Deterring Russia in Europe

Defence Strategies for Neighbouring States

Nora Vanaga, Toms Rostoks, Nora Vanaga, Toms Rostoks

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9780815370154
• eBook ISBN: 9781351250627
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: European History
• Index: History

This edited volume examines deterrence and the defense efforts of European states neighboring Russia, following the Crimean intervention.

Deterrence, after being largely absent from debates among academics and policy-makers for almost a quarter of a century, has made a comeback in Europe. Since Russia's annexation of Crimea and the start of the military conflict in Ukraine's Donbass region, eastern and northern European states have revised their assessments of Russia's policies and intentions. The approach used by Russia in Ukraine has rendered lessons learned from the Cold War deterrence only partially applicable due to the changing security situation in Europe. The emergence of the cyber realm, a smaller emphasis on nuclear deterrence, and the ideological conflict between Russia and the West, are among the key differences between the Cold War and the current security environment. Structured into two parts, the first part discusses conceptual aspects of deterrence, while the second discusses ten country case studies, which include both NATO and non-NATO countries. This allows for an in-depth analysis of the changing character of deterrence and its practical application by Russia's European neighbours.

This volume will be of much interest to students of strategic studies, European politics, Russian foreign policy, security studies and international relations in general.

Part I

Conceptualizing deterrence

1 The evolution of deterrence from the Cold War to hybrid war

Toms Rostoks

Introduction

In recent years, the interest of the Euro-Atlantic nations in deterrence has increased significantly. The main reason is the increased tension in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)–Russia relationship. Russia’s role in the military conflict taking place in Ukraine and its annexation of Crimea has created concerns about Russia’s further activities. With the development of consensus within the Alliance that the concerns are well founded, a range of measures have been implemented that can be clearly interpreted to be focussed on the deterrence of potential Russian aggression. At the same time, discussions about national security have intensified in European countries that are not NATO member states. How sustained the current interest in deterrence will be is not known, but events in recent years have made it into one of the most important concepts in the context of European security.

The concept of deterrence has considerable practical significance, but its current application has been made difficult by two circumstances. First, political decision-makers and researchers have had comparatively little contact with deterrence policy since the end of the Cold War. For example, the end of the Cold War gave rise to the concept of pivotal deterrence, where a super power aims to deter other nations from mutual armed conflicts, without choosing to favour any of the sides involved in the conflict (Crawford 2003). Deterrence continued to play a significant role in individual world regions, e.g. in the Middle East in the framework of the Israel–Palestine conflict and in Southeast Asia in the China-Taiwan relationship and the North Korea–South Korea relationship. The current discussions on deterrence could be based on knowledge acquired during the Cold War period, but in the interim, the generation of decision-makers and researchers has changed, as a result of which knowledge about deterrence, even among groups of experts, is often fragmentary.

Second, even though deterrence, as a body of measures with the goal of deterring an opponent from military aggression, is constant in essence, its practical expressions depend on the specific historical context. Measures, which were quite successful in Cold War, can turn out to be unsuccessful in the early twenty-first century. In the view of Joseph S. Nye, the characteristic focus on the role of nuclear weapons for deterrence in the Cold War period could create an erroneous notion about the results that could be achieved with the assistance of deterrence today (Nye 2016:17). If there is a significant possibility that a nuclear war could start between superpowers, then deterrence has to be 100 per cent certain. However, if the potential military conflict is most likely to be a limited war fought with conventional military means, the costs of deterrence failures are smaller.

This chapter has two goals. The first section explores the main elements of deterrence as a theoretical concept. An exhaustive analysis of the concept is not possible within the framework of a chapter, which is why greater attention has been focussed on issues associated with extended deterrence. The second section, in turn, examines those aspects of deterrence that may have experienced changes from the intensive period of research on this concept during the Cold War, or that also may, quite simply, not have been important in the circumstances of the US–Soviet Union confrontation. It should be emphasized that the goal of this chapter is to examine the applicability of the deterrence concept in the discussions about the shifting European security environment, rather than providing an exhaustive explanation of the concept of hybrid war. In the context of this chapter, the concept of hybrid war is used mainly to point out Russia’s readiness to utilize a range of military and non-military instruments, to achieve its foreign policy goals (see Racz 2015 about the development of the concept of hybrid war and see Bērziņš 2014 about Russia’s new generation warfare). Russia’s actions in relation to Ukraine raise questions about the applicability of deterrence in hybrid war conditions, without at the same time forgetting that the key aim of deterrence is to prevent a conventional military attack.

This chapter concludes that the importance of deterrence has increased over the past few years. This applies particularly to extended deterrence and the circumstances in which extended deterrence could be effective. At the same time, the current discussions on deterrence are characterized by a lesser emphasis on the role of nuclear weapons in deterrence, the growing acceptance of the possibility of a limited war in Europe, a greater emphasis on the importance of the non-military aspects of deterrence, an increasing realization that the attribution of hostile acts is problematic and a growing need to apply the concept of deterrence to cyberspace.

