CHACR Commentary #20: The deterioration of deterrence?

THE DETERIORATION OF DETERRENCE? CHACR COMMENTARY // FEBRUARY, 2024

BY: Professor Andrew Stewart, Head of Conflict Research, CHACR

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WO events during the last 18 months have raised questions about whether “the art of deterrence” has been lost.1 In February 2022, a visibly angry NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg stood before the international media to address the recent Russian military action against Ukraine.2 Europe’s peace had been “shattered” and there was a continental war “on a scale and of a type we thought belong to history”. Using military power to re-establish what it argued was its sphere of influence, Russia was attacking global rules and values and creating “the new normal for our security”. For him, NATO’s instant positive response showed the principle of collective defence had survived. For others, it could be argued that deterrence, for so long the core element of NATO’s overall strategy, had failed – as it did in 2014 when it had proven insufficient to halt Russia’s initial steps to take control of its southern neighbour. The other reason to question deterrence’s continuing value has come

from the October 2023 attack against Israel by the terrorist group Hamas. The most recent UK doctrine note had used the Israeli approach to suppressing the security threat posed to its borders as an example of successful restrictive deterrence.3 With Russia’s illegal war against Ukraine continuing and military operations by the Israeli Defence Forces still underway, a longestablished and critical security concept might no longer be fit for purpose. In this context of worsening global instability, it is perhaps surprising that there has also been a re-commitment to deterrence. For Britain, the 2021 Integrated Review had already highlighted the need for “a conceptual and practical overhaul” to reflect further deteriorations in the strategic environment.4 This continued a consistent theme to the reviews of the previous decade which had placed an increased emphasis on deterrence and highlighted the degree to which this underpinned thinking on security. This

included the 2018 National Security Capability Review which argued the UK needed a more systematic approach across government to tackle the growing number and diversity of threats. Work continues to implement the proposed changes and more still needs to be done as evidenced in the July 2023 UK Defence Command Paper in which deterrence was the focus of one of the eight chapters and a golden thread running throughout. There was also a blunt warning that “the contested security environment requires us to become expert once again in the art of deterrence” and a good deal of work appears to currently be underway at various levels to strengthen knowledge and understanding in this area.5 For NATO, changed almost beyond recognition following Vladimir Putin’s latest military aggression and revitalised as a newly vibrant security body, grown both in size and financial commitment, the still vital importance attached to deterrence has also been made

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clear at every opportunity. There was confirmation at the 2022 Madrid Summit of a new baseline and then at the following year’s meeting of leaders, held in Vilnius, significant measures were agreed to enhance how this was implemented across all domains. With the 75th anniversary meeting taking place in Washington DC in July 2024, NATO’s deterrence strategies will again be the most prominent Michael Hochberg, ‘Recreating Western Deterrence’, RealClearDefense, September 11, 2023.

1

‘Press briefing by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg following an extraordinary meeting of the North Atlantic Council’, 24 February 2022.

2

Ministry of Defence, ‘Deterrence: the Defence Contribution’, Joint Doctrine Note 1/19, February 2019, 8; JDN1/19 did also prophetically warn that there is “no ‘one size fits all’ model for deterrence and it may not always work”.

3

Wyn Bowen, ‘A New Deterrence Playbook? Continuity and Change in the UK’s Approach to Deterrence’, 11 October 2021.

4

‘Defence’s response to a more contested and volatile world’, July 2023, CP 901, 54; work underway includes a reported update of JDN 1/19.

5