Kill ’Em All? Denial Strategies, Defense Planning, and Deterrence Failure
Evan Montgomery
September 24, 2020
Should the United States be ready to destroy hundreds of Chinese vessels or thousands of Russian armored vehicles in just a few days during a conflict? Could these clear-cut yet ambitious operational objectives spur innovation within the Department of Defense? Would threats to inflict mass attrition on high-value military assets in a short span of time dissuade Beijing and Moscow from attacking their neighbors? These questions are moving to the forefront of the U.S. defense policy debate as the difficulties of preparing for great-power rivalry become more apparent.
Yet a closer look reveals how efforts to encourage outside-the-box thinking and enhance conventional deterrence have the potential to backfire without the right guidelines in place. A narrow focus on the operational problems associated with a Chinese assault on Taiwan or a Russian invasion of the Baltics, for example, along with a corresponding emphasis on denying aggression via rapid attrition as the solution to those problems, could actually weaken deterrence in several different ways, especially if planners and policymakers do not take unintended consequences into account. Specifically, these efforts could heighten doubts about America’s willingness to intervene in the moment, raise the costs of sustaining a denial strategy over time, and leave Washington ill-prepared if adversaries adjust their offensive tactics.
https://warontherocks.com/2020/09/kill-em-all-denial-strategies-defense-planning-and-deterrence-failure/