The concept of deterrence

The essence of the concept of deterrence is simple. The concept’s core is that participants in international politics can deter their opponents from undertaking hostile actions by convincing them, that in circumstance where hostile actions are undertaken, their opponents will not be able to achieve their selected goals and/or will suffer substantial losses. As stated by Patrick M. Morgan, the goal of deterrence is to deter something. Even though the goal of deterrence is usually considered to be to avoid war, the concept of deterrence is actually wider. Deterrence can be implemented with the goal of preventing an opponent from seriously contemplating military aggression. If it cannot be prevented, then deterrence can be used to prevent the escalation of further conflict. If an opponent has commenced military aggression, then the goal of deterrence changes, and deterrence can be used to deter an opponent from continuing and escalating the aggression (Morgan 2003:117). In this way, deterrence is a permanent feature of the relationship between mutually hostile nations.

The concept of deterrence is applied mainly to attempts to deter military aggression, so that the line, which separates peaceful co-existence from military conflict, is not crossed. Michael Howard defines deterrence as follows: ‘the object of deterrence is to persuade an adversary that the costs to him of seeking a military solution to his political problems will far outweigh the benefits’ (Howard 1982–1983:317). Glenn H. Snyder defines deterrence as ‘the power to dissuade as opposed to the power to coerce or compel’ (Snyder 1961:9). Alexander L. George and Richard Smoke define deterrence as ‘the persuasion of one’s opponent that the costs and/or risks of a given course of action he might take outweigh the benefits’ (George and Smoke 1974). Austin Long considers that deterrence is the ability to create fear in the mind of the opponent, which prevents it from undertaking an attack (Long 2008:7). Ivan Arreguin-Toft writes that ‘deterrence means the creation of circumstances that privilege inaction along a specific issue dimension’ (Arreguin-Toft 2009:208). John J. Mearsheimer is of the view that ‘deterrence, in its broadest sense, means persuading an opponent not to initiate a specific action because the perceived benefits do not justify the estimated costs and risks’ (Mearsheimer 1983:14).

Despite the seeming simplicity of the concept, it brings up a lot of questions about various deterrence situations that are potentially possible, the preconditions and the means used for successful deterrence. To what degree does deterrence restrict military conflict in the international system? Do the activities focussed on the deterring of an opponent include only negative stimuli or are they also supplemented by positive stimuli? Is deterrence undertaken using mainly military means, or are non-military means also being utilized? To what degree is deterrence influenced by limits on rationality, namely, the view of the deterrer and the deterred on the situation and on the stakes placed on the game? What are the preconditions for a successful deterrence strategy? These questions will be looked at in more detail later in the chapter. However, nuclear deterrence will not be examined in this chapter, as it is examined in more detail in Andrew Corbett’s chapter in this book. In the next paragraphs, eight aspects of the concept of deterrence will be examined, which are of real importance in the current discussion about the significance of deterrence to Europe’s security.

First, the concept of deterrence can only partly account for the prevention of international conflict. If there are no military conflicts taking place in the international system, then deterrence is only one of the reasons why there is no conflict. Nations may not bother trying to deter others from commencing military aggression where there is no such need. Countries can implement a deterrence strategy out of fear of an opponent’s aggression, even though an opponent’s intentions may not even be aggressive. In such cases, deterrence is not only not required, but could also create unwelcome escalation. Whereas in other situations deterrence can be successful. Namely, deterrence can be implemented against another country that truly has aggressive intentions. As noted by Lawrence Freedman, cross-border military conflicts are a comparatively rare phenomenon nowadays, because it can be safely assumed that most states pursue a strategy of self-deterrence. Freedman writes that

deterrence can seem far less problematic when we start from the point of view of the deterred. Once certain courses of action have been precluded through fear of the consequences should they be attempted, this conclusion may become embedded. It requires little further deliberation. In this way, at one level, deterrence never goes away. Certain options – whole categories of actions – are precluded because of the possible responses of others. Land may be coveted but it is not grabbed; the unacceptable practices of foreign governments are denounced but they are left untouched; ideological ambitions are shelved; inconveniences, disruptions, outrages are tolerated; punches are pulled. Over time, after operations have been delayed and plans shelved, it is forgotten that these operations were ever proposed or that the plans were once taken seriously.

(Freedman 2004:30–31)

However, it is relatively easy to clarify whether deterrence has been successful in cases of immediate deterrence, whereas in cases of general deterrence, it is more difficult to clarify the effect created by deterrence, as the opponent has not, as yet, undertaken activities that would bring the commencement of conflict closer (Huth 1988a, 1988b; Huth, Russett 1984).

