Six reasons the Pentagon should retire ‘deterrence by denial’
The recent decade has exposed the concept’s weaknesses.
BRYAN CLARK and DAN PATT | SEPTEMBER 17, 2023
As the United States begins another presidential campaign season and conditions worsen in China, Russia, and Iran, this is a good time to step back and reconsider some of the conventional wisdom undergirding U.S. defense policy. Perhaps most flawed and underexamined is the concept of deterrence by denial.
The idea, which gained favor after the Cold War, still enjoys the loud support of defense officials, think-tank studies, and government strategies. But events of the past decade suggest their faith is misplaced. Russia was not deterred by risks of denial or punishment before invading Ukraine; China continues to reshape the security environment of the South and East China Seas through largely uncontested “gray-zone” activities; and the Pentagon’s own wargames suggest completely denying an invasion of Taiwan is likely infeasible.
Even the Defense Department’s own recent behavior underscores the growing insolvency of deterrence by denial. A flurry of diplomatic successes in the last two years strengthened alliances and improved U.S. defense posture in Australia, the Philippines, Japan, and Vietnam. At the same time, the proposed U.S. defense budget reduced spending in real terms, with each of the U.S. military services accepting troop cuts to pay for future high-tech weaponry. Far from a “ring of steel” around allies like Taiwan, these developments suggest the DOD is pursuing a more sophisticated strategy to convince China’s leaders that aggression is risky and could cost more than it gains.
https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2023/09/six-reasons-pentagon-should-retire-deterrence-denial/390337/
