Abstract
Classic theories of deterrence do not envisage the concepts of resilience and deterrence as even remotely connected. However, these two notions may not be poles apart and may, in fact, offer complementary perspectives in envisioning options for dealing with the security challenges of the twenty-first century. This chapter explores the correspondence between the two concepts. Firstly, it discusses definitions and key tenets of these concepts in relation to security. Then, it goes on to review what differentiates and what links these concepts in terms of the risk approach each presents; this includes an examination of rationality in deterrence and resilience frameworks as well as looking at the growing acknowledgement that their evolution is influenced by systems thinking. The chapter then considers in what way deterrence theory and the emerging resilience theory display areas of complementary and mismatch. This is achieved by examining how, on the one hand, both approaches may be able to support one another and, on the other hand, how the significance of change and transformation in both frameworks can provide pointers to where future thinking might lead.
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Notes
- 1.
‘UK Resilience’ was the initial designation by the Civil Contingencies Secretariat of its activities relating emergency planning in the UK within the framework of the 2004 Civil Contingencies Act. (Cabinet Office 2011b)
- 2.
Under McNamara, pentagon analysts worked out that the “assured destruction” of 20–25 percent of Soviet population and 50 percent of Soviet industrial base would provide an adequate U.S. retaliatory threat which ensured the deterrence of the Soviet Union attacks. The analysts calculated that the standard metric for measuring how much was enough for such effect was 400 equivalent megatons (EMT). (Payne 2010)
- 3.
Stein uses the example of “When President George W. Bush was considering whether or not to go to war in Iraq, he was told that Saddam Hussein had sought to buy yellow cake uranium from Niger. That was new information to the president – he had not heard it before – and it was diagnostic; it signalled that Saddam was likely seeking to develop unconventional weapons. What the information was not was reliable or valid, and therefore it should have been excluded from any kind of consideration. The reliability and validity of information is a threshold barrier that any piece of evidence should cross on its way into the decision-making process.” (Stein 2009; p. 62)
- 4.
Slovic and Peters use the example of Nuclear radiation showing “how information about benefit [e.g. benefits to nuclear power is high] or information about risk [risk relating to nuclear power is low] could increase the positive affective evaluation of nuclear power and lead to inferences about risk and benefit that coincide affectively with the information given. Similarly, information could make the overall affective evaluation of nuclear power more negative, resulting in inferences about risk and benefit that are consistent with this more negative feeling.” (2006, p. 323)
- 5.
“The initial wave of deterrence theorizing came after World War II and was driven by the need to respond to a real-world problem – the invention of the atom bomb. The second wave emerged in the 1950s and 1960s. It applied tools like game theory to develop much of what became conventional wisdom about nuclear strategy (at least in the West). Starting in the 1960s but really taking off in the 1970s, the third wave used statistical and case-study methods to empirically test deterrence theory, mainly against cases of conventional deterrence. The case-study literature also challenged the rational actor assumption employed in second-wave theory.” (Knopf 2010; p. 1)
- 6.
Knopf defines this concept as a strategy aiming to “dissuade a potential attacker by convincing them that the effort will not succeed, and they will be denied the benefits they hope to obtain.” (2010; p. 10)
- 7.
“Extending deterrence in a credible way proved a more complicated proposition than deterring direct attack. It was entirely credible to threaten the Soviet Union with the use of nuclear weapons in response to a Soviet attack on the United States. But how could the United States make credible the threat to use nuclear weapons against the Soviet homeland in response to a Soviet attack on U.S. allies in Europe?” (Pifer et al. 2010; p. 1)
- 8.
Borrowing from the military-like jargon, Gearson explains that “Target hardening of the sort seen initially in London and in recent years across other world cities, and defensive measures taken in response to specific intelligence as a means to deter terrorists from carrying out specific attacks have had quite a good record in the UK and elsewhere.” (Gearson 2012; p. 186)
- 9.
“Given the offensive advantage, the number of attackers using cheap, readily available tools will continuously rise, empowering non-established powers such as Iran, North Korea or even Daesh/IS. Reversing this trend requires getting serious about agreeing on international norms and improving both defences, especially employees’ and citizens’ “cyber-hygiene”, and about enforcement.” (Bendiek and Metzger 2015; p. 557)
- 10.
Makarenko has devoted much of her research to the investigation of the convergence between organized crime and terrorism. She claims “Criminal and terrorist networks which have emerged from a state of perpetual conflict and instability blatantly reveal the ultimate danger of the crime-terror connection to international security.” (2008; p. 60)
- 11.
“Although the importance of blocking criminal opportunities is important in both the context of anti-crime and counter-terrorism, the ability to identify crimes which are of interest to both criminal and terrorist networks provides an invaluable intelligence tool. Thus prior to implementing a policy of denial, it is essential to use knowledge of crime-terror interaction to collect more insight regarding organizational design of both groups, including the fundamentals of the acquisition and movement of criminal financing. Such knowledge not only contributes to the building of solid cases for prosecution services, but it also helps develop adaptive forecasting models which allows law enforcement and the security services to focus their resources.” (Makarenko 2008; p. 71)
- 12.
Folke et al. (2007) refer to the contagion from one system domain to another (such as fire, insect outbreak, and disease) where the intersection of slowly and fast variables create alternative states.
- 13.
Berkes et al. (2003) claim that the latent processes that are valuable in coping with this type of surprise are normally undiscovered in “normal” times.
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Wilkinson, E. (2020). Resilience and Deterrence: Exploring Correspondence Between the Concepts. In: Filippidou, A. (eds) Deterrence. Advanced Sciences and Technologies for Security Applications. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29367-3_2
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