Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, Part 1: "Rethinking Deterrence"
by Wes Clark
This article was originally published by the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs on July 9, 2019. It is the first of a two part series. The original text may be found by visiting https://www.georgetownjournalofinternationalaffairs.org/online-edition/2019/7/9/part-i-rethinking-deterrence.
'Introduction
Today, the United States finds itself facing two near-peer competitors in Russia and China. Both are asserting their power and exhibiting expansionist tendencies. Both understand the logic of the Cold War period, the U.S. strategy of containment, and the U.S. concept of deterrence, but neither is likely to precisely replay the moves that led to the United States’ emergence as the lone global superpower. Indeed, both are determined to use the lessons of the Cold War, and our own misinterpretation of them, to their advantage.
Expansionism ultimately rests on military power as its foundation. Russia has rebuilt its military, fitting it into a concept of hybrid warfare that includes cyber attacks, intimidation, interference in elections, spreading false information and malicious rumors, corrupting politicians, and fledgling institutions of government to regain its control of the “near abroad.” At the same time, it has created an expeditionary military capability, prominently on display in Syria. Russia has also deployed, and is still developing, an upgraded nuclear force consisting of refurbished long-range strike assets, as well as a new class of low-yield and more useful tactical nuclear weapons. This new class of battlefield nuclear weapons has enabled a new Russian military doctrine called “escalating to deescalate”—that is, to use these nuclear weapons to terminate a conflict by challenging NATO or the United States to either give in or escalate to strategic nuclear destruction in response to battlefield setbacks. This doctrine suggests that nuclear weapons are more likely to be used in a future conflict.
China is also greatly enhancing its military capabilities, investing in new long-range strategic nuclear forces, agile anti-ship nuclear capable long-range ballistic missiles, stealth aircraft, modern air defense, counter-satellite capabilities, cyber weapons, and a blue water navy to be built around a force of aircraft carriers. Under Xi Jinping’s China Dream, China has built a serious of armed atolls to extend its reach into the South China Sea, and is asserting its influence through economic suasion and intimidation among its neighbors in Asia. Chinese writings have been clear in aiming to disrupt American alliances in the Pacific and push American forces back east of the “first and second island chains,” essentially isolating America’s allies in the Western Pacific.
The United States is well aware of these challenges, and has issued both a 2017 National Security Strategy and a 2017 National Defense Strategy in response. The latter was followed by a bipartisan commission to examine the National Defense Strategy. All of these documents call for a reliance on nuclear weapons and invoke the concept of nuclear deterrence in pursuit of what is essentially an effort to rebuild “containment” in a wholly different era.
It is from this perspective that a renewed examination of the Cold War’s lessons of deterrence—partially learned, half forgotten, and too often misunderstood—is required. And what we will find is that nuclear deterrence, as an academic concept, is inadequate to guide U.S. strategy.'>>>
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