What were the main challenges of deterrence during the Cold War? Is deterrence still valid after 1991?

The first part of this essay is going to explore the main challenges of deterrence during the Cold War. At first it is important to understand how deterrence became the dominant strategy on the field of international politics and how the idea of pre emption challenged it. The next step is to gain insight into the inner workings of deterrence. The reader will understand why relying on deterrence as a strategy that is supposed to control the actions of the adversary is a rather dangerous course of action. It will also become clear how the fragile stability created by mutual assured destruction created a good basis for conventional war that could then escalate. The second part of the essay will then deal with the relevance of deterrence as a strategy post 1991 against terrorist groups as well as against developing countries that posses nuclear facilities. At the beginning of the Cold War, deterrence as a US foreign policy was particularly hard to maintain as there were many thinkers were in favour of an attack against the USSR before it matched the nuclear capabilities of the USA. Just after 1945 strategic thinkers such as Bernard Brodie or Robert Osgood agreed that the only way for the West to match the huge manpower of the USSR is by having nuclear weapons. Yet they also assumed that this advantage would be lost by the early 1950s as the USSR would develop their own WMAs.1 As a consequence the reader would be right to think that the early years of the Cold War saw the struggle between pre emption and deterrence as the dominant foreign policy of the US. Kenneth Waltz seems to identify why the US found the idea of a pre emptive strike in the late 1940s as an attractive option, Nuclear weapons make military miscalculations difficult and politically pertinent prediction easy.2 Looking at the situation from Waltz's point of view it becomes obvious why the US would have struck in time before loosing the advantage of the nuclear weapon. Therefore, it could be just to say that one of the most significant challenges of deterrence was keeping it up when one of the actors would not have had to do so necessarily. The main challenge of deterrence during the Cold War was the fact that this strategy was based on the assumption that an adversary's behaviour can be influenced. Freedman describes this idea in a clear way, Consider country A in conflict with country B. Because of its strength and determination to defend its vital interests, A is confident that it has deterred B. Deterrence works

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Freedman, Lawrence. The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy. New York: St. Martin's, 1981. 106. Print. Sagan, Scott Douglas., and Kenneth Neal Waltz. "Nuclear Weapons: More May Be Better." The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: A Debate. New York: W.W. Norton, 1995. Print.

because B cannot foresee any prospect of substantial gains...3 The hope to influence the actions of the other superpower was prevalent drive behind the foreign policies of the USSR and the USA between the 1950s and 1990. The fragility of this strategy was rather obvious during events such as the Cuban Missile Crisis. The events in 1962 showed that even the smallest sign of insecurity set of a probably unstoppable nuclear war machine. Until the very end of the crisis it seemed like that non of the two power blocks had any control over the intentions and actions of the other. On the other hand one could argue that paradoxically the fear of the unknown enemy reaction ultimately stopped every actor from making offensive moves. After all the five decades of the Cold War did pass by without any major conflicts between the USSR and the USA. Therefore it could be very well argued that the inability to control the course of action taken by the opponent encouraged both super powers to remain distant from overheated political conflicts. From this point of view however, the Cuban Missile Crisis seems even more dangerous as in this case one would have to assume that both parties did their best to remain non violent, yet the situation almost escalated. Therefore, many conclude today that this fear of unknown was both an effective deterrent but also a timed bomb that could go off at any time. Another serious challenge of deterrence was the problem that by creating a fear based political stability it automatically recreated a fertile environment for war. This argument is supported by Beaufre who defines the core of this issue, ... the danger of destruction creates stability, too great stability recreates the danger (of war).4 The author adds to the argument by claiming that scientific progress and therefore nuclear weapons are far ahead human wisdom and foresight. The danger of such weapons getting out of human control naturally keeps strategists back from using them.5 This created a seemingly more stable world as every actor felt less inclined to turn the Cold War into a hot one. However, looking at the Vietnam and the Korean War, the reader quickly realises that, as mentioned by Beaufre, nuclear stability reintroduces conventional war. Clausewitz had already established in the 19th century that actors engaging in a conventional war they will do their very best to overthrow the enemy6 Vivid example of this is the bombing of Hiroshima in 1945 showing how the US went as far as possible to win the war. Linking the idea of Clausewitz to the stability described by Beaufre the reader will quickly realise how Cold War deterrence was a vicious circle. The circle consisted of nuclear weapons creating a sense of security whereupon states felt safe to engage into small localised conflicts. Localised conflicts such as the Cuban Missile Crisis then became more and more serious and brought the world to the brink of nuclear war. Fortunately, the
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Freedman, Lawrence. "Prevention, Not Preemption." The Washington Quarterly 26.2 (2003): 105-14. Print. Beaufre, Andre, and R. H. Barry. Deterrence and Strategy. London: Faber and Faber, 1965. 170. Print. Ibid. p.174 Clausewitz, Carl Von, James John Graham, and Fredericchaptt Natusch Maude. "Ends in War More Precisely Defined." On War. Radford, VA: Wilder Publications, 2008. Print.

