CHAPTER VI

What Price Deterrence - The Problems of Limited War

Another way of putting this problem is to ask under what conditions power and the willingness to use it are most in harmony. There exists no over-all formula for military superiority ~~and~~ there exists no one military capability which will achieve deterrence in all circumstances. The same military capability which may prevent war in one contingency, may ~~actually~~ encourage it in another. The same weapons system which it would be folly to challenge given one set of objectives, may be useless to discourage different purposes. Thus a gap is created between the pressures of technology in the direction of the ~~maximum~~ development of power and the realite~s of the nuclear period that there ~~exists~~ upper limits beyond which increments of destructiveness do not pay strategic returns. It is therefore no longer possible to speak of military superiority in the abstract. What does being ahead in the nuclear race mean if each side can destroy the other's national substance? What is the significance of increasing the destructiveness of the nuclear arsenal when the enormity of present weapons systems already tends to paralyze the will? It may be a hard lesson to learn for a nation which has found safety in the

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doctrine. A weapons system cannot be developed in the abstract; it reflects a set of assumptions about the nature of the war in which it will be employed, and these assumptions will also structure the training of the military personnel.

For the purpose of training and of the discipline which forms an integral part of it, is to permit an effective response to the widest range of circumstances.

But the effectiveness of the response depends on establishing the patterns of behavior of combat in advance of actual hostilities. This is necessary because the presence and confusion of battle permits only a minimum number of improvisations; tactical doctrine therefore seeks to bring about in training and through indoctrination the contingencies which will be confronted in combat.

As a result, the advantage conferred by surprise is not so much the ability to confront the opponent with overwhelming force, as the opportunity of presenting unexpected contingencies. "Nothing is easier to effect" said Machiavelli "than what the enemy thinks you will never attempt to do." An unexpected mode of action forces improvisation; it therefore deprives the opponent of the advantage of sober calculation. Moreover, while improvisation for the individual may inhibit only his best performance, in a group or organization, it may produce more serious consequences. An organization is distinguished from a collection of individuals by its ability to act pruposefully as a unit; it does so by reducing

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most problems to routine--a standard of average performance. Thus the other members of the group are enabled to take certain patterns of behavior for granted and to adjust their actions accordingly; a great momentum is thereby conferred through the specialization of functions coupled with cooperative effort. This in turn frees energies for problems which are not routine and for pushing forward areas of knowledge or of competence.

The test of any organization then is twofold: (1) whether what it defines as routine in fact applies to the problems it is most likely to confront; (2) whether the attempt to achieve predictability does not inhibit creativity or spontaneous reactions to unexpected contingencies. The two problems are in fact closely related. If the area of the predictable compared to the unexpected is relatively large, the unforeseen can be integrated into existing patterns of leadership; then mental energies can be devoted to creative and spontaneous solutions of new problems. If an organization is confronted by too many unexpected contingencies, however, its leadership will no longer be able to draw strength from the existence of the organization; even when its action is based on the routine on which its action is based may inhibit adaptation; the machinery for making decisions may become overloaded. In extreme cases, members of the group may take independent action and thus increase the indeterminacy of the over-all performance. Or it may lead to panic: the inability to make any response to a challenge except by fleeing from it.

The prerequisite of effective organized response then is a concept of the challenge to which strategy is to be directed. The Romans stampeded when they first confronted Hannibal's elephants. This was not because the elephants were a decisive weapon by themselves; it was simply that the Romans had never considered a mode for dealing with the military use of elephants, and their panic

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reflected their inability to react to this contingency as a group. Within a few years they had learned to master the charges of the beasts by discipline rather than through flight; the elephants henceforth became part of the expected mode of warfare, a contingency against which to prepare like any other. Similarly, the German tank thrusts in 1940 demoralized the French above all because such rapid maneuver had been explicitly rejected by French doctrine; it appeared therefore "unnatural" to French commanders: they did not possess a mode of action for dealing with it. Thus a weapons system by itself is useless if it cannot be applied to contingencies which are likely to be confronted and if it is not related to a notion of the kind of war in which it will probably be employed.

