By Jeremiah Monk
Weapons fail to halt,
Deterrence dwells in the mind,
Ephemeral as mist.
A deterrence haiku.
INTRODUCTION
“Integrated Deterrence influences adversary decision calculus by affecting perception of costs, benefits, and consequences of restraint. The Joint Force’s contribution to Integrated Deterrence is combat-credible forces, backstopped by a safe, secure, and effective nuclear deterrent. Through the NMS’ theory of success, the Joint Force contributes to Integrated Deterrence to reduce an adversary’s perceived benefit and increase the adversary's perceived cost of aggression, incentivizing restraint as a result.”
- The 2022 National Military Strategy[i]
The Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff often reiterate how the number one priority of the Defense Department is to prevent a war with China. These statements align with the National Security Strategy, which directs “the military will act urgently to sustain and strengthen deterrence, with the PRC as its pacing challenge.”[ii] The National Defense Strategy puts a finer point on this directive by establishing the Defense Department’s priorities, which can be summarized as: a) defend the homeland, b) deter attacks and aggression, and c) prepare to prevail in conflict.[iii]
Across all forms of communication, deterring America’s adversaries in order to avoid war is the uncontested stated priority of the Department.
So, we ask…what’s the plan?
DETER, OR PREVAIL
The US Department of Defense defines deterrence as “the prevention of action by the existence of a credible threat of unacceptable counteraction and/or belief that the cost of action outweighs the perceived benefits.”[iv]
The issue is not the Department’s definition, but rather how it is interpreted. The problem is twofold:
- The Defense Department largely believes that by preparing to prevail, through force posture and by deploying newer and better weapons systems, it can simultaneously achieve both objectives b) deter and c) prevail.
- The Defense Department’s predisposition to “prevailing” in combat gives little consideration to deterring adversary actions that are not aggressive “attacks.”
Combined, these two problems result in the Department’s chronic mismanagement in their pursuit of deterrence - a predisposition to obtaining, maintaining, and presenting a “combat-credible force” (a Means) to serve as a “credible threat,” instead of prioritizing capabilities to “prevent [adversary] action” (an Ends).
DETERRING IS NOT THE SAME AS PREVAILING
"Integrated deterrence is not just about possessing advanced technology and superior firepower — that is just one part of the orchestra," said Joint Chiefs of Staff Air Force Gen. CQ Brown, Jr, just days ago at a forum on Integrated Deterrence.[v] GEN Brown’s predecessor, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley, noted much the same in his forward to the 2023 Joint Concept for Competing:
“Our adversaries have studied our military strengths and way of war. They have implemented approaches that pursue their strategic objectives while avoiding the deterrent tripwires upon which our national security posture is based. Simply put, U.S. adversaries intend to "win without fighting." In this context, U.S. challengers intend to pursue their objectives while avoiding armed conflict-rendering traditional Joint Force deterrence less effective. Facing this dilemma, more of the same is not enough.”[vi]
America’s approach to deterrence is to prepare to prevail in a fight. But our adversaries intend to achieve their objective without fighting. So…what exactly do we think our deterrent posture is deterring?
For an analogy, imagine our Joint Force is a highly-trained boxer, standing ready to take on any challenger in the ring. But our opponent is out back stealing our car. Sure, our boxer’s overwhelming strength may have deterred our opponent from a direct fight...but who prevailed?
GEN Milley and GEN Brown recognized this truth – effective deterrence does not come from a threat of military force alone, and is not confined to the ring of combat. The Department’s adoption of the new buzzwords “Integrated” and “Total” Deterrence pays homage to the “whole-of-government” and “interagency” aspects of deterrence, indicating a tacit acknowledgment that the Department realizes the military instrument of power on its own is insufficient to address modern challenges.
Yet the bureaucracy of the Department remains…undeterred. If the Pentagon’s true priority is to avoid war, its processes, plans, and assessments should be geared accordingly. But of course, it is not. The Department views deterrence as little more than having a “big stick” and the will to use it, so its efforts orient on presenting a “credible threat” by building a “combat-credible” force that is built primarily for war. War plans are built with an eye to the “most dangerous” scenario of high-end combat. Wargames evaluate the effectiveness of those plans. The results of these wargames are used to justify the allocation and acquisition of combat resources. The entire cycle is built to present combat credibility, based on the Department’s understanding that this credibility equates to deterrence.
By focusing on the task of prevailing in combat, the Department largely overlooks its primary charge to build plans and conduct operations intended to avoid war – a fundamentally different task. It also ignores adversary activities that are intended to remain below the threshold of what will trigger a military action, or circumvent those triggers entirely by operating outside the military domain. China seizes territory through predatory trade practices, leveraging legal systems, conducting influence campaigns, and dredging islands. Iran circumvents retaliatory triggers by operating through proxies and black markets. North Korea profits from cyber theft and the black-market arms trade. They all achieve their strategic objectives with little fear of a retaliatory strike from the large US fleets positioned near their shores.
