U.S. Air Force Strategic Deterrence Analytic Capabilities An Assessment of Tools, Methods, and Approaches for the 21st Century Security Environment (2014) / Chapter Skim
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Appendix D: Tailored Deterrence and Strategic Capabilities: Situation-Specific Knowledge of Peers, Near-Peers, Regional, and Non-State Actors
Appendix D: Tailored Deterrence and Strategic Capabilities: Situation-Specific Knowledge of Peers, Near-Peers, Regional, and Non-State Actors
Pages 118-137
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From page 118... ...
The principal change that has prompted a reassessment is the transformation of the international system from a bipolar world in which the Soviet Union posed the only major threat of an armed attack on the United States with nuclear weapons to a world of multiple potential adversaries with different cultures and decision-making processes and armed with nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction (WMD)
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From page 119... ...
To take account of these complexities, a tailored deterrence strategy in the current strategic environment requires actor-specific knowledge about a variety of actual and potential adversaries whose culture and cost/benefit calculus may differ, depending on the type of decision unit (predominant leader, single group, or a coalition of multiple autonomous actors) that defines the governmental deci sion units of different adversaries and the cultures of the societies in which these governments are located (Allison, 1969; Hermann and Hermann, 1989; Post, 2012)
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From page 120... ...
In this appendix, the focus is primarily on social mechanisms and external situations that define situation-specific knowledge, while Appendix E will focus on the psychological mechanisms and internal dispositions of decision units that specify actor-specific knowledge. In the top half of Figure D-1 the social psychology of mechanisms located at the external systemic, societal, organizational, and bureaucratic levels of analysis is characterized by roles (in bold)
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From page 121... ...
are the processes that generate thoughts, feelings, and motives regarding the enactment of their roles in the strategic environment, which are the focus Appendix E As one moves up the levels of analysis from the individual through the bureaucratic and organizational levels of the state and the society to the regional or global system, the locations of the causal mechanisms become more remote from the decision unit as the site of the decisions by Actor A to deter or assure and the decisions by Actor B to respond.
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From page 122... ...
of the psychological mechanisms in the lower half of Figure D-1, which specifies a predominant leader's character, combinations of personality traits, and cogni tive, affective, and motivational processes as important causal mechanisms. If an individual occupies a role in a decision unit where the individual's actions are indispensable in producing the decision, and if the decision maker's choice of action is idiosyncratic -- that is, other individuals placed in the same strategic lo cation would choose a different action then the individual's psychological decision making mechanisms may be more powerful than the social mechanisms located in more remote sites in the funnel of causality (Greenstein, 1987)
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. All of these studies focus at external systemic, societal, or state levels of analysis on whether the causal mechanisms in the decision unit (predominant leader, single group, multiple autonomous actors, or the state)
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The first step in tailoring a deterrence or assurance message is to diagnose the situation-specific and actor-specific features of the strategic environment and decision unit, respectively, which indicate whether the relevant systems of interest are "open" (receptive) or "closed" (unreceptive)
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From page 125... ...
The menu in Figure D-2 is a helpful tool as a decision-making heuristic or checklist in integrating the causal mecha FIGURE D-2 nisms to obtain a cross-level understanding of the likely degree of receptivity by the adversary or ally to deterrence or assurance decisions. External Systemic and Domestic Societal Strategic Environments System: attention (+)
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. The next level of analysis in Figure D-2 is the internal characteristics of the decision unit (multiple autonomous actors, single group, predominant leader and advisory system)
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whether an individual is also psychologically in a receptive condition. In particular, the relevant indices from content analysis techniques employed to study predominant leaders may also be useful for studying single groups and multiple autonomous actors as decision units.
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. In the open condition a response is based primarily on information about the strategic environment and the sender's message rather than on structural biases and social mechanisms inside multiple autonomous actors or single groups as the decision units or unconscious psychological mechanisms in the decision-making processes of predominant leaders as the decision unit.
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From page 129... ...
Since decision units normally operate in a complex environment with a rela tively low information-processing capacity, they should be risk-averse and make moderate decisions. However, if decision units are closed and do not recognize the conditions of environmental complexity and low information due to the operation of psychological or social mechanisms, then they are prone to being risk-acceptant and making extreme rather than moderate decisions (Braybrooke and Lindblom, 1963; Hermann and Hermann, 1989; Walker and Malici, 2011)
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From page 130... ...
. With the end of the Cold War and the emergence of multiple new nuclear powers led by decision makers with different cultures, personalities, historical ex periences, and military capabilities, this Cold War deterrence strategy may not be optimal for all possible rivals, especially those far different from the Soviet Union, including some non-state actors (Lowther, 2013b; Trexel, 2013)
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From page 131... ...
. Together with gaming possible scenarios in man/machine simula tions, the representation of the logic of maximizing benefits and minimizing costs in strategic interactions with game theory is still a desirable research strategy for investigating the logic of deterrence and assurance against peers and near-peers, regional actors, and non-state actors in the 21st century security environment.
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From page 132... ...
The possible situations with the three types of actors (peers/near-peers, regional, and non-state actors) shown in Figure D-3 are represented as having different distributions of military capabilities in two types of strategic environments.
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From page 133... ...
is a very risky outcome as both players in each game rank deadlock as the lowest-ranked outcome. In this strategic environment the risk of deadlock is nuclear war as the final outcome of a conflict, which would pose an existential threat to what each player wishes to protect.7 The solutions for all of these games with alternating moves and prior commu nication between players as the rules of play represent the logical outcomes in these two worlds if the United States chooses deterrence and assurance as its strategy 7 This existential deterrent effect may have different referents in addition to or instead of the exis tence of the decision unit, such as family members, religious institutions, or a revolutionary move ment that members of the decision unit hold dear.
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From page 134... ...
The results in Figure D-3 illustrate the continued value of game theory as a tool to specify conflict situations with potential adversaries in which assumptions are made about the preferences of each player for the possible outcomes to the game. They show that if hard power (military capabilities)
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University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich. 9 Inthe games in the nuclear strategic environment shown in Figure D-3 with multiple equilibria as stable outcomes, the actual final outcome depends on the order of play (who has the next move)
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2001. How decision units shape foreign policy.
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2013. Tailored deterrence, smart power, and the long-term challenge of nuclear proliferation.
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