Conventional Deterrence

Conventional Deterrence
Author: John J. Mearsheimer
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Total Pages: 298
Release: 1985-08-21
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1501713256

Conventional Deterrence is a book about the origins of war. Why do nations faced with the prospect of large-scale conventional war opt for or against an offensive strategy? John J. Mearsheimer examines a number of crises that led to major conventional wars to explain why deterrence failed. He focuses first on Allied and German decision making in the years 1939–1940, analyzing why the Allies did not strike first against Germany after declaring war and, conversely, why the Germans did attack the West. Turning to the Middle East, he examines the differences in Israeli and Egyptian strategic doctrines prior to the start of the major conventional conflicts in that region. Mearsheimer then critically assays the relative strengths and weaknesses of NATO and the Warsaw Pact to determine the prospects for conventional deterrence in any future crisis. He is also concerned with examining such relatively technical issues as the impact of precision-guided munitions (PGM) on conventional deterrence and the debate over maneuver versus attrition warfare.Mearsheimer pays considerable attention to questions of military strategy and tactics. Challenging the claim that conventional detrrence is largely a function of the numerical balance of forces, he also takes issue with the school of thought that ascribes deterrence failures to the dominance of "offensive" weaponry. In addition to examining the military consideration underlying deterrence, he also analyzes the interaction between those military factors and the broader political considerations that move a nation to war.

Arms and Influence

Arms and Influence
Author: Thomas C. Schelling
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2020-03-17
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0300253486

“This is a brilliant and hardheaded book. It will frighten those who prefer not to dwell on the unthinkable and infuriate those who have taken refuge in stereotypes and moral attitudinizing.”—Gordon A. Craig, New York Times Book Review Originally published more than fifty years ago, this landmark book explores the ways in which military capabilities—real or imagined—are used, skillfully or clumsily, as bargaining power. Anne-Marie Slaughter’s new introduction to the work shows how Schelling’s framework—conceived of in a time of superpowers and mutually assured destruction—still applies to our multipolar world, where wars are fought as much online as on the ground.

Deterrence by Denial

Deterrence by Denial
Author: Alex S. Wilner
Publisher:
Total Pages:
Release: 2020-11
Genre:
ISBN: 9781621965503

"Deterrence by Denial: Theory and Practice is the first study to focus exclusively on contemporary denial, bridging the theoretical gap that persists between classical deterrence theory and contemporary insecurity. The book significantly advances the scholarship on deterrence by denial with empirically driven and policy-relevant contributions written by leading international scholars of conventional military aggression, missile defense, terrorism and militancy, crime, and cybersecurity. Deterrence by Denial: Theory and Practice is an important and unique book, of interest to scholars of international relations, political science, terrorism and intelligence studies, and cybersecurity, as well as to policy analysts, practitioners, and members of the armed forces and intelligence community"--

Military Strategy: A Very Short Introduction

Military Strategy: A Very Short Introduction
Author: Antulio J. Echevarria II
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 161
Release: 2024
Genre: History
ISBN: 0197760155

Military Strategy: A Very Short Introduction adapts Clausewitz's framework to highlight the dynamic relationship between the main elements of strategy: purpose, method, and means. Drawing on historical examples, Antulio J. Echevarria discusses the major types of military strategy and how emerging technologies are affecting them. This second edition has been updated to include an expanded chapter on manipulation through cyberwarfare and new further reading.

Conventional Defense and Total Deterrence

Conventional Defense and Total Deterrence
Author: Robert B. Killebrew
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Total Pages: 184
Release: 1986
Genre: History
ISBN:

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NL ARMS Netherlands Annual Review of Military Studies 2020

NL ARMS Netherlands Annual Review of Military Studies 2020
Author: Frans Osinga
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 538
Release: 2020-12-03
Genre: Law
ISBN: 9462654190

