Deterrence means different things to different people

Deterrence is as old as fear itself.

   Fear of sudden attack and annihilation. Fear of invasion, of defeat, of humiliation, of loss and violent death.

   But not everyone agrees on the military meaning and purpose of deterrence.

   Why should we care? My latest thriller, Oceans Deep, is centred on a lone British nuclear ballistic missile submarine on what is officially called continuous deterrent patrol, something that has been in place every day since 1968. Buried in the depths of the North Atlantic, HMS Scimitar is braced to retaliate in the face of a Russian nuclear first strike.

   What could possibly go wrong?

   Everything is the short answer, and that’s why we should care.

   Americans and some Europeans generally imply that the aim of deterrence is intrinsically defensive, a response to a threat, real or imagined.

   Thomas Schelling, in his book Arms and Influence, defines deterrence as ‘the threat intended to keep an adversary from doing something.’ Schelling differentiates deterrence from something he calls compellence, which he defines as ‘the threat intended to make an adversary do something.’

   Glenn Snyder says deterrence ‘is the power to dissuade as opposed to the power to coerce or compel.’

   This distinction contrasts with the Chinese term weishe, which seems to embody both deterrence and so-called compellence. I’d prefer the term compulsion.

    The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Encyclopedia defines a strategy of deterrence, or weishe zhanlue, as ‘the display of military power, or the threat of use of military power, in order to compel an opponent to submit.’

   Other authoritative Chinese sources agree. Generals Peng Guangqian and Yao Youzhi, in the PLA textbook The Science of Military Strategy, say ‘deterrence plays two basic roles: one is to dissuade the opponent from doing something through deterrence, the other is to persuade the opponent what ought to be done through deterrence, and both demand the opponent to submit to the deterrer’s volition.’

   So it’s more a case of bending the opponent’s will by threat of force rather than simply deterring the opponent from acting in a hostile way. Peng and Yao seem to combine Schelling’s definitions of deterrence and ‘compellence’ within the Chinese term weishe.

  Dean Cheng writes in the National Defense University Press that this point is made in a volume published by the PLA National Defence University’s Military Science Research Department, which states that the purpose of deterrence is ‘to halt, or prevent, the other side from starting a conflict, and thus protect one’s own interests from aggression. Or, it is to shake the other side’s will to resist (dikang yizhi), and thus seize those interests or benefits that originally would have required conflict in order to obtain them.’

    It would seem that the Chinese definition of deterrence is much broader than its American and European counterparts, and it embraces defensive and offensive action.

   Does it matter? Well, yes it does. If two negotiating teams are to discuss cuts in their nuclear arsenals, and they make very different and unspoken assumptions about the purpose of such weapons, then coming to an arms control agreement will surely be that much harder.

   Deng explains that weishe is not new.

   He points out that deterrence has long been part of Chinese military thinking. The concept of People’s War, the development of China’s nuclear forces, and preparations for protracted war were all driven in part by the hope that such measures would make potential aggressors hesitate, while also putting in place the mechanisms necessary to fight and defeat an opponent should deterrence fail. Second, just as China believed that maintaining national security required ‘comprehensive national power,’ so, too, strategic deterrence was best achieved through not only military but also economic, diplomatic, and political means.

    China officially adopted nuclear deterrence as policy in 2000. Despite modernising and expanding its nuclear arsenal, Beijing has publicly maintained a strict no-first use policy, ensuring its nuclear forces serve as a retaliatory shield against blackmail rather than a war-fighting instrument. Many if not all land-based warheads are stored separately from their missiles.

   Deng concludes that Beijing believes ‘only a rich, unified nation can deter an opponent across the full spectrum of capabilities—lending a whole new meaning to “escalation dominance.”’    

   And what of Russia?

   Valeriy Akimenko, senior analyst at the Conflict Studies Research Centre, says new developments in Russian long-range precision-guided weapons strongly support the idea that the country’s leadership has been giving a greater priority to non-nuclear strategic military deterrence.

    The cases of Ukraine and Syria demonstrated Russia’s willingness to use military force, and proved that its non-nuclear deterrent had matured from concept to reality.

    ‘A picture is emerging of a flexible, integrated and versatile package of deterrence and war-fighting capabilities, with non-nuclear missile, electronic warfare and other systems complementing the nuclear arsenal that remains the foundation of Russia’s strategic deterrent.’

    Akimenko states that as a national security concept, Russian strategic deterrence was expansive, combining elements of containment, deterrence and coercion, military and non-military, nuclear and non-nuclear.

    ‘For Russia, the value of nuclear weapons remains undiminished, certainly as a deterrent and arguably as a weapon,’ he adds. ‘The intention is to manipulate the adversary’s cost-benefit calculus, rather than aiming for pure prevention or effective defence.’

   In fictional form, my novel Oceans Deep suggests what can go wrong — despite the best equipment, exhaustive training, technical skill, dedication and leadership. Not one thing, but a combination of issues, from technical mishap to sabotage and espionage.

John Fullerton