What Makes Deterrence Work? Cases from 1900 to 1980

Abstract

The use of military force to achieve foreign policy objectives is an enduring feature of international politics. Force, or the threat of force, may be used either to change the status quo or to maintain it. Threatening the use of force to maintain the status quo often takes the form of deterrence, defined by Patrick Morgan as “the threat to use force in response as a way of preventing the first use of force by someone else.”¹ Deterrence sometimes succeeds and sometimes fails. Failures are attested to by numerous international wars of history. In the nuclear age, a failure could cost us our lives. The conditions of successful deterrence thus require thorough logical and empirical analysis.