Isegoria

Jacob Stoil shares seven strategic lessons from the first days of the war in Ukraine. The first two are sobering:

Lesson 1: The logic of nuclear deterrence and mutually assured destruction has not changed.

Throughout the Cold War, the threat of nuclear war kept the nuclear powers from engaging directly. Indeed, a clear show of sufficiently armed resolve was generally enough to prevent escalation by the other power. It is hard to conceive of any limited objective worth nuclear war. This led to careful deployments. US forces did not protect Hungary in 1956, nor did Soviet forces press their advantage around Berlin. Both sides generally accompanied their troop movements and forward deployments with significant escalation-control measures.

The US deployment in Eastern Europe over the last several months continues to reflect this logic. As Russia became more bellicose toward Ukraine, the United States was careful to deploy to NATO countries. The countries were not areas likely to see aggression by Russian conventional forces, at least in this round of conflict. This unchanged prevailing logic also means that a great power adversary is unlikely to engage any robust US deployment through large-scale conventional means. At the same time, it does not make wars less likely because of what became known among deterrence scholars during the Cold War as the stability-instability paradox. The logic of this paradox did not go away when the Soviet Union collapsed. At its essence this paradox suggests that because of mutually assured destruction, nuclear-armed great powers will engage in proxy conflicts (such as in Syria) or limited operations against their rivals, while at the same time feeling more comfortable in engaging in conflicts against minor non-nuclear-armed powers because they believe that once war starts a rival great power will not intervene through conventional military means. This tendency is clearly evident in the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Lesson 2: US nuclear deterrence extends no further than the most forward US soldier.

This lesson follows from the first. Nuclear deterrence is determined by the perception of commitment. This explains in no small part why large numbers of US forces spent the Cold War forward deployed in Europe. Presence and commitment go hand in hand. At the heart of the matter is the question of which county has to make the decision to risk a potential nuclear confrontation. In this regard the limitations of nuclear deterrence reflect the theory of first-mover advantage. If there are significant numbers of US military personnel in area, then to launch a large conventional attack on that place is to choose to risk the possibility of escalation. Attacking a country that has no significant US presence forces the United States to choose to risk escalation over a conflict of comparatively limited national interest.

Rotational forces provide deterrence when they are present but no deterrence when they are not. Only a permanent presence serves to create the deterrent effect. If the United States has not backed up its commitment on the ground, then that commitment, in effect, does not exist. The recent requests from NATO countries near Ukraine for an enhanced US military presence reflect this principle. The military presence does not have to be sufficiently robust to repel a large-scale offensive by a rival great power but it does have to be sufficient to demonstrate that any invasion will cause escalation and a great power war. The deployment of the 82nd Airborne Division to Poland matches this logic exactly.

At its most fundamental this lesson should teach us to think of US presence as signaling not only our resolve to defend one country, but also our lack of resolve to defend those countries in which we do not commit permanent forces. By deploying to the NATO countries of Eastern Europe and not to Ukraine we signaled Russia that we were not committed to the defense of Ukraine and our deterrent umbrella did not cover the country. This was a critical step in the development of the Russia campaign. As a result, Russia gained the first-mover advantage, which will make any attempt to affect Russian forces’ removal far more difficult. This lesson has direct relevance to any place, such as Taiwan, to which the United States has made a commitment but does not have an enduring presence.

When military practitioners encounter coercion theory, Tami Davis Biddle notes, they tend to be skeptical that theories produced by academics can help them understand war:

After all, academics dwell in the realm of the abstract and the theoretical while military professionals dwell in the realm of the concrete and the real. Moreover, military professionals are not entirely comfortable with violence as a bargaining process. One does not, they believe, “bargain” with one’s enemies — one fights them. Nor do they find congenial the idea that coercion requires the cooperation of the enemy. Even if one explains that this is by no means happy cooperation, it rankles nonetheless because they (especially those in the U.S. military) believe they should own the initiative and maintain dominance across the full spectrum of conflict at all times.

The word “coercion” itself sits uneasily with military professionals. It has overtones of blackmail and manipulation, which are anathema to their self-identity. In general, they also do not take readily to Schelling’s emphasis on threats. While they fully understand deterrence, they may draw back from the idea that they are in the business of “threatening” others (and sometimes making those threats credible by actions) in order to deter and compel. For Schelling, conflicts involving coercion unfold through a kind of violent communication about intentions and commitment. Understandably, few military officers see killing and dying as just a form of communication.

