dod-o/h.

3 Freedman, Deterrence, p. 117.

4 Office of the Historian, US Department of State, ‘Joint Statement Following Discussions with Leaders of the People’s Republic of China’, 27 February 1972, https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76v17/d203.