2. This leads to a second postulate which is a complement to the preceding one: strategy should seek to make the actions of the opponent as predictable as possible. There are two ways of achieving predictability: by understanding the opponent's behavior or by creating a calculus of risks to induce him to adopt a desired course of action or, at least, to reduce his options. The former is the passive, the latter the active aspect of predictability. To be sure, it is dangerous in either case to ascribe to the opponent one's own

the unexpected timing and the unexpected nature of the conduct of operations.

An enemy may be aware of the probable nature of a military move, but he can still be caught off guard by its timing—the secret of Napoleon's successes was that he confused his enemies by the rapidity of his maneuvers. He therefore frequently attacked when he was not expected. Conversely, it is possible to be aware that an attack is imminent and yet to be found unprepared by its nature—as happened to us at Pearl Harbor. We knew that the Japanese were planning a military move but our plans did not foresee an attack on Hawaii.

The Japanese success would have been impossible without the advantage of surprise.

Psychologically the task of strategy is to present the opponent with as many ambiguous choices as possible. For has two components: a hostile intention and a hostile capability. A military capability is useless unless it is coupled with the will to employ it. Conversely a superior willingness to run risks can compensate to a certain extent for an inferior military capability. History is replete with examples of nations who grew because they outwitted their opponents—the growth of Rome or Prussia from insignificant beginnings can serve as illustrations. Strategy therefore has to address itself to two equations: a physical and a psychological one. The material

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balance determines the feasibility of measures, the psychological equation their nature and the willingness to act. The temptation of American strategy is to concern itself only with military capability because traditionally we have fought our wars only against overwhelming threats which left no scope for ambiguity and because our victories had been PRODUCED, as much by our productive capacity as by superior STRATEGIC skill. Conversely the Soviets have been extremely skillful in taking advantage of the psychological component of strategy. Wherever we have had a superior military capability they have sought to paralyze the intention to use it as with their consistent and highly successful campaign to ban nuclear weapons which all over the world has attached a special stigma to atomic warfare, the warfare we are best prepared to fight. Conversely, whenever they have presented a challenge, they have done so ambiguously either by leaving doubt about their ultimate intention or by posing risks out of proportion to the issue under dispute or by presenting their claim as the expression of a "legitimate grievance" to be assuaged by INDIVIDUAL concessions. To the extent that their aims have been obscure they have furnished us an incentive to defer a show-down to a more propitious moment or to a clearer case. Or else they have forced us to provide against a maximum number of contingencies. This illustrates the advantage of initiative: every successful move carries with it the possibility of several others; it therefore forces the opponent into defending against an ever-growing number of THREATS; if carried far enough it will reduce his strategy to sterility by absorbing all his energies in countermoves.

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Thus strategy should seek to utilize its advantages by forcing the enemy to fight at a time of its choosing, or at a place of its choosing, or with methods of its choosing. And in the thermo-nuclear age a new dimension has been added to make the enemy fight with a weapons system of one's choosing.

When weapons technology was relatively stable, the choice of weapons systems was dictated by its availability. Today, however, there exist weapons systems ranging from conventional weapons of high complexity, to nuclear weapons with destructive powers from a kiloton and below to megaton weapons of no inherent upper limit. Each of these weapons systems, or their combination, has its own consequences for strategy. We have already seen that an all-out war fought with thermo-nuclear weapons would reduce the importance of industrial potential. It, therefore gives relative advantage to the side with inferior photo munitions, extra ordnance resources as long as it can create a force-in-being adequate to inflict catastrophic blows on its opponent. The crucial decision for contemporary strategy is therefore the selection of a weapons system that will prevent war from assuming the character of a national catastrophe but which at the same time utilizes the national resources or special abilities to best advantage. The degree to which these two objectives are reconciled will give a maximum flexibility to both diplomacy and to strategy.