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Schelling was interested in the ability of military power to “hurt” the enemy — to inflict pain or punishment — and the inherent “bargaining power” this confers. Coercion is about future pain, about structuring the enemy’s incentives so that he behaves in a particular way. It manipulates the power to hurt and involves making a threat to do something one has not yet done. The coercer forces another actor to calculate, to decide — based on his own interests and position — whether or not to resist the threat being made.

Observing human behavior, Schelling recognized that humans use threats constantly to shape the behavior of others. We do this for a range of reasons. Anyone who has raised a child has learned quickly how to influence that child’s choices: A parent may issue a threat in order to keep a child from harm, or to set boundaries to help prepare the child for civil interaction with others. As children grow older, the content of those behavior-influencing threats must change in order to reflect the child’s level of comprehension and new interests and the parent’s changing leverage over the child’s behavior.

Similarly, if we wish to keep our homes safe from intruders, we may install a security system and then post a sign advertising it. A potential intruder is alerted to the negative consequences that will greet any attempt to enter without permission. This action is meant to deter — to prevent someone from taking an action he otherwise might take. But threats can be used to compel actions as well as deter them. In the film The Godfather, Don Corleone promises to influence the decisions of the head of a film studio, stating, “I’m gonna make him an offer he can’t refuse.” If the recipient of the threat refuses to accept the “offer” (which is actually a demand), then harm will follow. The coercive threat is designed to compel an individual to do something he would prefer not to do. If the threat derives from a source known to be willing and able to produce harm, then it is credible and must be taken seriously.

An actor being coerced (i.e., the target state) must assess its own willingness and ability to endure pain, as well as the credibility of the adversary’s threat. “The power to hurt,” Schelling explained, “is a kind of bargaining power, not easy to use, but used often.” Even great powers possessing high levels of coercive leverage over others find that target states can resist in unexpected ways, making the line between the application of power and the achievement of a desired outcome anything but direct and straightforward. By its nature, coercion requires a decision by the actor being coerced, thus placing the outcome in the actor’s hands. This is what makes coercion difficult and complex — and distinct from a more direct use of power that Schelling defined as “brute force,” wherein there is no need for a decision by the target state because power is imposed directly in such a way as to obviate choice.

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The power to hurt confers bargaining power, Schelling insisted. The willingness to exploit it is diplomacy — “vicious diplomacy, but diplomacy.”

Schelling explained that the use of “the power to hurt” operates like blackmail in that it exploits an enemy’s fears and needs. The power to hurt is usually most successful when it is held in reserve. Hostages, for instance, are taken and held for coercive purposes. Those taking the hostages seek to make another actor give up something — money, political prisoners, etc. But if they kill the hostage, the other actor no longer has an incentive to concede and coercive hostage-taking fails. Any coercive act that kills the hostage, as it were, reduces its own effectiveness. Hostages, Schelling argued, “represent the power to hurt in its purest form.”

In Schelling’s taxonomy, “coercion” is an overarching category encompassing both “deterrence” and “compellence.” The word “deterrence” was in common usage when he wrote Arms and Influence. The term “compellence” he coined himself, after rejecting several alternatives. Since 1966, it has become part of the lexicon of security studies. (Schelling admired, but chose not to select, the terms “dissuasion” and “persuasion” that J. David Singer had used several years earlier to describe a similar idea.)

Deterrence involves a threat to keep an adversary “from starting something,” or “to prevent [an adversary] from action by fear of consequences.” Compellence is “a threat intended to make an adversary do something.” In deterrence, the punishment will be imposed if the adversary acts; in compellence, the punishment is usually imposed until the adversary acts. As noted, the central characteristic of both forms of coercion is that they depend, ultimately, on cooperation by the party receiving the threat. This is by no means friendly cooperation, but it is cooperation nonetheless. Compellence can be used in peacetime and in wartime, the former use being referred to generally as coercive diplomacy.

Alexander Downes describes coercion as “the art of manipulating costs and benefits to affect the behavior of an actor.” Explaining its two forms, he writes, “Deterrence consists of threats of force designed to persuade a target to refrain from taking a particular action. Compellence, by contrast, utilizes force — or threats of force — to propel a target to take an action, or to stop taking an action it has already started.” The United States, he notes, is one of the most frequent users of compellent threats. Examples abound. Sometimes they involve the use (or threatened use) of U.S. troops, and sometimes they do not. But military power always stands in the background. In one notable example from 1956, President Dwight Eisenhower used economic and diplomatic threats to compel the British, French, and Israelis to cease the military operations they had begun in response to Egypt nationalizing the Suez Canal. More recently, the administration of President Donald Trump used a threat of economic sanctions to try to compel the Mexican government to more aggressively discourage population flows across the U.S. border.

