Deterrence theory

The USS Growler, one of two submarines designed to provide a nuclear deterrence using cruise missiles with a 500 miles (800 km) range – placed on patrol carrying the Regulus I missile (shown at Pier 86 in New York, its home as a museum ship).

Deterrence theory refers to scholarship and practice on how threats or limited force by one party can convince another party to refrain from initiating some course of action. The topic gained increased prominence as a military strategy during the Cold War with regard to the use of nuclear weapons and is related to but distinct from the concept of mutual assured destruction, which models the preventative nature of full-scale nuclear attack that would devastate both parties in a nuclear war. The central problem of deterrence revolves around how to credibly threaten military action or nuclear attack despite its costs.^[1]

Deterrence is widely defined as any use of threats (implicit or explicit) or limited force intended to dissuade an actor from taking an action (i.e. maintain the status quo).^[2][3] Deterrence is unlike compellence, which is the attempt to get an actor (such as a state) to take an action (i.e. alter the status quo).^[4][5][3] Both are forms of coercion. Compellence has been characterized as harder to successfully implement than deterrence.^[5][6] Deterrence also tends to be distinguished from defense or the use of full force in wartime.^[2]

Deterrence is most likely to be successful when a prospective attacker believes that the probability of success is low and the costs of attack are high.^[7] The central problem of deterrence is to credibly communicate threats.^[8][3] Deterrence does not necessarily require military superiority.^[9]

General deterrence is considered successful when an actor who would otherwise take an action refrains from doing so due to the consequences that the deterrer is perceived likely to take.^[10] Immediate deterrence is considered successful when an actor seriously contemplating military force or taking an action refrains from doing so.^[10]

History[]

Most of the innovative work on deterrence theory occurred from the late 1940s to mid-1960s.^[11] Historically, scholarship on deterrence has tended to focus on nuclear deterrence.^[12] Since the end of the Cold War, there has been an extension of deterrence scholarship to areas that are not specifically about nuclear weapons.^[3]

A distinction is sometimes made between nuclear deterrence and "conventional deterrence."^{[13][14][15][16]}

The two most prominent deterrent strategies are "denial" (denying the attack the benefits of attack) and "punishment" (inflicting costs on the attacker).^[9]

Concept[]

The use of military threats as a means to deter international crises and war has been a central topic of international security research for at least 200 years.^[17] Research has focused predominantly on the theory of rational deterrence to analyze the conditions under which conventional deterrence is likely to succeed or fail. Alternative theories, however, have challenged the rational deterrence theory and have focused on organizational theory and cognitive psychology.^[18]

The concept of deterrence can be defined as the use of threats ir limited force by one party to convince another party to refrain from initiating some course of action.^[19][2] A threat serves as a deterrent to the extent that it convinces its target not to carry out the intended action because of the costs and losses that target would incur. In international security, a policy of deterrence generally refers to threats of military retaliation directed by the leaders of one state to the leaders of another in an attempt to prevent the other state from resorting to the use of military force in pursuit of its foreign policy goals.

As outlined by Huth,^[19] a policy of deterrence can fit into two broad categories: preventing an armed attack against a state's own territory (known as direct deterrence) or preventing an armed attack against another state (known as extended deterrence). Situations of direct deterrence often occur if there is a territorial dispute between neighboring states in which major powers like the United States do not directly intervene. On the other hand, situations of extended deterrence often occur when a great power becomes involved. The latter case has generated most interest in academic literature. Building on the two broad categories, Huth goes on to outline that deterrence policies may be implemented in response to a pressing short-term threat (known as immediate deterrence) or as strategy to prevent a military conflict or short-term threat from arising (known as general deterrence).

A successful deterrence policy must be considered in military terms but also political terms: International relations, foreign policy and diplomacy. In military terms, deterrence success refers to preventing state leaders from issuing military threats and actions that escalate peacetime diplomatic and military co-operation into a crisis or militarized confrontation that threatens armed conflict and possibly war. The prevention of crises of wars, however, is not the only aim of deterrence. In addition, defending states must be able to resist the political and the military demands of a potential attacking nation. If armed conflict is avoided at the price of diplomatic concessions to the maximum demands of the potential attacking nation under the threat of war, it cannot be claimed that deterrence has succeeded.

