Deterence And the Missile Shield

As is common with most things dominating the news cycle, important background explanations and underlying principles are often if not always left inadequately answered or not touched on at all. One such example is the US missile shield which now has the official backing of NATO and the issue of Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons. The missile shield involves several factors such as Iran and deterrence. Let us begin with the latter.

Deterrence is a military strategy, most famous for its importance during the Cold War between the United States and Soviet Union. In essence, the strategy aims to negatively influence the enemy’s decision to attack. This can be accomplished by two types of deterrence: deterrence or deterrence by denial. The first option threatens massive retaliation against the enemy in the event of an attack while the second one seeks to make the achievement of the enemy’s goal so difficult as to be not worthwhile. The first method is most famous as the basis of MAD, mutually assured destruction.

There are several problematic assumptions with deterrence, regardless of whether we speak of its use during the Cold War or today. First of all, its usefulness is based on the assumption that enemy actors are rational and make rational decisions. It also does not allow for flaws in the decision making process, both technical and human as well as rogue influence in the decision making process of enemy states. Lastly, it does not necessarily allow for errors or misunderstandings in the diplomatic process.

However, while it is often easy to look back on the Cold War with a sense of nostalgia because it at least seems to black and white compared to today, the same issues existed at that time and nevertheless worked. Stalin, one of history’s greatest mass-murderers was extremely paranoid and would be hard to characterize as a rational actor, yet here we are today. As recently unclassified documents about deterrence in the post-Cold-War era notes “The very framework of a concept that depends on instilling fear and uncertainty in the minds of opponents was never, nor can it be, strictly rational. Nor has it ever required strictly rational adversaries to function.”

This leaves us with three remaining issues, that of the missile shield, Iran, and terrorists. The missile shield being built by the US, and now supported by NATO, primarily serves to defend Europe and later the US against nuclear attacks by rogue nations such as Iran or North Korea. While it may indeed have the potential for dual use, i.e. offensive use and brings up issues of nuclear primacy and first strike capability, let us focus on its relevance to non-Russian threats.

While all sides of the American political spectrum spar over whether Iran is deterable and whether the US and/or Israel should allow Tehran to acquire a nuclear capability, deterrence and its history makes clear that one does not necessarily need rational actors leading enemy states to properly function. Deterrence through massive retaliation aims not only to make the result of a cost-benefit analysis of attacking a clear negative, it also aims to instill fear and uncertainty. Hitler, for example, who was in possession of chemical weapons would clearly have had no qualms about using them against the Russians. However,

“[...] he knew that both Roosevelt and Churchill had stated categorically that any use of chemical weapons by German armed force would be met with retaliation in kind, and that the retaliation could well be directed against German industrial centers. Allied long-range bomber forces were already conducting bombing raids on a scale which made credible the threat that the destruction would be greatly escalated should chemical weapons be introduced. Fearing retaliation and its consequences for the German war-supporting industries, Hitler did not use chemical weapons.”

Thus it is no less probable that a nuclear armed Iran would be deterable in the same way both Nazi Germany and the USSR were. This leaves us, however, with the possibility of rogue influence (i.e. a rogue commander or other individual), a flawed decision making process (a technical error such as in the case of Stanislav Petrov) or some diplomatic error or misunderstanding. The missile shield is a hedge against these possibilities and is thus an important addition to US deterrence and by extension defense policy.

In conclusion, Iran and other such rogue states as North Korea or Syria are indeed deterable. Radical terrorists, however, are another story and as Keith Payne, who recently spoke at John’s Hopkins noted, some are and others are not. But that is another post for another day.