Mathew Burrows and Christopher Preble argue that the impulse to cut Russia out of the international system is understandable but also impractical:

In the wake of Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, it is tempting to want to go beyond the very severe sanctions that the West has imposed, even as the publics in both the United States and Europe are not prepared for the likely economic pain. Others have proposed that NATO impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine, or provide arms to the Ukrainians resisting Russian aggression, which would not affect Americans’ pocketbooks, but do increase the risk of escalation that could directly threaten global security.

The overriding question, therefore, is of how to ensure the punishment is appropriate, and eliminates the potential for long-term damage.

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There is a tendency in the short-term to focus on the morally superior stance, that it is always better to aid the defenders against the aggressors. But it is worth asking whether that is in the best interest of the Ukrainian people, for example if the additional arms prolong a war that might otherwise have ended more quickly in a negotiated settlement.

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People like to imagine turning Ukraine into Putin’s Afghanistan, but they should remember the extraordinary — even sometimes absurd — lengths that the Carter and Reagan administrations employed to conceal U.S. involvement in that earlier war (even though the Soviets were quite aware). As Austin Carson explains in his book Secret Wars: Covert Conflict in International Politics, the United States worried about the spread of the conflict should that support be disclosed. And there were inadvertent consequences as well. The United States’ arming of the anti-Soviet resistance in Afghanistan, though justified at the time, eventually produced al-Qaeda.

One way or another, the Russian war in Ukraine will wind down. Our common interests should push toward something other than a new Cold War between Russia and the West. All parties should recall that decades-long confrontation, with vast armies massed along militarized borders, as a tragedy to be avoided. The only thing worse, also a distinct possibility, is World War III.

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Efforts to totally isolate Russia will increase its dependence on China, and no doubt expand Western frictions with Beijing, further accelerating deglobalization. The dramatic expansion of trade and cultural exchange over the last three decades opened up unprecedented economic opportunities for the world, almost ending extreme poverty. Putin deserves to be punished, but not at the cost of a much poorer future for everyone.

It’s an odd place for an American president, Matt Welch of Reason notes:

His country sits transfixed by a war more than 4,500 miles to the east, rooting openly in solidarity for the hopelessly outgunned underdogs fighting bravely for their homeland against a ruthless invader from Moscow. Hundreds of thousands of desperate refugees have already poured out to the West, while the young men back home fashion Molotov cocktails to hurl at tanks. The United States, unusually, is not a central protagonist in this military conflict, to the disappointment of both the ragtag rebels and some overenthusiastic hawks back home.

U.S. history being long enough, the above description fits another State of the Union address: Dwight D. Eisenhower’s somber message to Congress on January 10, 1957, two months after the dramatic and bloody Soviet putdown of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, an event seared into the memory of the Americans who lived through it. Time had declared the “Hungarian Freedom Fighter” its 1956 Man of the Year; Elvis Presley hawked donations for refugees on The Ed Sullivan Show. Even Jean-Paul Sartre broke with his longtime communist comrades (as did many fellow travelers in the West).

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Having foregrounded this “season of stress that is testing the fitness of political systems and the validity of political philosophies,” Ike then laid out two very different approaches to confronting it: patient institution-building in Europe, and a more hegemonic responsibility for security arrangements in the Middle East. Biden would be good to learn lessons from both.

“The recent historic events in Hungary demand that all free nations share to the extent of their capabilities in the responsibility of granting asylum to victims of Communist persecution,” Eisenhower said. So asylum, not bombs.

The president also emphasized non-military means of bolstering the anti-communist bulwark in still-rebuilding Western Europe. “We must emphasize aid to our friends in building more productive economies and in better satisfying the natural demands of their people,” he said. Critical to that effort were long-term tariff reduction and mutual cooperation. “We welcome the efforts of a number of our European friends to achieve an integrated community to develop a common market.” For the duration of the Cold War, increasingly freer trade would be seen by Washington as an essential component of strengthening what was then called “the free world.”

None of these measures provided anything like immediate relief for Polish workers, Hungarian students, or other routed freedom fighters in the East Bloc. But — importantly! — they also avoided hot military conflict between two nuclear-armed superpowers, while also clearing the way for the eventual anti-communist revolutions of 1989 by the very people who’d been subjugated for so long.