Our Policy of Deterrence is Bankrupt

Deterrence is based on fear. The would-be attacker is supposed to fear the defender’s deterrent threat. This threat takes the form: if you do that, I will do this to you in return. A policy of deterrence is a strategic posture suitable for a satisfied power that enjoys at least strategic parity with the attacker and can afford to field forces-in-being sufficient for the deterrence mission. That is, you must be willing to follow through on your deterrent threat.

The US has a policy of deterrence regarding nuclear attack on the US homeland. This policy of deterrence works because the US has a secure second-strike capability in the form of the nuclear triad.1 The undersea leg of the triad is the key.

Stealthy nuclear submarines armed with strategic nuclear missiles (SSBNs) quietly patrol the high seas on the deterrence mission. Even if a nuclear-armed adversary launches a highly successful first-strike that takes out all the ICBMs, all the bombers, and everyone in the National Command Authority, weapons release authority is pre-delegated to SSBN commanders to retaliate with devastating force in the event of a first-strike.2

A single SSBN can fire up to two dozen strategic nuclear missiles with MIRV’d warheads that can deliver a total of 30 megatons. This is enough to basically destroy the enemy’s largest cities. So no one with a fixed address would ever think of attacking the US homeland with nuclear missiles.

The specific nature of strategic weapons and the mutual vulnerability of the powers to nuclear devastation means that we can expect this policy of deterrence to work with high confidence. This is not true of other policies of deterrence. In particular, extended deterrence—where the deterrent threat is meant to dissuade attacks on allies and forward-deployed US forces—is considerably harder. It depends sensitively on the credibility and formidability of the deterrent threat.

If the enemy does not believe our deterrent threat, then he may choose to call our bluff even if we ourselves mean it. So deterrence is in part about convincing the enemy that we really mean it. That when push comes to shove, we will actually deliver the promised threat.

Deterrence may not work even if the deterrent threat is credible, however, if it does not inspire sufficient fear in the adversary’s mind. We may promise sanctions if China attacks Taiwan, for instance, but that is not going to persuade the Chinese to back off if they are otherwise convinced that they need to wrap up the unfinished business of the renegade province.

The US has inherited two major policies of deterrence. The first is our commitment to defend NATO Europe against a Russian attack. The second is our commitment to defend Taiwan against a Chinese attack. Both of these are now past their sell-by date.

The Iran war has revealed the US military to be a paper tiger. Defense analysts perched at think-tanks are not allowed to say we will lose any war. So you’re not going to see it stated by so-called defense experts plainly. What we are seeing instead is projection of the panic onto the half-empty magazine of interceptors and stand-off munitions. That this is mathematically-challenged nonsense is clear from a basic back-of-the-envelope calculation.

The monthly production rate of Russian missiles is roughly the annual production rate of the same in the US, while China’s defense industrial base is an order of magnitude larger than Russia’s. Iran has fired about 1,000 theater missiles3 and maybe 10,000 Shahed drones since the war began. Over the same period, Russia has fired 1,700 theater missiles and over 52,000 Geran drones.4 If the prewar magazine was insufficient to come within shouting distance of defeating Iran, how could it have been sufficient for a war with Russia, much less China?