Can the U.S. Military Strengthen Deterrence by Becoming More Operationally Unpredictable?
by Miranda Priebe, Angela O'Mahony, Bryan Frederick, Alyssa Demus, Bonny Lin, Michelle Grisé, Derek Eaton, Abby Doll
The recent U.S. emphasis on strategic competition with China and Russia has renewed attention on how to dissuade adversaries from attacking U.S. allies, a concept known as extended deterrence. Some in U.S. policymaking circles believe that U.S. military activities have become overly predictable, allowing potential adversaries to anticipate where, when, and how U.S. forces will operate.
The 2018 U.S. National Defense Strategy suggests that the United States might strengthen deterrence by becoming more operationally unpredictable—that is, by increasing adversary uncertainty about how the United States would fight.[1] To implement this guidance, the U.S. Army asked RAND Arroyo Center to examine how the United States could increase operational unpredictability and what the effect would be on extended deterrence.
The RAND team developed a definition of operational unpredictability and then detailed four potential approaches for increasing operational unpredictability, identifying the range of conditions under which each approach could enhance deterrence and the key trade-offs involved. These assessments were based on the limited publicly available information on Russian and Chinese intelligence capabilities, methods for predicting how the United States might fight, and decisionmaking about the use of force.
https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RBA448-1.html
