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General Vessey would certainly agree with that, would he not? But credibility today requires flexibility. Flexibility in our deterrence construct hedges against the possibility that adversar ies might incorrectly perceive their actions as below the threshold of U. We must manage that threshold by looking at ways to limit the pain an adversary can cause through advanced defensive mea sures. Adversaries must know that they have a limited ability to hurt us.
We must also be able to act proportion ally and across the whole of government, escalating and deescalating tension, predict ing as best we can when a deterrence strategy is about to fail and shifting as required. These on-ramps and off-ramps provide a vital measure of control in conflict and give both sides a chance to solve problems more carefully.
Our strategy is one of preventing war by making it self-evident to our enemies that theyre going to get their clocks cleaned if they start one. General John W. Vessey, Jr. The capability to project U. We must therefore address our conven tional force structure and its readiness as a deterrent factor, especially after 7 years at war.
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We must enhance our capability to rapidly locate and destroy targets. We must conduct sufficient contingency planning that consid ers all facets of escalation and deescalation in crisis management. And we must improve conventional global strike capability, further develop global missile defense systems, and modernize our strategic weapons systems and infrastructure. Nor can we forget the conventional capabilities of our partners and friends.
We must strengthen their capacity to deter their enemies, and we must stay engaged globally. Coalition military cooperation and integra tion can and do have a tremendous impact on an adversarys perception of the political will of the United States and its allies. Lastly, any modern model of deter rence needs to address the challenges posed by extremists and ideologues.
How do we account for the fact that traditional concepts of deterrence do not work against a terrorist whose avowed tactics are wanton destruction and the targeting of innocents? How do we deter an idea or a movement? There are no easy answers. The deter rence of state sponsors is a start, but so, too, must we find ways to delegitimize the idea itself and to subvert the movement. That notion has been at the heart of the counterin surgency strategy that we have employed suc cessfully in Iraq: replace the fear that terrorists hope to engender with the very hope they fear to encounter.
Give people something positive to hold on to instead of something negative to avoid. Give parents a chance to raise their children to a better standard of living than the one they themselves enjoyed. Do that and we deter not the tactics of terroriststhey will still try to killbut rather the ends that they seek to achieve.
And that is deterrence of a truly strategic nature. Of course, this improved stability cannot be achieved by military means alone. Again, Iraq illuminates the point. Security on the ground has been quite necessary there, but it was never sufficient. Political reconciliation, economic development, social and cultural accommodation, and a higher sense of Iraqi nationhood and ownership have all proven vital to the progress we have witnessed.
And all of it was the result of a truly international and interagency effort. More than 40 years ago, Henry Kissinger warned that deterrence is above all a psychological problem.
The assessment of risks on which it depends becomes less and less precise in the face of weapons of unprec edented novelty and destructiveness. A bluff taken seriously is more useful than a serious threat interpreted as a bluff. Today, I would agree that deterrence is still fundamentally a psychological problem. But the time for bluffing is over. We need to be readyactually and completelyto deter a wide range of new threats. It is not just about cleaning someone elses clock anymore. We need a new model of deterrence that helps us bring our own clock up to speed with the pace and the scope of the challenges of this new century.
Time hack. JFQ enjoys the great luxury of receiving numerous unsolicited manuscripts on subjects that cover the waterfront of national security concerns. Frequently, we are asked whether we will consider essays on subjects that lie outside the focus areas solicited on this page in each issue. The answer is a resounding yes More than half of each issue is dedicated to areas of contemporary interest that cannot be anticipated by our 2-year publication plan.
Additionally, Admiral Mullen periodically issues calls for your professional insights in areas of narrow focus. Two areas of current interest are: 1. Is this in fact the case? If so, recommend solutions for improving military and civilian prowess in this field.
Service and joint professional military education has received much recent criticism because it is alleged to expose students to strategic thought without actually training them to think strategically. Is this a valid criticism? If it is, how can this problem be resolved, given the fact that educational curriculums are already highly saturated?
JFQ encourages you to submit manuscripts that speak to your unique professional strengths and interests. Boldly challenge traditional thought and practices in the joint, inter agency, national security community, and propose a new school solution! JFQ would also like to solicit manuscripts on specific subject areas in concert with future thematic focuses. Strategic Command U. Special Operations Command JFQ readers are typically subject matter experts who can take an issue or debate to the next level of application or utility.
Quality manuscripts harbor the potential to save money and lives. When framing your argument, please focus on the So what? That is, how does your research, experience, or critical analysis improve the readers professional under standing or performance? Speak to the implications from the operational to the strategic level of influence and tailor the message for an interagency readership without using acronyms or jargon.
Also, write prose, not terse bullets. Even the most prosaic doctrinal debate can be interesting if presented with care! Visit ndupress. Share your professional insights and improve national security. Colonel David H.
Editor, Joint Force Quarterly Gurneyd ndu. Between and , there were 1, conrmed incidents of illicit tracking in nuclear materials. Eighteen of those cases involved weapons-grade materials, and another involved material capable of making a so-called dirty bomb that would use conventional explosives to spread nuclear material. Senator Joseph Lieberman July 16, I believe Iran is headed in the direction of building nuclear weapons and having them in their arsenal. And we need to gure out a way to ensure that that doesnt happen.
It is Department of Defense policy to dissuade, deter, and defeat those who seek to harm the United States, its citizens, its Armed Forces, and its friends and allies through WMD use or threat of use, while maintaining the ability to respond to and mitigate the effects of WMD as deterrence is restored.
Yet the very term weapons of mass destruction has been employed so casually in recent decades that the concept behind it fails to provoke apprehensionmuch less fear and tremblingin many, if not most, citizens. This is due in part to the fact that such weapons are, in all their myriad forms, very much abstractions.
To an even greater degree than tsunamis and earthquakes, WMD events are horrors that few imagine will ever touch their lives. As a result, animating the public to shoulder the burden of expensive or risky efforts to dissuade, deter, and defeat those who appear inclined to use WMD is a challenge. After all, the use of WMD is widely and wrongly regarded as unthinkable for all but the most irrational.
For these reasons and more, it is important for national security professionals to contemplate and communicate the complex implications of WMD before, during, and after their employment.