Furthermore, as Jentleson et al.^[20] argue, two key sets of factors for successful deterrence are important: a defending state strategy that balances credible coercion and deft diplomacy consistent with the three criteria of proportionality, reciprocity, and coercive credibility and minimizes international and domestic constraints and the extent of an attacking state's vulnerability as shaped by its domestic political and economic conditions. In broad terms, a state wishing to implement a strategy of deterrence is most likely to succeed if the costs of noncompliance that it can impose on and the benefits of compliance it can offer to another state are greater than the benefits of noncompliance and the costs of compliance.

Deterrence theory holds that nuclear weapons are intended to deter other states from attacking with their nuclear weapons, through the promise of retaliation and possibly mutually assured destruction. Nuclear deterrence can also be applied to an attack by conventional forces. For example, the doctrine of massive retaliation threatened to launch US nuclear weapons in response to Soviet attacks.

A successful nuclear deterrent requires a country to preserve its ability to retaliate by responding before its own weapons are destroyed or ensuring a second-strike capability. A nuclear deterrent is sometimes composed of a nuclear triad, as in the case of the nuclear weapons owned by the United States, Russia, the China and India. Other countries, such as the United Kingdom and France, have only sea-based and air-based nuclear weapons.

Proportionality[]

Jentleson et al. provides further detail in relation to those factors.^[20] Proportionality refers to the relationship between the defending state's scope and nature of the objectives being pursued and the instruments available for use to pursue them. The more the defending state demands of another state, the higher that state's costs of compliance and the greater need for the defending state's strategy to increase the costs of noncompliance and the benefits of compliance. That is a challenge, as deterrence is by definition a strategy of limited means. George (1991) goes on to explain that deterrence sometimes goes beyond threats to the actual use of military force, but if force is actually used, it must be limited and fall short of full-scale use to succeed.^[21]

The main source of disproportionality is an objective that goes beyond policy change to regime change, which has been seen in Libya, Iraq, and North Korea. There, defending states have sought to change the leadership of a state and to policy changes relating primarily to their nuclear weapons programs.

Reciprocity[]

Secondly, Jentleson et al.^[20] outlines that reciprocity involves an explicit understanding of linkage between the defending state's carrots and the attacking state's concessions. The balance lies in not offering too little, too late or for too much in return and not offering too much, too soon, or for too little return.

Coercive credibility[]

Finally, coercive credibility requires that in addition to calculations about costs and benefits of co-operation, the defending state convincingly conveys to the attacking state that failure to co-operate has consequences. Threats, uses of force, and other coercive instruments such as economic sanctions must be sufficiently credible to raise the attacking state's perceived costs of noncompliance. A defending state having a superior military capability or economic strength in itself is not enough to ensure credibility. Indeed, all three elements of a balanced deterrence strategy are more likely to be achieved if other major international actors like the UN or NATO are supportive, and opposition within the defending state's domestic politics is limited.

The other important considerations outlined by Jentleson et al.^[20] that must be taken into consideration is the domestic political and economic conditions in the attacking state affecting its vulnerability to deterrence policies and the attacking state's ability to compensate unfavourable power balances. The first factor is whether internal political support and regime security are better served by defiance, or there are domestic political gains to be made from improving relations with the defending state. The second factor is an economic calculation of the costs that military force, sanctions, and other coercive instruments can impose and the benefits that trade and other economic incentives may carry. That is partly a function of the strength and flexibility of the attacking state's domestic economy and its capacity to absorb or counter the costs being imposed. The third factor is the role of elites and other key domestic political figures within the attacking state. To the extent that such actors' interests are threatened with the defending state's demands, they act to prevent or block the defending state's demands.

Rational deterrence theory[]

One approach to theorizing about deterrence has entailed the use of rational choice and game-theoretic models of decision making (see game theory). Rational deterrence theory entails^[22]:

1. Rationality: actors are rational^[23]
2. Unitary actor assumption: actors are understood as unitary^[23]
3. Dyads: interactions tend to be between dyads (or triads) of states
4. Strategic interactions: actors consider the choices of other actors^[23]
5. Cost-benefit calculations: outcomes reflect actors' cost-benefit calculations^[23][24]

Deterrence theorists have consistently argued that deterrence success is more likely if a defending state's deterrent threat is credible to an attacking state. Huth^[19] outlines that a threat is considered credible if the defending state possesses both the military capabilities to inflict substantial costs on an attacking state in an armed conflict, and the attacking state believes that the defending state is resolved to use its available military forces. Huth^[19] goes on to explain the four key factors for consideration under rational deterrence theory: the military balance, signaling and bargaining power, reputations for resolve, interests at stake.