This open access volume surveys the state of the field to examine whether a fifth wave of deterrence theory is emerging. Bringing together insights from world-leading experts from three continents, the volume identifies the most pressing strategic challenges, frames theoretical concepts, and describes new strategies. The use and utility of deterrence in today’s strategic environment is a topic of paramount concern to scholars, strategists and policymakers. Ours is a period of considerable strategic turbulence, which in recent years has featured a renewed emphasis on nuclear weapons used in defence postures across different theatres; a dramatic growth in the scale of military cyber capabilities and the frequency with which these are used; and rapid technological progress including the proliferation of long-range strike and unmanned systems. These military-strategic developments occur in a polarized international system, where cooperation between leading powers on arms control regimes is breaking down, states widely make use of hybrid conflict strategies, and the number of internationalized intrastate proxy conflicts has quintupled over the past two decades. Contemporary conflict actors exploit a wider gamut of coercive instruments, which they apply across a wider range of domains. The prevalence of multi-domain coercion across but also beyond traditional dimensions of armed conflict raises an important question: what does effective deterrence look like in the 21st century? Answering that question requires a re-appraisal of key theoretical concepts and dominant strategies of Western and non-Western actors in order to assess how they hold up in today’s world. Air Commodore Professor Dr. Frans Osinga is the Chair of the War Studies Department of the Netherlands Defence Academy and the Special Chair in War Studies at the University Leiden. Dr. Tim Sweijs is the Director of Research at The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies and a Research Fellow at the Faculty of Military Sciences of the Netherlands Defence Academy in Breda.

Deterrence and Defense

Deterrence and Defense
Author: Glenn Herald Snyder
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2015-12-08
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1400877164

In the literature of diplomacy and military strategy, there has long been a gulf between the concepts of deterrence and defense. Glenn Snyder bridges this gulf, offering a systematic analysis of the two ideas, with the aim of integrating them in a framework of theory. He proposes criteria for making rational decisions in national security policy and deals with the critical issue of the balance between deterrence of, and defense against, military attacks. The author augments the scattered literature on the subject with original contributions on this increasingly important facet of international relations. Originally published in 1961. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Understanding Deterrence

Understanding Deterrence
Author: Keith B. Payne
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 171
Release: 2014-06-11
Genre: History
ISBN: 1317980298

For decades, the rational actor model served as the preferred guide for U.S. deterrence policy. It has been a convenient and comforting guide because it requires little detailed knowledge of an opponent’s unique decision-making process and yet typically provides confident generalizations about how deterrence works. The model tends to postulate common decision-making parameters across the globe to reach generalizations about how deterrence will function and the types of forces that will be "stabilizing" or "destabilizing." Yet a broad spectrum of unique factors can influence an opponent’s perceptions and his calculations, and these are not easily captured by the rational actor model. The absence of uniformity means there can be very few deterrence generalizations generated by the use of the rational actor model that are applicable to the entire range of opponents. Understanding Deterrence considers how factors such as psychology, history, religion, ideology, geography, political structure, culture, proliferation and geopolitics can shape a leadership’s decision-making process, in ways that are specific and unique to each opponent. Understanding Deterrence demonstrates how using a multidisciplinary approach to deterrence analysis can better identify and assess factors that influence an opponent’s decision-making process. This identification and assessment process can facilitate the tailoring of deterrence strategies to specific purposes and result in a higher likelihood of success than strategies guided by the generalizations about opponent decision-making typically contained in the rational actor model. This book was published as a special issue of Comparative Strategy.

Thinking about Deterrence

Thinking about Deterrence
Author: Air Univeristy Press
Publisher: Military Bookshop
Total Pages: 344
Release: 2014-09-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9781782667100

With many scholars and analysts questioning the relevance of deterrence as a valid strategic concept, this volume moves beyond Cold War nuclear deterrence to show the many ways in which deterrence is applicable to contemporary security. It examines the possibility of applying deterrence theory and practice to space, to cyberspace, and against non-state actors. It also examines the role of nuclear deterrence in the twenty-first century and reaches surprising conclusions.

Deterrence Theory and Chinese Behavior

Deterrence Theory and Chinese Behavior
Author: Abram N. Shulsky
Publisher: Rand Corporation
Total Pages: 85
Release: 2000
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9780833028532

China's recent reforms have led to unprecedented economic growth; if this continues, China will be able to turn its great potential power into actual power. The result could be, in the very long term, the rise of China as a rival to the United States as the world's predominant power; in the nearer term, China could become a significant rival in the East Asian region. In this context, the issue for U.S. policy is how to handle a rising power, a problem that predominant powers have faced many times throughout history. It is the contention of this report that the future Sino-U.S. context will illustrate many of the problems of deterrence theory that have been discussed in recent decades; deterrence theory will be, in general, more difficult to apply than it was in the U.S.-Soviet Cold War context. The key may be to seek nonmilitary means of deterrence, i.e., diplomatic ways to manipulate the tension to China's disadvantage.