Talk:Deterrence theory

message: This isn't a useful account, as other have noted.  It doesn't discuss theory at all - if it is limited to the Cold War, it should mention books like Kahn's on escalation.  If it is a critique of US policy, it need to explain non sequiturs like "containment" being an "aggressive policy."  it needs to look at the Solarium Project, where the Eisenhower administration shaped deterrence theory and rejects a more aggressive policy. Much of  this material is available in wikipedia.  Gaintes (talk) 02:42, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I support your initiative on this. Kingturtle 16:49, 15 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Deterrence Theory 

message: This article is heavily focussed on U.S. Foreign policy.
As the U.K. considers replacing its nuclear-armed submarine fleet, it would be good to have some notes in this article or links to relevant articles on the British and French rationales for holding nuclear weapons.
== Vernon White (talk) 16:46, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I took it out, because it's unsourced original research and opinion.  It's not what Wikipedia is for.  Georgewilliamherbert 21:16, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

text: The rest of the section and article can be sourced to well-known published mainstream political science / geopolitical / military studies sources.  What you added has no sign of being anything more than your personal opinion.  That makes it original research as Wikipedia defines it, which is not permitted content.  All material must have reliable sources available.  What you individually think, unless you happen to publish in political science journals or books, isn't ok.  Georgewilliamherbert 10:03, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  European "Deterrence Theory" 

message: This article lacks a discussion of credible vs. non-credible threats.  This is of primary importance to deterrence theory.  Deterrence does not work without a means to decide whether or not threats are credible.  A discussion of the connection between core interests and credibility should be added along with sections on extended deterrence (i.e. protecting a third party), tripwire forces, burning bridges, and other means of increasing credibility. 216.185.11.254 20:01, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Credbility 

message: "Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) is a form of this strategy, which characterizes relations between the United States and former Soviet Union as well as present day Russia."
On what base is the past relationship between US and Soviet Union extended to that of US and present day Russia? I'm removing the part with the present relations until someone justifies this with a reference. I think current relationship is more complicated than this, and deterrence is by no means a major aspect of it. Bogdantudor 11:49, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Deterrence in modern USA - Russia relations 

message: I know that this was discussed earlier, but I really feel like this article should be combined with the one on mutually assured destruction.  Deterrence theory and mutually assured destruction mean exactly the same thing in my opinion.  Can anyone think of a difference between the two?
Both articles need substantial work, but they should be combined.  I suggest using this title, its less colloquial. -----bosoxrock88 4-25-08  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bosoxrock88 (talk • contribs) 18:46, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Combining this article with MAD 

message: "Finally, a military build-up increases a country's risks of budget deficits, restrictions on civil liberties, the creation of a military-industrial complex, and other such potentially-undesirable measures."
Here in the UK, the aerospace industry, arguable a large part of the "military industrial complex" contributes to a significant portion of our GDP. Thousands of people are employed in the defence industries, from top scientists to technicians. Even ignoring the huge benefits to civilian research and development which comes from the defence industry, what evidence is there that a military industrial complex is "potentially undesirable"?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.142.45.47 (talk) 15:55, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Military Industrial Complex 

message: I came to this article looking for pre-Cold War examles of deterrence strategy to gain some perspective.  However, the article starts with the Cold War.  Although the Cold War applied it to nuclear weapons, I would imagine the doctrine existed before then. 75.67.142.56 (talk) 03:17, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pre-Cold War 

message: Should we say that deterrence first arose in World War II when both Germany and Japan avoided the use of chemical and biological agents out of fear that the Allies would retaliate? Also, there seems to be a modern usage of deterrence in which nuclear retaliation is threatened against first use of chemical agents Masterblooregard (talk) 08:36, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Deterrence and chemical weapons 

message: When I read,in the second paragraph, that deterrence involves an "immense response," I was first going to comment on the need to include a discussion of "flexible response," a major departure in US strategy that moved away from "immense response."  However, I see from the other comments that this article, as currently drafted, is inadequate.  There is an immense literature on deterrence, including writings on Soviet attitudes towards deterrence, that is not reflected (at a minimum, I'd consider the work of Raymond Garthoff and Michael McGuire). Much of the discussion in the article has nothing to do with deterrence - the Iran-contra affair is very distant from the idea of deterrence, as is the Iran-Iraq war: the text implies that the US funded Iraq (factually wrong, by the way) in its war with Iran as a means to deter the Soviet Union.  This makes no sense.  As written it is really a critique of American foreign policy during the Cold War, while what it needs to be is a discussion of a military strategy based on nuclear weapons.
My guess is that as an articulated strategy, deterrence first appeared in the 1950s (the concept of deterrence, as the comment above points out, predates the Cold War). It might help if the article focused on the Cold war military strategy, was edited for objectivity, added a discussion of the evolution of deterrence strategies from both the American and the Soviet perspective, added a discussion of deterrence and NATO planning (NATO is not even mentioned in the text) and removed the extraneous discussion of American foreign policy. This could include the discussion of the post-cold war notion of deterrence as applied to WMD or that could be treated separately - I'd recommend an article that focused on deterrence strategies in the Cold War.  Gaintes (talk) 14:07, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Flexible deterrence 