The American economist Thomas Schelling brought his background in game theory to the subject of studying international deterrence. Schelling's (1966) classic work on deterrence presents the concept that military strategy can no longer be defined as the science of military victory. Instead, it is argued that military strategy was now equally, if not more, the art of coercion, intimidation and deterrence.^[25] Schelling says the capacity to harm another state is now used as a motivating factor for other states to avoid it and influence another state's behavior. To be coercive or deter another state, violence must be anticipated and avoidable by accommodation. It can therefore be summarized that the use of the power to hurt as bargaining power is the foundation of deterrence theory and is most successful when it is held in reserve.^[25]

In an article celebrating Schelling's Nobel Memorial Prize for Economics,^[26] Michael Kinsley, Washington Post op‑ed columnist and one of Schelling's former students, anecdotally summarizes Schelling's reorientation of game theory thus: "[Y]ou're standing at the edge of a cliff, chained by the ankle to someone else. You'll be released, and one of you will get a large prize, as soon as the other gives in. How do you persuade the other guy to give in, when the only method at your disposal—threatening to push him off the cliff—would doom you both? Answer: You start dancing, closer and closer to the edge. That way, you don't have to convince him that you would do something totally irrational: plunge him and yourself off the cliff. You just have to convince him that you are prepared to take a higher risk than he is of accidentally falling off the cliff. If you can do that, you win."

Military balance[]

Deterrence is often directed against state leaders who have specific territorial goals that they seek to attain either by seizing disputed territory in a limited military attack or by occupying disputed territory after the decisive defeat of the adversary's armed forces. In either case, the strategic orientation of potential attacking states generally is for the short term and is driven by concerns about military cost and effectiveness. For successful deterrence, defending states need the military capacity to respond quickly and strongly to a range of contingencies. Deterrence often fails if either a defending state or an attacking state underestimates or overestimates the other's ability to undertake a particular course of action.

Signaling and bargaining power[]

The central problem for a state that seeks to communicate a credible deterrent threat by diplomatic or military actions is that all defending states have an incentive to act as if they are determined to resist an attack in the hope that the attacking state will back away from military conflict with a seemingly resolved adversary. If all defending states have such incentives, potential attacking states may discount statements made by defending states along with any movement of military forces as merely bluffs. In that regard, rational deterrence theorists have argued that costly signals are required to communicate the credibility of a defending state's resolve. Those are actions and statements that clearly increase the risk of a military conflict and also increase the costs of backing down from a deterrent threat. States that bluff are unwilling to cross a certain threshold of threat and military action for fear of committing themselves to an armed conflict.

Reputations for resolve[]

There are three different arguments that have been developed in relation to the role of reputations in influencing deterrence outcomes. The first argument focuses on a defending state's past behavior in international disputes and crises, which creates strong beliefs in a potential attacking state about the defending state's expected behaviour in future conflicts. The credibilities of a defending state's policies are arguably linked over time, and reputations for resolve have a powerful causal impact on an attacking state's decision whether to challenge either general or immediate deterrence. The second approach argues that reputations have a limited impact on deterrence outcomes because the credibility of deterrence is heavily determined by the specific configuration of military capabilities, interests at stake, and political constraints faced by a defending state in a given situation of attempted deterrence. The argument of that school of thought is that potential attacking states are not likely to draw strong inferences about a defending states resolve from prior conflicts because potential attacking states do not believe that a defending state's past behaviour is a reliable predictor of future behavior. The third approach is a middle ground between the first two approaches and argues that potential attacking states are likely to draw reputational inferences about resolve from the past behaviour of defending states only under certain conditions. The insight is the expectation that decisionmakers use only certain types of information when drawing inferences about reputations, and an attacking state updates and revises its beliefs when a defending state's unanticipated behavior cannot be explained by case-specific variables.

An example shows that the problem extends to the perception of the third parties as well as main adversaries and underlies the way in which attempts at deterrence can fail and even backfire if the assumptions about the others' perceptions are incorrect.^[27]

Interests at stake[]

Although costly signaling and bargaining power are more well established arguments in rational deterrence theory, the interests of defending states are not as well known. Attacking states may look beyond the short-term bargaining tactics of a defending state and seek to determine what interests are at stake for the defending state that would justify the risks of a military conflict. The argument is that defending states that have greater interests at stake in a dispute are more resolved to use force and more willing to endure military losses to secure those interests. Even less well-established arguments are the specific interests that are more salient to state leaders such as military interests and economic interests.

