The Deterrence Mindset

The deterrence mindset – and I believe there is such a mindset to account for in Washington – consists of instilling fear through threats on one hand and imposing a serious ‘cost-benefit analysis’ on the other hand. Moreover, deterrence is part and parcel of the basic relationship between military action and the ultimate goals of military action that are of a political and social nature.

But of course, it could all backfire, in the sense that deterrence may fail to instill fear as well as fail to impose a serious cost-benefit analysis. Which then suggests that there needs to be adjustments to the threats that are made. As Thomas Schelling wrote:

“The risk of failure…does give an incentive to choose moderate rather than excessive threats. If the only threat that can be made is some horrendous act, one may be tempted to scale it down by attaching it to a lottery device – by threatening some specified probability that it will be carried out unless compliance is forthcoming, not by committing oneself to the certainty that the jointly painful punishment would be administered.”

The greatest cost comes with having to actually carry out the threat, as Schelling argued. It is also costly if the promise of annihilation on the part of the Russians succeeds. There is also an essential factor or ingredient behind the making of promises and threats, which is the commitment or the desire behind carrying out a deterrent threat when push comes to shove. As Schelling wrote:

“Making a credible threat involves proving that one would have to carry out the threat, or creating incentives for oneself or incurring penalties that would make one evidently want to. The acknowledged purpose of stationing American troops in Europe as a ‘trip wire’ was to convince the Russians that war in Europe would involve the United States whether the Russians thought the United States wanted to be involved or not – that escape from the commitment was physically impossible.”

Moreover, do the Russians believe we will “act” or “abstain” from intervening in Europe with American forces and troops if they attack or invade some NATO-member European country? This is essentially what the credibility and the legitimacy of the promise to NATO and the threat to Russia revolves around. And on top of it all, it is a situation whereby “neither we nor the party we threaten can entirely control.”

In essence, the risk involved with promises to NATO and threats to Russia “is not the risk that the United States will decide on all-out war, but the risk that war will occur whether intended or not.” Arguably, it is all up to the Russians! As Schelling wrote: “It is up to the Russians to estimate how successfully they and we can avoid precipitating war under the circumstances.” Moreover, Russia’s “limited war” in Ukraine increases the risk of all-out war, but does not ensure it. Russian aggression cannot be “contained” in Ukraine either. Which by logic suggests that the risk is one of war between NATO and Russia if Russian aggression could not be “contained” in Ukraine or deterred there. It then becomes a game of matching risk with risk. When Russia increases the risk with their aggression and their behavior, one must do the same. What results is “the creation of a shared risk of general war.” In other words, match crazy with crazy until the very end and until the final outcome. Ukraine amounts to nothing but “a small probability of a massive war.” Ukraine is not the war in its totality. And the only way out of the war is to create risk continuously and deliberately on top of already existing risk, as the Russians are doing. Having troops in NATO as a ‘trip wire’ for the Russians as well as involvement in Ukraine is not enough. To conclude: “The usual idea that a trip wire either does work or does not work, that the Russians either expect it to work or expect it not to work, is mistaking two simple extremes for a more complicated range of probabilities.”