Second, assumptions about rationality have significant importance in discussions about deterrence. Measures that are undertaken for deterring an opponent can turn out to be successful as they convince the opponent that the costs will outweigh the perceived benefits. However, deterrence measures are undertaken, guided by the actors’ views about what the opponent’s benefit and costs calculations may be. In Glenn H. Snyder’s words ‘“rationality” may be defined as choosing to act in the manner which gives the best promise of maximising one’s value position, on the basis of a sober calculation of potential gains and losses, and probabilities of enemy actions’ (Snyder 1961:25). Countries do not have exhaustive information about the goals of other actors and their readiness to assume risks or suffer losses, therefore errors in these kinds of calculations are inescapable (George, Smoke 1961:73–77). The research literature on foreign policy confirms that psychological explanations for the actions of actors are no less convincing than explanations based on rationality. Prospect theory foresees that actors who have recently experienced setbacks will be ready for risk to a greater degree than actors whose situation has not deteriorated (McDermott 1998; Gross Stein 2013). Criticism of the practical application of rationality was also made from other theoretical perspectives, e.g. the groupthink, organizational behaviour model and governmental politics model (Allison 1969; Janis 1982; Allison and Zelikow 1999). Rationality is a standard that can turn out to be beyond the reach of decision-makers. Consequently, measures that should be adequate to deter an opponent from military aggression can turn out to be inadequate in practice.

Third, the two most significant deterrence strategies are: deterrence by denial and deterrence by punishment. To a certain degree, this distinction is the result of the development of twentieth-century military technology. Up to the mid-twentieth century, military technology had not yet reached a level of development that would allow the launching of assaults on an opponent’s residential areas from a great distance. The essence of the deterrence was deterrence by denial; namely, reaching the opponent’s residential areas was only possible when the opponent’s army had been defeated. Along with the development of military aviation, missile technology and nuclear weapons, it became possible to threaten an opponent with the destruction of residential areas in the opponent’s territory – deterrence by punishment – independently of whether the opponent had a military advantage or not. Deterrence by denial, however, has mainly been understood as the ability to prevent an opponent’s attack, without allowing it to gain control over territory. As Glenn H. Snyder has written, ‘It is useful to distinguish between deterrence which results from capacity to deny territorial gains to the enemy, and deterrence by the threat and capacity to inflict nuclear punishment’ (Snyder 1961:14).

It should be noted that both deterrence strategies – deterrence by denial and deterrence by punishment – cannot be completely separated, even though they are conceptually different. They are similar in the sense that, in the case of military conflict, attempts to prevent an opponent from reaching the desired object, to a certain degree, also includes within it the punishment of the opponent for commencing the aggression. Preventing an opponent from gaining a quick and decisive victory increases an opponent’s costs. The country that undertakes the deterrence can undertake both deterrence strategies simultaneously. The reason for this is the view that deterrence by denial is a less aggressive deterrence strategy and that the implementation of a deterrence by punishment strategy could turn out to be problematic in cases where the level and intensity of the aggression commenced by an opponent is not of the kind that would call for an attack on targets in the enemy’s territory. It can be assumed that countries that have sufficient military and financial opportunities at their disposal will try to use both strategies, without making a choice in favour of only one of them. In case a country does not have enough resources to conduct one of these strategies, but through national deterrence efforts it at least aims to reach them, it can be considered that the country is doing central deterrence (Huth 1988b:16).

Fourth, it is worth discussing the concept of extended deterrence separately. Here, at least three nations are involved: the potential aggressor, the object of the dispute and the potential defender. Paul K. Huth defines extended deterrence as a ‘situation in which policymakers threaten military retaliation against another state (the potential attacker) in an attempt to prevent that state from using military force against an ally (or protégé) of the defender’ (Huth 1988b:16). Such situations are more complex than cases where only two nations are involved in the conflict. In the words of Thomas C. Schelling, ‘the difference between the national homeland and everything “abroad” is the difference between threats that are inherently credible, even if unspoken, and the threats that have to be made credible’ (Schelling 2008:36). If a country is trying to protect itself from a potential aggressor, then the most important question is the issue of military capacity which is at the disposal of the country to fend off the attack. The country’s desire for self-preservation usually is not doubted. Whereas, if a country attempts to protect another from attack, its commitment to provide military assistance is less credible. The potential defender’s desire to avoid losses which it could suffer in opposing the aggressor could be one reason for it; the disinclination to become a victim of aggression itself if the aggressor chooses to turn against not only the initial target of aggression, but also against the defender, and the inability to provide needed help to the potential victim of aggression in a timely manner.

Paul K. Huth has identified several factors that influence the outcome of the extend...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of tables
• Notes on contributors
• Introduction: the (un)expected return of deterrence to Europe
• PART I: Conceptualizing deterrence
• PART II: Country case studies
• Conclusions
• Index