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5. If two strategies are available to achieve the same objective the less costly one should be chosen. This principle is almost at the level of common sense: it implies a more than that national policy should aim for its objectives without paying an exorbitant price. It is the classic principle of the economy of means. The cost of a strategy is determined by two related factors: the nature of objectives and the destructiveness of the weapons system. The more unlimited the objective, the more costly the war, at least against a major enemy. For a war ends only when acceptance of peace terms seem more advantageous or less costly than continued resistance; the more total the victory sought, the more absolute the alternatives which have to be posed. Conversely, the greater the destructiveness of weapons, the more unlimited the objectives of the war tend to become. The greater the suffering, the more extreme the peace terms. If a nation can no longer profit from war, it will tend to derive at least the degree of consolation conferred by the humiliation of the opponent. The costliness of war is therefore determined by the degree to which a balance is established between its objectives and the weapons systems employed. A war of annihilation fought with weapons of small destructiveness may turn into an exhausting war of attrition--as happened in the religious wars of the 17th century. A war for initially limited

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objectives that inflicts enormous suffering will soon assume a total character--
as was the case with World War I. Thus the prerequisite of effective strategy

II

The five postulates of strategy thus fall into three groups: the first two deal with the consequence of the enemy's actions; the next two involve the flexibility of one's own behavior; the third determines the cost to be paid. The art of strategy is to establish a balance between these considerations in creating a doctrine where power and the willingness to use it are most in harmony.

The reliance on all-out nuclear war inhibits the establishment of this balance, however. By insifting on a single method for dealing with an every challenge, it seeks to escape the necessity for assessing or channeling enemy intentions or for establishing a relationship between objectives and the force appropriate for them. Its assertion that every threat can be dealt with by overpowering force on the basis of purely military considerations reflects the lessons of our history which has never known a mortal external danger while it has always ranged & identify strategic superiority with overtness, strength.

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all-out war to be credible as by the balance of forces on the spot. The paradoxical result of the thermo-nuclear stalemate may be that the side which attaches greater importance to a particular objective than its opponent which can therefore act with greater determination and run greater risks.

may gain an advantage because of its superior readiness to run risks; the psychological equation may favor it sufficiently to make the physical equation more complex. If the psychological aspect of strategy and of deterrence. For the most agonizing decision a statesman can confront is the problem of whether to engage in all-out war: all pressures will make for hesitation short of an unambiguous attack on the survival of his state. In any other situation he will be inhibited by the incommensurability between the cost of the war and the objective in dispute. And he will be confirmed in his hesitations by the conviction that as long as the psychological retaliatory force remains intact, no shift in the territorial balance is significant. Thus both the horror and the power of modern weapons will tend to paralyze action: the former because it will

few make psychological issues seem worth contending for; the latter because it causes disputes to seem irrelevant to the over-all strategic equation. These inhibitions will be reinforced if the aggression takes place by proxy, for the sophisticated

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weapons systems suitable for all-out war are less useful against non-nuclear or underdeveloped powers and the military will always resist their employment for these purposes as a strategic diversion. Thus the psychological equation almost invariably operates against the side which can extricate itself from a situation *only* by the threat of all-out war. It is not that nations will no longer fight for what they consider their "vital" interests; it is that the line between what is considered vital and peripheral will shift if every objective has to be weighed against a thermo-nuclear holocaust. Who can be certain that faced with the catastrophe of nuclear war even Europe, long the keystone of our security, will seem worth the price? And if all-out war will seem a less and less attractive method for protecting the status quo, it will be almost unthinkable to achieve strategic transformations.

As the power of modern weapons grows, the threat of all-out war loses its credibility. Our capacity for massive retaliation did not prevent the Korean war, the loss of Northern Indo-China, the Soviet-Egyptian arms deal or the Suez * crisis*. A deterrent before the implementation of which one recoils is a contradiction in terms. Moreover, whatever the credibility of our threat of all-out war; it is clear that all-out thermo-nuclear war does

