The Conventional Deterrence Must-Read List

In yesterday’s post I described Paul Huth’s important work in identifying the conventional deterrence value of favorable immediate and short-term military balances. Given the widespread unfamiliarity with conventional deterrence theory, I thought it might be useful to put together a list of other central works on the topic over the last thirty years. This body of research is the starting place for any serious investigation of conventional deterrence issues. The arguments and conclusions in these works must be addressed head-on by any proposed policy aimed at deterring conventional war.

1. Richard K. Betts. Surprise Attack. (Washington: Brookings Institution, 1982). This is a definitive analysis of the military and psychological dimensions of first strikes as well as war-opening offensives. While written primarily to investigate conventional military strategy options for deterring a Soviet invasion of West Germany, Betts’s findings are broadly applicable to contemporary maritime theaters.
2. John J. Mearsheimer. Conventional Deterrence. (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1983). This book is considered by many deterrence theorists to be modern conventional deterrence theory’s foundational work. It, too, focuses on the Cold War central German front problem. Nevertheless, Mearshimer's general conclusions regarding prerequisites for conventional deterrence success are also broadly applicable to contemporary maritime theaters.
3. Paul Huth. Extended Deterrence and the Prevention of War. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1988). Huth goes beyond Mearshimer to provide compelling quantitative evidence of the importance of forward defense to conventional deterrence.
4. Edward Rhodes. “Conventional Deterrence.” Comparative Strategy 19 (Fall 2000): 221-253. Rhodes provides conceptual bridges between the Cold War-era conventional deterrence research and the security environment of the early 21^st Century. He also provides an excellent gateway into the body of deterrence research regarding opposing leaders' perceptions and motivations.
5. Michael S. Gerson. “Conventional Deterrence in the Second Nuclear Age.” Parameters 39 (Autumn 2009): 32-48. Gerson’s article is a singularly excellent introduction to conventional deterrence theory.
6. Glenn Snyder. Deterrence and Defense. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961), 225-226; AND Glenn Snyder. “The Balance of Power and the Balance of Terror,” in Balance of Power, ed. Paul Seabury (San Francisco: Chandler Publishing Co., 1965), 194, 199. In the pages cited here, Snyder outlines the stability-instability paradox, or rather the hypothesis that nuclear stability between two states will cultivate greater instability at the lower levels of conflict. This paradox is fairly complex to dissect, and I will write more about it in the future. Suffice to say, though, that conventional deterrence theorists need to be able to address the stability-instability paradox as it represents a major intersection with nuclear deterrence theory.

It must be affirmed that theory is not a straitjacket and does not represent a checklist. Rather, as Clausewitz observes:

If theory investigates the subjects which constitute war; if it separates more distinctly that which at first sight seems amalgamated; if it explains fully the properties of the means; if it shows their probable effects; if it makes evident the nature of objects; if it brings to bear all over the field of war the light of essentially critical investigation,—then it has fulfilled the chief duties of its province. It becomes, then, a guide to him who wishes to make himself acquainted with war from books; it lights up the whole road for him, facilitates his progress, educates his judgment, and shields him from error. (On War, Book 2, Chapter 2, Section 27)

In other words, theory provides the practitioner a framework for understanding how a complex ‘system’ (whether natural or human-created) works, or how the system’s ‘components’ are likely to behave given various stimuli, in order to be able to reliably predict potential outcomes. Reality never lines up perfectly with theory’s necessary simplicity, but a well-tested theory will generally be able to inform a decision-maker what kinds of actions are likely to generate certain results.

Policy is an art based upon circumstances, not a science based upon constants. But that does not excuse individuals who propose policies that are unmoored from widely-accepted theories from explaining their rationales for the deviations. One must therefore be able to justify their preferred policy’s contradictions with established theory within the context of the unique circumstances of the situation at hand.