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Deterrence with Mutually Assured Destruction

At the conclusion of World War II it was imperative that the U.S. take steps to ensure peace and security for a world devastated by violence.  The U.S. decided that the best strategy to accomplish this was “to deter the outbreak of a new war by making a drastic threat (Smoke 1992, 51).”  Using their atomic monopoly, the U.S. was determined to make the consequences of Soviet aggression so high that the Soviet Union would not be able to accept the damage done if they invaded Europe.  By 1949, the Soviet Union had acquired their own nuclear weapons, signalling to the U.S. their intention to be major players in the international arena.  Both countries understood the importance of securing their respective securities by building up their nuclear profiles.  Avery Goldstein noted that “dissuasion by deterrence threatens to punish the adversary in ways so terrifying he dares not initiate a challenge, regardless of his ability to actually achieve narrow military objectives (Goldstein 2000, 28).”  In order to ensure their survival, the U.S. and the Soviet Union embraced the idea of mutually assured destruction; to move against the other would result in World War III and the end of human civilization.  After the emergence of a nuclear Soviet Union the number of nuclear weapons, and the havoc they were capable of wreaking, rose remarkably.  Hydrogen fusion bombs, capable of devastating “all of Manhattan and… the entire New York City and harbor area (Smoke 1992, 56),” raised the cost of nuclear warfare to unimaginable.  While many countries experienced civil wars and unrest in the second half of the 20th century, a major war between the U.S. and Soviet Union never happened.  Local conflicts were kept local and world peace was largely preserved.  The strategy of deterrence ultimately worked, with neither side ever crossing the threshold that would require nuclear reprisal.

Compellence in the Cuban Missile Crisis

The Cuban Missile Crisis “raised the prospect of a very different species of ‘limited war’… the competition in risk-taking, a military-diplomatic maneuver with or without military engagement but with the outcome determined more by manipulation of risk than by an actual contest of force (Schelling 1966, 166)” In the lead up to the Cuban Missile Crisis, the U.S. failed to maintain their deterrent position against the Russians.  Although the U.S. made numerous threats against any Soviet nuclear installations in Cuba, “some part of the threat was unclear or lacked credibility and it was transgressed (Schelling 1966, 80)”  Thomas Schelling speculated that the deterrent threat of the U.S. lacked “automaticity (Schelling 1966, 80),” and this caused neither side to understand where the final threshold really was.  This crossing of the threshold required U.S. leadership to now make a threat, knowing that verbal threats and deterrence had already failed to secure their objectives.  The decision to blockade Cuba was a compellent act that had clear and obvious consequences for both the Cubans and the Russians.  Schelling notes that in eras of less technology the blockade almost certainly would have led to an inevitable military confrontation, but “with modern communications the ships were not beyond recall, and the Russians were given the last clear chance to turn aside (Schelling 1966, 81).”  The U.S. Navy put themselves in a position they could not remove themselves from, forcing the Russians to make the final decision.  In this case a compellent threat, carefully crafted, covered for the failure of a deterrent threat, and allowed the U.S. to regain its foothold in the region.  The strategy of mutually assured destruction and the possibility of nuclear war compelled the Russians to halt their activities in Cuba.  Even though mutually assured destruction was originally a deterrent strategy, the U.S. was able to use it as a compellent strategy after deterrence failed.

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Proxy Wars In Place of Global Conflict

With the world’s major powers unable to directly confront each other on the battlefield, new strategies were necessary to preserve influence and control.  Similarly, threats and actions had to be communicated in less direct ways so as not to inflame already existing tensions.  The U.S. and the Soviet Union began a pattern of conflict in proxy wars between local communist and capitalist governments.  The first notable example of such a war can be seen in the Korean War, which was a conflict between the Soviet-backed North Korea and the U.S.-backed South Korea.  When North Korean forces invaded South Korea, the U.S. gave support to South Korea knowing that the North was backed by the Soviets.  The U.S. likely made such a move to show willingness to protect their allies from the Soviet Union.  This decision reinforced Schelling’s assertion that “war itself, then, can have deterrent or compellent intent, just as it can have defensive or offensive aims (Schelling 1966, 80).”

The U.S. made a similar decision in supporting the South Vietnamese government during the Vietnam War.  The decision to become involved in Vietnam carried the same deterrent intent that the decision to become involved in Korea did, but the conflict was notably less centralized and less conventionally tactical.  Faced with the prospect of losing the war, the U.S. attempted to use coercive force to compel the North Vietnamese.  Operation Rolling Thunder, a bombing campaign designed to wear down the North Vietnamese, ultimately failed, because the U.S. wasn’t able to coerce the North Vietnamese into surrendering.  Unlike in the Cuban Missile Crisis, the U.S. were unable to compel their adversary because the price for non-cooperation wasn’t high enough.  However, the presence of the war itself still communicated a deterrent message that the Soviet Union could not, and did not, ignore.