Furthermore, Huth^[19] argues that both supporters and critics of rational deterrence theory agree that an unfavorable assessment of the domestic and international status quo by state leaders can undermine or severely test the success of deterrence. In a rational choice approach, if the expected utility of not using force is reduced by a declining status quo position, deterrence failure is more likely since the alternative option of using force becomes relatively more attractive.

Nuclear weapons and deterrence[]

In 1966, Schelling^[25] is prescriptive in outlining the impact of the development of nuclear weapons in the analysis of military power and deterrence. In his analysis, before the widespread use of assured second strike capability, or immediate reprisal, in the form of SSBN submarines, Schelling argues that nuclear weapons give nations the potential to destroy their enemies but also the rest of humanity without drawing immediate reprisal because of the lack of a conceivable defense system and the speed with which nuclear weapons can be deployed. A nation's credible threat of such severe damage empowers their deterrence policies and fuels political coercion and military deadlock, which can produce proxy warfare.

Historical analysis of nuclear weapons deterrent capabilities has led modern researchers to the concept of the stability–instability paradox. Nuclear weapons confer large-scale stability between nuclear weapon states, as in over 60 years, none has engaged in large-scale direct warfare, primarily because of nuclear weapons deterrence capabilities, but they are forced into pursuing political aims by military means in the form of comparatively smaller scale acts of instability, such as proxy wars and minor conflicts.

Stages of US policy of deterrence[]

The US policy of deterrence during the Cold War underwent significant variations.

Containment[]

The early stages of the Cold War were generally characterized by the containment of communism, an aggressive stance on behalf of the US especially on developing nations under its sphere of influence. The period was characterized by numerous proxy wars throughout most of the globe, particularly Africa, Asia, Central America, and South America. One notable conflict was the Korean War. George F. Kennan, who is taken to be the founder of this policy in his Long Telegram, asserted that he never advocated military intervention, merely economic support, and that his ideas were misinterpreted as espoused by the general public.

Détente[]

With the S drawdown from Vietnam, the normalization of US relations with China, and the Sino-Soviet Split, the policy of containment was abandoned and a new policy of détente was established, with peaceful co-existence was sought between the United States and the Soviet Union. Although all of those factors contributed to this shift, the most important factor was probably the rough parity achieved in stockpiling nuclear weapons with the clear capability of mutual assured destruction (MAD). Therefore, the period of détente was characterized by a general reduction in the tension between the Soviet Union and the United States and a thawing of the Cold War, which lasted from the late 1960s until the start of the 1980s. The doctrine of mutual nuclear deterrence then characterized relations between the United States and the Soviet Union and relations with Russia until the onset of the New Cold War in the early 2010s. Since then, relations have been less clear.

Reagan era[]

A third shift occurred with US President Ronald Reagan's arms build-up during the 1980s. Reagan attempted to justify the policy by concerns of growing Soviet influence in Latin America and the regime in Iran, which was established after the Iranian Revolution of 1979. Similar to the old policy of containment, the US funded several proxy wars, including support for Saddam Hussein of Iraq during the Iran–Iraq War, support for the mujahideen in Afghanistan, who were fighting for independence from the Soviet Union, and several anticommunist movements in Latin America such as the overthrow of the Sandinista government in Nicaragua. The funding of the Contras in Nicaragua led to the Iran-Contra Affair, while overt support led to a ruling from the International Court of Justice against the United States in Nicaragua v. United States.

While the army was dealing with the breakup of the Soviet Union and the spread of nuclear technology to other nations beyond the United States and Russia, the concept of deterrence took on a broader multinational dimension. The US policy on deterrence after the Cold War was outlined in 1995 in the document called "Essentials of Post–Cold War Deterrence."^[28] It explains that while relations with Russia continue to follow the traditional characteristics of MAD, but the US policy of deterrence towards nations with minor nuclear capabilities should ensure by threats of immense retaliation (or even pre-emptive action) not to threaten the United States, its interests, or allies. The document explains that such threats must also be used to ensure that nations without nuclear technology refrain from developing nuclear weapons and that a universal ban precludes any nation from maintaining chemical or biological weapons. The current tensions with Iran and North Korea over their nuclear programs are caused partly by the continuation of the policy of deterrence.

