Deterrence theory refers to the scholarship and practice of how threats or limited force by one party can convince another party to refrain from initiating some other course of action.
Missiles Stockpiled 15
Good work! Out of the 1,754 active nations capable of attacking you, you have 443.48% more than the average number of Missiles (3).
The central problem of deterrence revolves around how to credibly threaten military action or nuclear punishment on the adversary despite its costs to the deterrer.
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. The central problem of deterrence is to credibly communicate threats. Deterrence does not necessarily require military superiority.
"General deterrence" is considered successful when an actor who might otherwise take an action refrains from doing so due to the consequences that the deterrer is perceived likely to take
The concept of deterrence can be defined as the use of threats in limited force by one party to convince another party to refrain from initiating some course of action.
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.
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.
One approach to theorizing about deterrence has entailed the use of rational choice and game-theoretic models of decision making.
Rational deterrence theory entails:
Rationality: actors are rational
Unitary actor assumption: actors are understood as unitary
Dyads: interactions tend to be between dyads (or triads) of states
Strategic interactions: actors consider the choices of other actors
Cost-benefit calculations: outcomes reflect actors' cost-benefit calculations
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.
