Deterrence in the new strategic environment

Abstract

What is the future of deterrence in the new strategic environment of the 1990s? The future cannot be predicted in detail, but some important defining characteristics can be identified with high confidence. The new strategic environment is being shaped by the solo status of the United States as a superpower, by an increasing regional disorder and cultural‐political disharmony, by the erosion of the residual alliances of the cold war era, by a process of U.S. geostrategic withdrawal from Eurasia, by an absence of change in the basic terms of statecraft and strategy, and by the maturing of information‐age military capabilities in the hands of the United States. The U.S. policy demand for deterrent effectiveness will be high in the new era, though such effectiveness will be more difficult to achieve vis‐à‐vis regional rogue states than it was in the relationship with yesterday's USSR. The value of deterrence by denial rather than punishment will be both more feasible and more credible than before. Not only must U.S. policymakers remember that deterrence requires the cooperation of the intended deterree, but also they should not be overconfident that success in the cold war validates traditional ideas on, and practices of, deterrence. It is not self‐evident just how much deterring the Soviet Union needed. Overall, as a new era is heralded, it is important to conduct policy and force planning in light of the prudent assumption that bad times of superpower threat will return.