Modern deterrence[]

Modern deterrence is the application of deterrence theory to non-nuclear and post-nuclear challenges, including hybrid warfare.^[29] As with nuclear deterrence, the aim of modern deterrence is to "dissuade an adversary from taking aggressive action by persuading that actor that the costs would outweigh the potential gains."^[30] However, the unattributable nature of some new forms of attacks, including propaganda and cyberattacks, and the fact that they may be below the threshold of an armed response pose a particular challenge for deterrence. There are at least ten reasons that the nuclear deterrence model cannot be used to deter non-nuclear threats.^[31] The Center for Strategic and International Studies concluded that modern deterrence is made most effective at reducing the threat of non-nuclear attacks by doing the following:

• Establishing norms of behavior
• Tailoring deterrence threats to individual actors
• Adopting an all of government and society response; and
• Building credibility with adversaries, such as by always following through on threats.^[30]

Criticism[]

Deterrence theory is criticized for its assumptions about opponent rationales. A credible nuclear deterrent, Bernard Brodie wrote in 1959, must be always ready but never used.^[32][a]

It is argued that suicidal or psychotic opponents may not be deterred by either forms of deterrence.^[33] Also, diplomatic misunderstandings and/or opposing political ideologies may lead to escalating mutual perceptions of threat and a subsequent arms race that elevates the risk of actual war, a scenario illustrated in the movies WarGames (1983) and Dr. Strangelove (1964). An arms race is inefficient in its optimal output, as all countries involved expend resources on armaments that would not have been created if the others had not expended resources, a form of positive feedback. Besides, escalation of perceived threat can make it easier for certain measures to be inflicted on a population by its government, such as restrictions on civil liberties, the creation of a military–industrial complex, and military expenditures resulting in higher taxes and increasing budget deficits.

In recent years, many mainstream politicians, academic analysts, and retired military leaders have also criticized deterrence and advocated nuclear disarmament. Sam Nunn, William Perry, Henry Kissinger, and George Shultz have all called upon governments to embrace the vision of a world free of nuclear weapons, and in three Wall Street Journal op-eds proposed an ambitious program of urgent steps to that end. The four have created the Nuclear Security Project to advance that agenda. Organisations such as Global Zero, an international non-partisan group of 300 world leaders dedicated to achieving nuclear disarmament, have also been established.^[34] In 2010, the four were featured in a documentary film entitled Nuclear Tipping Point. The film is a visual and historical depiction of the ideas laid forth in the Wall Street Journal op-eds and reinforces their commitment to a world without nuclear weapons and the steps that can be taken to reach that goal.^[35][36]

Kissinger puts the new danger, which cannot be addressed by deterrence, this way: "The classical notion of deterrence was that there was some consequences before which aggressors and evildoers would recoil. In a world of suicide bombers, that calculation doesn't operate in any comparable way."^[37] Shultz said, "If you think of the people who are doing suicide attacks, and people like that get a nuclear weapon, they are almost by definition not deterrable."^[38]

As opposed to the extreme mutually assured destruction form of deterrence, the concept of minimum deterrence in which a state possesses no more nuclear weapons than is necessary to deter an adversary from attacking is presently the most common form of deterrence practiced by nuclear weapon states, such as China, India, Pakistan, Britain, and France.^[39] Pursuing minimal deterrence during arms negotiations between the United States and Russia allows each state to make nuclear stockpile reductions without the state becoming vulnerable, but it has been noted that there comes a point that further reductions may be undesirable, once minimal deterrence is reached, as further reductions beyond that point increase a state's vulnerability and provide an incentive for an adversary to expand its nuclear arsenal secretly.^[40]

"Senior European statesmen and women" called for further action in addressing problems of nuclear weapons proliferation in 2010: "Nuclear deterrence is a far less persuasive strategic response to a world of potential regional nuclear arms races and nuclear terrorism than it was to the cold war."^[41]

Paul Virilio criticized nuclear deterrence as anachronistic in the age of information warfare since disinformation and kompromat are the current threats to suggestible populations. He calls the wound inflicted on unsuspecting populations an "integral accident:

The first deterrence, nuclear deterrence, is presently being superseded by the second deterrence: a type of deterrence based on what I call 'the information bomb' associated with the new weaponry of information and communications technologies. Thus, in the very near future, and I stress this important point, it will no longer be war that is the continuation of politics by other means, it will be what I have dubbed 'the integral accident' that is the continuation of politics by other means.^[42]

A former deputy defense secretary and strategic arms treaty negotiator, Paul Nitze, stated in a Washington Post op-ed in 1994 that nuclear weapons were obsolete in the "new world disorder" after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and he advocated reliance on precision guided munitions to secure a permanent military advantage over future adversaries.^[43]