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not represent a strategic option for our allies. Thus a psychological gap is created by the conviction of our allies that they have nothing to gain from all-out war and the belief of the Soviet leaders that they have nothing to fear from our threat of it; a gap which may actually encourage an all-out war. The destructiveness of nuclear weapons having made it unlikely that any responsible statesman will lightly unleash a general war, one of the gravest dangers of all-out war lies in miscalculation. This is the only war it is within our power to avoid assuming we leave no doubt about our capabilities and our determination. But even this "avoidable" war may break out if the other side becomes convinced that we cannot interfere locally and that our threats of all-out war are bluff. If that should happen the Soviet bloc may then decide, as its nuclear arsenal grows, to absorb the peripheral areas of Eurasia and to confront us with the choice between yielding or the destruction of American cities. And because the Sino-Soviet leaders may well be mistaken in their assessment of our reaction to such a contingency, the reliance on "massive retaliation" may bring about the total war it seeks to prevent.

This is another way of saying that even if successful the threat of all-out war purchases deterrence at a fearful cost and at a potentially exorbitant risk. It either requires us in every crisis to stake our survival on the

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credibility of a threat we will be increasingly reluctant to implement or
it will force us into the kind of war our strategy should make every attempt
to avoid. The costs of thermo-nuclear war are two fearful for it to be the
only response to a challenge. Even if it could be won, we should seek our
objectives at smaller sacrifice. Thermo-nuclear war has thus set our states-
manship a problem long familiar to less fortunate nations: that absolute
security is no longer possible. Whatever the validity of the identification
of deterrence with maximum retaliatory power, we will have to sacrifice a
measure of destructiveness to gain the possibility of fighting wars that
will not amount to a national catastrophe. Policy, it has been said, is
the science of the relative. The same is true of strategy and to understand
this fact, so foreign to our national experience, is the task history has set
our generation.

III

What strategic doctrine can avoid the dilemmas of all-out war then?
Two basic answers have been given:
> The first proposal would not change the objective of all-out war, *breaking the enemy's will to resist*), but it would seek to reduce its costs by confining *your* war either to military installations or to a battlefield, however defined.

The second solution would seek to limit the objective of war and strive for *establishing a relationship*.

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None of the advocates of what has sometimes been called "measured retaliation" is naive enough to believe that an agreement to limit targets or to use only "clean" bombs if it could be negotiated would restrain the other side by its legal force. The argument is based on an interest which we and the Soviet bloc are thought to share: to prevent thermo-nuclear devastation. If this is true, so the argument goes, both sides will have a powerful incentive to abide by an understanding to limit the application of force. An international agreement establishing certain rules of measured retaliation would not preclude the necessity of preparing for unrestricted thermo-nuclear war--if the Soviet bloc felt strong enough to launch a surprise attack with impunity it would presumably do so. But it might reduce the probability of an attack caused by a form of bureaucratic inertia: the existence of war plans built around all-out war may cause some crisis to set in motion measures designed to forestall an imagined enemy move. An attempt to establish principles of "measured retaliation" would have the added advantage of forcing the opposing military staffs to consider alternatives. While the international agreement may not be decisive by itself, it would furnish an additional motive for not precipitating an all-out war unless the opponent makes the first move.

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And given the knowledge by both sides of the consequences of all-out war,
a war that is kept within a certain pattern during its initial phase is
likely to remain limited. In fact many advocates of "graduated deterrence"
believe that even a unilateral declaration of self-limitation can achieve their
purpose.

The opponents of graduated deterrence maintain that any limitation
of the horror of war, if believed, will also reduce the aggressor's risks and
thereby increase the likelihood of attack. It would do this, moreover,
without guaranteeing that eventually thermo-nuclear weapons would not be used,
partly because the tendency of war is towards maximum violence, partly because
distinctions which have practical meaning are very hard to make: "If the
effectiveness of the deterrent" wrote a leading British weekly, "resides
precisely in its certainty and its horror, then any attempt to reduce either
the certainty or the horror will reduce the power to deter."

The dilemma of the nuclear age is, however, precisely the impossibility
of combining both maximum horror and maximum certainty. The greater the power,
the stronger the inhibitions against its use. The smaller the risks, the more
certain that they will in fact be run. Thus the reliance on an all-out xxx
2. Graduated Deterrence in the *Economist*, November 5, 1955.