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Conventional Deterrence: Predictive Uncertainty and Policy Confidence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 June 2011

Richard K. Betts
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For over three decades the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has based its deterrent on the principle that the United States would retaliate with nuclear weapons if a Soviet conventional attack against Western Europe succeeded. This notion has long troubled most strategic analysts. It remained generally acceptable to political elites, however, when U.S. nuclear superiority appeared massive enough to make the doctrine credible (as in the 1950s); when the conventional military balance in Europe improved markedly (as in the 1960s); or when détente appeared to be making the credibility of deterrence a less pressing concern (as in the 1970s). None of these conditions exists in the 1980s, and anxiety over the danger of nuclear war has prompted renewed attention to the possibility of replacing NATO's Flexible Response doctrine (a mixture of nuclear and conventional deterrence) with a reliable conventional deterrence posture that might justify a nuclear no-first-use (NFU) doctrine.1

Type
Research Article
Information
World Politics , Volume 37 , Issue 2 , January 1985 , pp. 153 - 179
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1985

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References

1 The most prominent proposal is Bundy, McGeorge, Kennan, George, Smith, Gerard, and McNamara, Robert, “Nuclear Weapons and the Atlantic Alliance,” Foreign Affairs 60 (Spring 1982).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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4 Cockburn, Andrew, The Threat: Inside the Soviet Military Machine (New York: Random House, 1983)Google Scholar; Gabriel, Richard, The New Red Legions, 2 vols. (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1980).Google Scholar For persuasive counterarguments, see Reitz, James T., “Underrating Soviet Might,” Problems of Communism 32 (November-December 1983), 84–88Google Scholar, and the review by Dick, Charles J. in Survival 24 (January/February 1982), 44–45.Google Scholar

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14 See Lautenschläger, Karl, “Technology and the Evolution of Naval Warfare,” International Security 8 (Fall 1983), 27–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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18 Some analysts argue the reverse if NATO can emphasize the advantages of prepared positions and eschew large-scale maneuver defense. New U.S. AirLand Battle doctrine, however, does envision more maneuver; with different national forces crossing each others' lines, communication and coordination problems assume larger proportions. This points to a further deficiency. The Warsaw Pact is more standardized and dominated by one nation than is the NATO coalition. In the latter, not only are national equipments diverse—so are operational doctrines! “NATO's problem, therefore is … [that] there is no unity of policy.” Dinter, Elmar and Griffith, Paddy, Not Over By Christmas: NATO's Central Front in World War III (New York: Hippocrene Books, 1983), 41.Google Scholar With France pursuing an independent strategy, it is also uncertain what difficulties might arise in reintegrating French forces under the unified NATO command in wartime, should Paris decide to do so.

19 On dangers in allowing technology to centralize battle management, see Haasler, Col. Ruprecht and Goebel, Lt. Col. Hans, “Uneasiness About Technological Process in the Armed Forces,” Military Review 62 (October 1982), pp. 70–71.Google Scholar

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21 Barry Posen notes the important point, however, that NATO's far heavier investment in support systems should increase effective combat power (the “dynamic ” balance) beyond what is represented in simple comparisons of firepower; otherwise, such investments must be deemed a waste. See Posen, , “Measuring the Central European Conventional Balance,” International Security 9 (Winter 1984/1985), 47–88, at 67–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

22 von Clausewitz, Carl, On War, ed. and trans, by Howard, Michael and Paret, Peter (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976), 366Google Scholar (italics in original); see also Book Six, throughout.

23 See Dinter and Griffith (fn. 18), 104–21.

24 Kaufmann, “Nonnuclear Deterrence,” in Steinbruner and Sigal (fn. 20), 88–89. For arguments that question the severity of Soviet logistical problems, see Donnelly, C. N., “Rear Support for the Soviet Ground Forces,” International Defense Review 12 (No. 3, 1979).Google Scholar

25 “Though such calculations cannot predict the actual outcome of a war, they do state the best odds that can be assessed in advance on the basis of basic military capacity.” Steinbruner, “Alliance Security,” in Steinbruner and Sigal (fn. 20), 205.

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27 Mearsheimer (fn. 5), chap. 6, esp. 166–67.

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29 Table 2 excludes interventions in revolutionary or guerrilla civil wars (Vietnam, Afghanistan), minor or bizarre operations (such as the Argentinian attack on the Falklands/Malvinas and the U.S. invasion of Grenada), and cases in which large modern armored forces were not involved (such as the Tanzanian invasion of Uganda in 1979). The IndoPakistani War of 1965 is excluded because it is impossible to determine which side started the war, and which won. The same holds for the Soviet-Chinese skirmishes on the Ussuri in 1969. The basis for most of the categorizations of superiority is obvious. For the Battle of France in 1940, see sources in Betts (fn. 28), 32, and especially Karber, Phillip A. and others, “Assessing the Correlation of Forces: France 1940,” study for the Office of the Secretary of Defense/Net Assessment and Defense Nuclear Agency (McLean, VA: BDM Corporation, June 1979)Google Scholar, which demonstrates the limits of assessments based on the balance of forces. The categorization of Japan v. U.S.A. would be questionable if one focused on the Philippines alone rather than on forces overall, although even there the Japanese force that landed at Lingayen Gulf was only 40,000 men, while MacArthur had at least 65,000 American and Filipino troops. See Morton, Louis, “The Decision to Withdraw to Bataan (1941),” in Greenfield, Kent Roberts, ed., Command Decisions (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1959), 170.Google Scholar

30 On the inverse deficiencies of static and dynamic analysis, see Betts (fn. 28), 13–14.

31 If qualitative and dynamic factors are included, then whichever side won was by definition superior in reality.

32 Israeli defense of the Golan in 1973 is categorized as success because the Israelis were not pushed off the Heights, and their initial defense of the Sinai is categorized as failure because the Egyptians penetrated farther than Israeli plans meant to allow; indeed, the Egyptians might have gotten farther yet if they had not voluntarily stopped.