International relations scholars Dan Reiter and Paul Poast have argued that so-called "tripwires" do not deter aggression.^[44] Tripwires entail that small forces are deployed abroad with the assumption that an attack on them will trigger a greater deployment of forces.^[44] Dan Altman has argued that tripwires do work to deter aggression, citing the Western deployment of forces to Berlin in 1948–1949 to deter Soviet aggression as a successful example.^[45]

In 2004, Frank C. Zagare made the case that deterrence theory is logically inconsistent, not empirically accurate, and that it is deficient as a theory. In place of classical deterrence, rational choice scholars have argued for perfect deterrence, which assumes that states may vary in their internal characteristics and especially in the credibility of their threats of retaliation.^[46]

In a January 2007 article in The Wall Street Journal, veteran Cold War policy makers Henry Kissinger, Bill Perry, George Shultz, and Sam Nunn reversed their previous position and asserted that far from making the world safer, nuclear weapons had become a source of extreme risk.^[47] Their rationale and conclusion was based not on the old world with only a few nuclear players but on the instability in many states with the technologies and the lack of wherewithal for the proper maintenance and upgrading of existing weapons:

The risk of accidents, misjudgments or unauthorised launches, they argued, was growing more acute in a world of rivalries between relatively new nuclear states that lacked the security safeguards developed over many years by America and the Soviet Union. The emergence of pariah states, such as North Korea (possibly soon to be joined by Iran), armed with nuclear weapons was adding to the fear as was the declared ambition of terrorists to steal, buy or build a nuclear device.^[47]

— The Economist, June 16, 2011

According to The Economist, "Senior European statesmen and women" called for further action in 2010 in addressing problems of nuclear weapons proliferation: "Nuclear deterrence is a far less persuasive strategic response to a world of potential regional nuclear arms races and nuclear terrorism than it was to the cold war."^[41]

See also[]

Notes[]

References[]

• "U.S. Department of Defense's Deterrence Operations Joint Operating Concept". Archived from the original (Word) on 2012-01-18. Retrieved 2011-10-11.

Further reading[]

• Schultz, George P. and Goodby, James E. The War that Must Never be Fought, Hoover Press, ISBN 978-0-8179-1845-3, 2015.
• Freedman, Lawrence. 2004. Deterrence. New York: Polity Press.
• Jervis, Robert, Richard N. Lebow and Janice G. Stein. 1985. Psychology and Deterrence. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. 270 pp.
• Morgan, Patrick. 2003. Deterrence Now. New York: Cambridge University Press.
• T.V. Paul, , , Complex Deterrence: Strategy In the Global Age (University of Chicago Press, 2009) ISBN 978-0-226-65002-9.
• Garcia Covarrubias, Jaime. "The Significance of Conventional Deterrence in Latin America", March–April 2004.
• Waltz, Kenneth N. "Nuclear Myths and Political Realities". The American Political Science Review. Vol. 84, No. 3 (Sep, 1990), pp. 731–746.

External links[]

Wikiversity has learning resources about Survey research and design in psychology/Tutorials/Multiple linear regression/Exercises/Deterrence theory

• Nuclear Deterrence Theory and Nuclear Deterrence Myth, streaming video of a lecture by Professor John Vasquez, Program in Arms Control, Disarmament, and International Security (ACDIS), University of Illinois, September 17, 2009.
• Deterrence Today – Roles, Challenges, and Responses, analysis by Lewis A. Dunn, IFRI Proliferation Papers n° 19, 2007
• Revisiting Nuclear Deterrence Theory by Donald C. Whitmore – March 1, 1998
• Nuclear Deterrence, Missile Defenses, and Global Instability by David Krieger, April 2001
• Bibliography
• Maintaining Nuclear Deterrence in the 21st Century by the Senate Republican Policy Committee
• Nuclear Files.org Description and analysis of the nuclear deterrence theory
• Nuclear Files.org Speech by US General Lee Butler in 1998 on the Risks of Nuclear Deterrence
• Nuclear Files.org Speech by Sir Joseph Rotblat, Nobel Peace Laureate, on the Ethical Dimensions of Deterrence
• The Universal Formula for Successful Deterrence by Charles Sutherland, 2007. A predictive tool for deterrence strategies.
• Will the Eagle strangle the Dragon?, Analysis of how the Chinese nuclear deterrence is altered by the U.S. BMD system, Trends East Asia, No. 20, February 2008.
• When is Deterrence Necessary? Gauging Adversary Intent by Gary Schaub,Jr., Strategic Studies Quarterly 3, 4 (Winter 2009)
• The significance of conventional deterrence in Latin America
• U.S. Nuclear Deterrence Policy United States Department of Defense