world never had to experience the moment when this cycle completes and conventional war develops into a nuclear one. On the other hand it is arguable that if the Cold War era would have carried on for much longer one of the superpowers would eventually have launched a total war and used the nuclear bomb. Yet, this theory can only remain valid if the reader accepts the traditional definition of total war set by Erich Luddendorf who claimed that 'total war' is neccesary to achieve 'victorious peace'.7 Based on this definition it is fair to assume that the false stability created by nuclear threat could have ended up in a conventional war with the capability to progress into something far more destructive. After having looked at Cold War deterrence, it is worth examining how relevant this strategy has been since 1991. When thinking about nuclear threats in the past two decades, there are two prevalent problems that need to be addressed. One of them are the newly developed and developing countries such as Iran or Pakistan with their own nuclear programs. Whereas the second one is the increasing fear that state independent terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda might access WMDs. On the other hand a short investigation of the second problem shows that it is a myth rather than an actual threat. There are multiple reasons for this assumption but the most important one is the problem of delivery. Even if such group would acquire such weapon they would lack the ability to deliver the bomb to its target. The reason for this is the fact that such weapon is too big to be transported to the target are without being noticed. As terrorist groups do not possess any ICBMs or IRBMs it would be almost impossible to make a successful delivery at the target location. Hence, even though it is a popular theme of TV series such as 24 it is rather unlikely that such threat should become reality in the near future. However, deterrence is not just about nuclear threats but about any military threat that endangers the safety of a particular nation and therefore its relevance needs to be tested with regards to separatist groups. As the last two decades have shown, terrorists are not connected to a particular country and for this reason they can hardly be deterred from following their cause. Furthermore they are often willing to sacrifice their own life for the cause they are fighting for. Ergo, a major task of the 21st century is to understand how to defend a state against threats that are often posed by a less than a dozen people. Going back to the problem of newly developed countries, the example of Iran with its own nuclear program shows that the dilemma of deterrence and pre emption has arisen again. In fact Matthew Kroenig refers to this matter even more directly, ...American pundits and policymakers have been debating whether the United States should attack Iran and attempt to eliminate its nuclear
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"BBC History - Historic Figures: Erich Ludendorff (1865 1937)." BBC - Homepage. Web. 10 Feb. 2012. <http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/ludendorff_erich.shtml>

facilities.8Kroenig who is a former Pentagon defence planner argues in his article that a pre emptive attack on Iran would spare the region, save lives and resources in the long term. He argues that further deterrence would decrease the window of opportunity to prevent Iran from joining the nuclear club.9 The argument of Kroenig needs to be treated with great care as his main argument against Iran joining the club is that it would largely limit US influence in the middle East. Hence, it is arguable that his point of view is strongly Western oriented rather than being purely objective and factual. Nevertheless, there are numerous factors that could encourage a pre emptive strike against states such as Iran thus making deterrence seem invalid in the 21st century. The biggest problem of newly developed countries with nuclear capabilities is the fact that, unlike the Cold War superpowers, they have no second strike capabilities. These nations lack clear lines of communication, experience in managing nuclear arsenals and in case of Iran and Iraq they even lack the long flight times for ballistic missiles from one country to the other. These crucial differences between the nuclear threat during the Cold War and today and they do make seem deterrence as impractical and outdated. Nevertheless, as long as there are military superpowers such as the USA, countries like Iran will probably not launch any nuclear strikes as they would have to fear the consequences. Therefore, deterrence does remain the best option for the time being but unlike the bipolar deterrence that was present during the Cold War, today one can see a rather unipolar deterrent in the form of the USA. Altogether seen, it becomes obvious that during the Cold War the main challenge for deterrence was the temptation to change to pre emption. In addition, mutually assured destruction created a sense of security that made countries bold enough to engage into localised conventional wars which could have escalated into nuclear disaster on numerous accounts. Comparing deterrence as the prevalent strategy of international relations pre 1991 and post 1991 makes it obvious that this strategy cannot deal with the problems of the 21st century. The reason for this is that terrorist groups cannot be pressurised like states. Furthermore, it is hard to have any influence on an enemy who is willing to sacrifice his own life for his cause. There seems to be a unipolar deterrent power, represented by the USA, that has been able to keep developing countries with nuclear capabilities in control. However, the realisation has to come that deterrence will be less and less an option in a world where threats and aggressors are becoming less and less definable.

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Kroenig, Matthew. "Time to Attack Iran." Foreign Affairs Jan. 2012. Print. Ibid.