33 This universe of cases dates back to 1805. Col. Dupuy, T. N., Numbers, Predictions, and War (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1979), 14–15Google Scholar.

34 See Comptroller General, Report to the Congress of the United States, Models, Data, and War: A Critique of the Foundation for Defense Analyses (Washington, DC: General Accounting Office, March 12, 1980), esp. 54n, 71–72, 91Google Scholar; and Stockfisch, J. A., Models, Data, and War: A Critique of the Study of Conventional Forces (Santa Monica, CA: Rand Corporation, March 1975)Google Scholar.

35 See Fischer, David Hackett, Historians' Fallacies (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1970), 120–24Google Scholar; Hughes, H. Stuart, History as Art and Science (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1965), 4–6Google Scholar.

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37 See Dinter and Griffith (fn. 18),111–12. The significance of long-overlooked O vulnerability has recently been better recognized in analyses of nuclear strategy than in conventional strategy.

38 See Field Manual 100–5, Operations (Washington, DC: Headquarters, Department of the Army, August 1982)Google Scholar; Sutton, Boyd D. and others, “Deep Attack Concepts and the Defence of Central Europe,” Survival 26 (March/April 1984)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Dubik, Maj. James M. and Montano, Maj. James J., “FM 100–5: Conceptual Models and Force Design,” Military Review 64 (July 1984)Google Scholar; Romjue, John L., “The Evolution of the AirLand Battle Concept,” Air University Review 35 (May-June 1984)Google Scholar.

39 Huntington, , “Conventional Deterrence and Conventional Retaliation in Europe,” International Security 8 (Winter 1983–84)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Huntington, , “The Renewal of Strategy,” in Huntington, , ed., The Strategic Imperative (Cambridge, MA: Ballinger, 1982)Google Scholar, and “Broadening the Strategic Focus: Comments on Howard's Paper,” in Defence and Consensus: The Domestic Aspects of Western Security, Part III, Adelphi Paper No. 184 (London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, Summer 1983), 29–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

40 Some of the precedents supporting offense by inferior forces are promising only if one ignores the ultimate outcomes. In a future European scenario, it is likely that a Soviet offensive in the North, given the lack of strategic depth, might resemble the German success of 1940 in France (which was decisive), while a NATO offensive in the south would resemble the German blunder of 1941 in Russia (which was operationally successful but strategically disastrous because it was not decisive). Idealization of the Germans' superior operational style, prevalent now among many reformist analysts of conventional doctrine, often ignores this point. See Schoenbaum, David, “The Wehrmacht and G. I. Joe: Learning What from History?” International Security 8 (Summer 1983), pp. 201–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar. If one looks back before the era of mechanized operations, the initial phase of World War I is instructive. The French attacked toward Alsace, but were compelled to pull back when the German sweep westward made their position untenable. And although the French line stabilized at the Marne, the Germans had penetrated much farther west than NATO's forward defense doctrine considers tolerable for a Soviet initiative.

41 Huntington maintains that NATO's offense would be feasible because its forces would be superior in certain zones as the Soviets would have to concentrate their own forces at other points where they would try to break through. He also argues that the threat of a NATO offensive would encourage the Soviets to weaken their offensive concentrations in order to protect the parts of their line that would otherwise be vulnerable. (“Conventional Deterrence …,” fn. 39, pp. 51, 44.) The first claim, however, is based on force ratios on the front that obtain in peacetime, before Soviet reinforcement; these ratios are nearly even, and most analysts focus on the scenario of a reinforced Soviet attack before NATO mobilization is complete—in which case the overall ratios would be far less favorable to the West.

42 See Kim's, Kyung-Won analysis of the breakdown of international communication in the French Revolution, in Revolution and International System (New York: New York University Press, 1970), 30–36 and throughout.Google Scholar

[V]iewing ideology only in terms of conscious objectives and ultimate values fails to sensitize us to the highly critical role that ideological commitment plays in the perceptual process… sharply increasing the chances of international misunderstanding.… [Distorted perception resulting from an ideological conviction is basically an integral part of the ideological commitment, itself, which makes it quite impossible to “correct” the perceptual process. Ibid., 123, 125.

See also Adomeit, Hannes, Soviet Risk-Taking and Crisis Behavior (London: Allen & Unwin 1983), 112–21Google Scholar, 220–30, 328–34.

43 Wohlstetter, Roberta, Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1962), 26Google Scholar, 69n, 80–89.

44 Huntington, “Conventional Deterrence …” (fn. 39), 38. Two of the cases Mearsheimer cites as successful deterrence are allied decision making at Munich (despite the fact that Hitler obtained the Sudeten territory and gobbled the rest of Czechoslovakia a year later) and allied decision making between the outbreak of war and the German blitzkrieg eight months later. By this logic, if NATO and the Warsaw Pact went to war, but Moscow waited a while before executing a successful attack, the interim would count as successful deterrence!

45 Toulmin, Stephen, Foresight and Understanding (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1963), 55–56, 108–11.Google Scholar