Deterrence, Democratic Peace
Deterrence
From the word ‘deter’ – a verb meaning to discourage or dissuade (someone) from doing something by instilling doubt of fear of the consequences. (Strategy of prevention)
Proponents of deterrence believe that people make their choices based on their calculations of the gains and consequences of such (in)actions. (Rational actor model)
What is it?
Defence - the ability to defend oneself against an act of agression
Deterrence - the ability to dissuade the adversary from comitting the act of agression in the first place.
"To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual ways of preserving peace”.
George Washington - 1790
Different levels of deterrence
Certainty of punishment – the aggressor is convinced they will be punished
Severity of punishment – the aggressor believes this punishment will be significant
Celerity of punishment – the aggressor anticipates this punishment will be swift or take place in good time such that it cannot avoid it through subsequent manoeuvres.
The Purpose of Force
“War… is an act of violence intended to compel our opponent to fulfil our will”
Clausewitz
Different Types of Deterrence
Immediate deterrence
A situation in which an actor realizes or believes that another specific actor is seriously contemplating attacking and undertakes to deter that attack by threatening retaliatory measures that negate any benefits likely to derive from an attack.
Superpower relations during the Cold War.
General deterrence
Anticipating possible or potential threats, often hypothetical and from an unspecified attacker, and adopting a posture designed to deter other actors from even beginning to think about launching an attack (Patrick Morgan 2003).
Uk nuclear deterrent?
General nuclear proliferation
MAD
Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD)
Stable peace premised on both sides believing that they could not survive a sustained and massive nuclear attack.
Key components.
Each side maintain sufficient nuclear weapons to guarantee some would survive an initial attack, thereby enabling response capability
Each side develop a ‘second strike’ nuclear capability
Limited nuclear shelters
Strict limits on defensive missile systems to ensure mutual vulnerability - Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (1972).
Countervailling startegy
Would nullify MAD
Premised on belief that a nuclear war could be ‘won’
Strategic strikes of Soviet leadership (Centre of Gravity)
Missile defences – Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (‘Star Wars’)
From deterrence to compellence?
Prerequisites of (Nuclear) Deterrence
Immediate deterrence situation
Rationality
Psychological relationship
Credibility and communication
The problem of stability
Limitations/ Criticisms
Rational actor model vs human psychology
Enough threat inhibits aggressive behaviour
Shared values
Shared frames of reference
No extraneous influence
Centralised decision-making power
Deterrence and non-state actors
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Can deterrence be deployed against non-state actors – in particular against terrorist groups?
Is terrorism a rational form of violence?
Are terrorists rational actors? What if they aren’t?
‘Terrorism has a strategic logic’ (Pape)
Alex Wilner (2014 and Benmelech et al. (2010) suggest it is possible to deter terrorists through targeting things they hold dear (e.g. family members)
Democratic Peace Theory
Quotes
“What we may be witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of post-war history, but the end of history as such: that is, the end point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.”
Francis Fukuyama, The End of History, 1989
The closest thing we have to an empirical law in the study of international relations" Kack Levy, 1989
Background and assumptions
Separation of powers, representative systems, and rule of law → foundations for peace
Democracies fulfil these requirements the best → no war in a democratic world
Theories of Democratic Peace
Structural-Institutional explanation
Internal checks and balances in democratic systems mean it is important for leaders to generate public consensus → risk aversion
Cultural-Normative explanation
Leaders expect principles of non-violent conflict resolution within states to be applied also to conflicts between them
Ideational explanation
States claiming a democratic identity must avoid war with other democracies or risk foregoing recognition for that identity (Constructivist explanation)
Empirical Findings: levels of analysis
Monadic (unit level): Are democracies more peaceful overall in their relations with other states?
Yes, democracies are more peaceful overall (e.g. Rummel, Benoit, Maoz)
No, democracies are just as war prone as non-democracies (Chan, Weede)
Dyadic
Dyadic (inter-state level): Are democracies more peaceful in their relations with democracies as opposed to non-democracies?
Yes, democracies clearly seem to be much less likely to fight militarized disputes against each other (e.g. Maoz and Russett)
But to claim democracies have never fought each other raises questions of how we define ‘war’ and ‘democracy’ and whether DPT is actually ‘liberal’ DPT
Systemic
(the whole): Is a world filled with more democratic states more peaceful?
Yes, as the number and proportion of democracies increases, war does appear to become less likely in the system.
But, correlation or causation?
Other Empirical Findings
Militarised disputes (conflicts short of war) between democracies involve very few fatalities and are much less likely to escalate than disputes in mixed or autocratic dyads.
Democracies win the majority of wars they fight
Birds of a feather flock together – Democracies form alliances much more readily with other democracies than with non-democracies
Credible commitments – democracies are more likely to comply with international agreements than non-democracies.
Inoculation against civil war - fully established democracies are very unlikely to fall into civil war
Criticisms and Challenges
Correlation not causation?
War between non-democracies is also rare
Security Communities (how unique?)
States amongst whom expectations of peaceful change have developed such that the option of war amongst them to settle disputes has been forsaken (Deutsch 1956; Adler and Barnett 1998).
Subversion, not war
They might not fight but they do engage in subversion – US in Chile (1970s) / Dominican Republic (1960s)
Imperial Peace and/or Democratic War
Is liberalism an expansionist ideology?
Colonial histories and C19th ‘Standard of Civilisation’
Doctrine of liberal interventionism (Tony Blair)
Conclusion
There is (usually) no war between democracies, but this is different from saying that democracies are de facto peaceful. Democracies have engaged in frequent wars (almost) as often as autocracies and as such cannot conclusively be said to be less hostile in general.
Democratic Peace Theory strongly suggests – contra neorealism – that what happens inside states does affect the nature of international relations and impact on the occurrence and direction of war within the system. Insofar as a democratic peace is discernible between democracies, it suggests that the realist idea of international politics as an environment of war of all against all is flawed.