Deterrence theory lacks evidence for effective prediction

Evidence

For decades, supporters of the overseas status quo have simply proclaimed the security benefits as a self-evident truth. Rarely has anyone forced them to support their claims. Scholarly debates about the effectiveness of various strategies of military deterrence—the threat to use force to prevent another power from using force—have raged for decades without end. Considerable research has led to what one review summarized as “widely different results and little or no consensus on a set of variables that predict [effective] deterrence.” Others are even more critical, concluding, for example, that “deterrence emerges as a shabby parody of a scientific theory. Its fundamental behavioral assumptions are wrong. Its basic terms are ill defined. It is used in inconsistent and contradictory ways. Commonly cited examples of effective deterrence are often based on flawed assumptions of history, sometimes reflecting ignorance, sometimes deliberate misrepresentation.” — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 1038

Categorization

Category: Connection Points

• XREF: Mirrors the debate about whether institutions/regimes actually change outcomes vs. merely claim to — parallels the law-merchant and trust literature on whether formal structures predict cooperative behavior.

Related

• The security benefits of overseas bases rest on unproven deterrence theory (similarity 0.91)
• Deterrence research ignores the long-term deterrence that overseas bases supposedly provide (similarity 0.89)
• Deterrence research finds no consensus on variables that predict effectiveness. (similarity 0.88)
• Deterrence theory rests on flawed assumptions and misrepresented history. (similarity 0.83)
• Cold War peace cannot be reliably attributed to U.S. deterrence. (similarity 0.82)
• The Cold War outcome does not prove deterrence worked (similarity 0.81)
• Judgments about overseas base security value rest on prior beliefs, not evidence (similarity 0.80)
• Historical base cases cannot prove that overseas bases provide security (similarity 0.78)