The Past and Future of Deterrence Theory

Abstract

Renewed interest in deterrence today has been stimulated by the way recent efforts to sustain security and stability in international politics have often been unevenly successful or not successful at all. Efforts to deter, contain, and end conflict—whether terrorism, intrastate ethnic, religious and political fighting, and interstate fighting—have frequently run into difficulty. There is serious disarray in the East-West deterrence relationship once again, after a brief Cold War hiatus, with disturbing possibilities of outright conflict now being openly discussed among analysts and observers. Part of the reason that deterrence is so challenged today is that the very concept of deterrence—including cross-domain deterrence—has become seriously overstretched to apply to far more than it reasonably can, or should.