Having combat-credible forces is a means to an end. It is not a strategy.
A DETERRENT STRATEGY OF LEVERAGE
The adversary’s “belief that the cost of action outweighs the perceived benefits” does not necessarily need to come from the threat of combat operations. In fact, that potential cost may be more effective if it does not. Sanctions, trade controls, diplomatic relations, market and resource access, travel restrictions, and international court rulings are all examples of costs that can be applied with great effect and do not require military force.
It is leverage, not force, that is key to an effective deterrent strategy. The Department should seek to use its military might in such a way as to generate leverage, not just threaten with force.
Leverage is the application of influence gained or created to achieve an effect or exploit an opportunity, and advantage is the superiority of position or condition.[vii] The military instrument can certainly be used to generate leverage, but doing so requires an understanding of an adversary’s holistic points of vulnerability, then investing in operations and activities that create potential dilemmas and signal the existence of a credible counter-action, not just a credible force.
Efforts to arm proxies such as Ukraine have proved to be a cost-effective way to pin down adversaries with strategic quagmires. Houthi strikes against shipping in the Bab el-Mandeb strait demonstrate the strategic potential of holding an adversary’s supply chain at risk, a capability that the US should mirror. Both of these strategies are potent deterrent options with effectiveness that can be measured not in combat credibility but in leverage.
If the Department were truly committed to the deter priority, then the Pentagon’s objective would be to develop strategies to secure points of leverage, instead of focusing on developing capabilities. Planning and programming functions would operate accordingly, with evaluative simulations designed to test approaches to generate leverage. These “un-wargames,” would identify areas where adversaries are undeterred, and lead to the exploration of fresh alternative deterrent measures. As the military instrument is but “one piece in the orchestra” as GEN Brown suggests, then these un-wargames would be “integrated” to fully incorporate the other instruments of national power and identify ways where the Joint Force can act in a supporting role.
Pentagon leaders should look for ways to use its exquisite, combat-credible capability to obtain and apply leverage, not just force, and seek to build military capabilities accordingly. Leverage, like risk, is relative and perishable as adversaries find workarounds. Therefore, the Joint Force’s leverage posture should be continually challenged and reevaluated to ensure leverage is there when needed. This cycle should lead to changes in both capabilities (Means) and approaches (Ways). Failure to reevaluate the ability of a capability or position to provide leverage can lead the nation to continue to invest in capabilities and activities that have outlived their shelf-life, in turn wasting precious resources and creating a false sense of security.
CONCLUSION
Leverage, not capability, is the true catalyst of deterrence. Combat-credible forces are essential to enabling a deterrence strategy, but they are a means as opposed to an end. Deterrence does not come from having a combat-credible force, it comes from having a force that can apply leverage in such a way as to change an adversary’s risk calculation.
The Department of Defense must stop conflating deterrence with the combat capability of its weapon systems, and instead look at deterrence as a separate objective that can be best pursued by applying strategies to secure leverage, not just threaten the use of force. The Department should implement functional planning and wargaming processes that are oriented on the first priority (deter) instead of the second (prevail), which would reveal these hard truths and empower the Pentagon to enact more effective deterrent approaches and better secure national interests in the face of adversary aggression.
Alas, the bureaucracy of the Defense Department appears to be comfortable to keep squaring off in the boxing ring with no opponent present to contest.
NOTES
[i] Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, “National Military Strategy.” US Department of Defense, Washington, DC, 2022, p.3.
[ii] The White House, “National Security Strategy.” Washington, DC, October 2022. p. 20.
[iii] US Department of Defense, “National Defense Strategy.” Washington, DC, 2022. p.7.
[iv] Joint Staff, “JP-3-0 Joint Operations.” Washington, DC, January 17, 2017, incorporating Change 1 October 22, 2018, page GL-08.
[v] Olay, Matthew, “Integrated Deterrence Is Key to Meeting Challenge of Future Conflicts, Brown Says.” US Department of Defense, Washington, DC, August 14, 2024. https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/3874160/integrated-deterrence-is-key-to-meeting-challenge-of-future-conflicts-brown-says/ (accessed Aug 18, 2024)
[vi] Joint Staff. “Joint Concept for Competing.” Washington D.C., February 10, 2023, as published by Small Wars Journal on February 26, 2023, page i. https://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/joint-concept-competing?utm_source=pocket_saves (accessed June 17, 2024)
[vii] Bazin, Aaron, ed. “On Competition: Adapting to the Contemporary Strategic Environment.” MacDill Air Force Base, Florida: JSOU Press, Report 21-5, 2021. p. xi.
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