message: To call it a theory is actually wrong (just like conspiracy "theory") because it is not testable, it's not falsifiable. There was no nuclear war (Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not part of a nuclear war) and we cannot test the "theory" because it would probably destroy mankind--Arado (talk) 21:22, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Deterrence theory extends beyond nuclear Mutual assured destruction.  And that's the title it's known under in the literature - even if you dislike calling it theory, that's what the experts call it, so that's what we should use.  Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 22:09, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

text: The word "theory" is often used sloppily in everyday speech, causing some confusion. In a context like this, a theory is something that explains phenomena. Hypotheses drawn from theories are testable. Theories themselves are not. The "theory" that the earth revolves around the sun is not directly testable. It is indirectly (very) testable due to the predictions (hypotheses) it suggests about the "movement" of objects in the sky relative to earth-bound observers. Similarly, if we believe that deterrence theory is correct, then we should be able to make certain predictions about the behavior of those involved (hypotheses). One hypothesis is that two nuclear states may fight proxy battles against each other, but would be extremely cautious in threatening a core interest like the security of its homeland. This is the sort of behavior we see for the US and the USSR, but also for places like India and Pakistan: great animosity between the countries and yet no direct warfare. In the end, theories can be good (they provide fitting explanations for behaviors and relatively reliable predictions of them) or bad (they don't), but they should not necessarily be viewed as "right" or "wrong." Also, there are plenty of situations where deterrence failed (the Korean and Vietnam Wars, the Falklands War, and many others), and these have been subjects of extensive analysis on why and when deterrence works or doesn't. 86.23.97.201 (talk) 09:22, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

text: I suspect the theoretical aspect of deterrence can be prove correct by "game theory" methods, but I am not an specialist in this. Deterrence (noun) is usually a method applied by someone, because it can be applied in various forms, it has an associated methodology, which seems to be called, sloppily, 'Detterence theory'.AndersonNNunes (talk) 08:10, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Theory? 

message: Should there be a section in here mentioning the concept of a Virutal Nuclear Deterrent, since it seems conspicuous in it's absence from any nuclear strategy/theory related articles that I can find...  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.33.169.44 (talk) 17:14, 1 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Virtual Nuclear Deterrence

message: The beginning of the article lacks a definition of what deterrence actually is but starts with US foreign policy. 94.173.122.147 (talk) 08:06, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Definition 

message: It seems to this editor that the content of Nuclear deterrent largely duplicates content already found in Deterrence theory.  Any content in Nuclear deterrent should be merged into the Deterrence Theory article and the shell of Nuclear Deterrent article converted to a redirect pointing at Deterrence Theory.
--Trappist the monk (talk) 13:00, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge discussion 

message: This section does not belong here, it is bias towards a feminist perspective which is a sexist female supremacist ideology. The content should be worked into the body of the article if not were going to have a push for a masculist section homosexual section etc instead of one unbias encyclopedic article that has to do with the topic  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cuttingrumrill (talk • contribs) 17:56, 21 March 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  feminist criticism section 

message: I concur with the above comment, please remove the feminist section from the page or work it into something more neutral. It is a biased ideology based on pseudo scientific facts that are incredibly sexist, and thus it really has no place here.65.110.16.89 (talk) 21:38, 7 April 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Remove the Feminist Criticism section 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  Dr. Miceli's comment on this article 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: @Thenightaway reverted a change to this page which added an example of the recent use of deterrence theory to the #History section. I suggest we undo this revert or propose a new section which describes concrete examples of the use of deterrence theory in more recent conflicts. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Deterrence_theory&oldid=1187992709 DMH43 (talk) 14:31, 22 December 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Deterrence is something that all states to some degree do constantly. It's undue to list individual acts of deterrence by a single state. It's also misleading to readers by giving the impression that these are the typical acts of deterrence. The content you want to add belongs in articles on that state's foreign policy or the articles for the specific conflicts. Thenightaway (talk) 15:01, 22 December 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: That makes sense, thank you DMH43 (talk) 15:15, 22 December 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Thenightaway's revert