Conventional Deterrence in Asia

“Si vis pacem, para bellum” – if you want peace, prepare for war. Vegetius’ old Latin adage succinctly summarizes the core assumption underpinning modern deterrence strategy: only a strong military force can deter war by persuading a potential aggressor that the costs and risks of military conflict outweigh any potential gains. Deterrence in this context occurs in broadly two ways: by threatening to punish an enemy country by targeting its political leadership and military industrial base; and by denying an adversary a quick and decisive victory in the event of war.

The former (“deterrence by punishment”) is primarily seen as a fundamental component in preventing nuclear war; the latter (“deterrence by denial”) is meant to avert large-scale conventional military action. The two concepts, however, are complementary, as former U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson noted in the early years of the Cold War:

We mean that the only deterrent to the imposition of Russian will in Western Europe is the belief that from the outset of any such attempt American power would be employed in stopping it, and if necessary, would inflict on the Soviet Union injury which the Moscow regime would not wish to suffer.

Over the last few decades, this binary distinction blurred with the advent of sophisticated cyber capabilities and precision-guided conventional weapons (e.g., the Prompt Global Strike effort in the U.S.), which, given their strategic effect, can now be used for “punishment missions” previously relegated solely to nuclear missiles. However, deterrence, in the eyes of the public and many policymakers, remains first and foremost a function of the threat to punish an opponent with nuclear weapons. Put otherwise, nuclear rather than conventional deterrence is primarily thought to keep the peace.

This is especially true in East and South Asia where China, North Korea, Pakistan, and India are expanding and modernizing their nuclear arsenals precisely for that reason: to prevent large-scale conventional war. The ongoing nuclear standoff on the Korean Peninsula, and Kim Jong-un’s quest to field a survivable nuclear strike capability, in particular, has driven home the importance assigned to nuclear weapons as the ultimate security guarantor. Indeed, states with relatively weaker conventional forces such as North Korea (or Pakistan) primarily see nuclear weapons as a cheap asymmetric response to their conventional military inferiority.

Yet, while nuclear deterrence may prevent large-scale conventional war and a nuclear exchange between states, there is little evidence that it prevents limited conventional war. In short: neglecting conventional deterrence by denial may cause a state to believe it can win a quick military victory. A case in point would be the Kargil War of 1999 fought between two nuclear powers, India and Pakistan. Islamabad counted on the slow mobilization pace of the Indian military to occupy strategic locations in the Indian-controlled section of Kashmir to force India to the negotiation table. In other words, India’s conventional deterrence by posture was assessed to be weak by Pakistan and emboldened it to launch the attack. Another example would be the 1982 Falklands War, where a nuclear power (Great Britain) was attacked by a non-nuclear state (Argentina) as a result of the former’s perceived unwillingness to risk war as evidenced by cuts in British conventional military spending in the late 1970s and early ‘80s and its recent history of decolonization.

However, it is important to understand that deterrence theory is essentially non-falsifiable. As Henry Kissinger put it, “Deterrence is tested negatively by things which do not happen. But it is never possible to demonstrate why something has not occurred.” Consequently, it is far from clear what precise role nuclear and conventional deterrence has played in foreign policy decision-making and will perhaps continue to play in keeping the peace in the Indo-Pacific region. Focusing on deterrence without factoring in intentions of regional actors is bound to lead to a distorted view of the security environment. Keeping in mind the analytical limitations that a focus on deterrence brings, we are currently seeing four general trends in the Indo-Pacific region that have the potential to weaken conventional deterrence, as the concept is generally understood, for the United States, as well as its allies and regional partners.

First, there is a general diffusion of military capabilities in the Indo-Pacific without any single state being capable of dominating the region militarily. While China is the region’s top military power, it qualitatively still cannot compete with the much smaller South Korean and Japanese militaries, let alone U.S. forces. In turn, the United States is no longer capable of militarily dominating the region as it had during the 1990s and 2000s. All Asian powers have embarked on major military modernization programs and are slated to field some of the world’s most advanced weapons platforms in the decades ahead. (Six Indo-Pacific states were among the top 10 global military spenders in 2017.) The absence of a single dominating regional military power in combination with the proliferation of advanced military capabilities in the Indo-Pacific invites miscalculation when it comes to assessing the costs and benefits of a limited war. This includes perhaps more positively assessing the chances of success of a surprise attack and the seizure of disputed territories without having to fear the intervention of a military superpower.

Second, with the notable exception of North Korea, there is a general ideological conformity among all major Asian powers, very much resembling Europe of the 18th century, which makes prolonged wars for national existence (e.g. World War II) less likely. In other words, no country is willfully trying to impose its ideologies (with the exception of non-state actors such as the Islamic State) upon another. Paradoxically, similar to the status quo in 18th century Europe, this may make limited war for limited political objectives (e.g., over fringe territories) more attractive as any quick military victory could be seen as merely a bargaining chip during subsequent negotiations. Indeed, China’s concept of “Local Wars under Modern High-Technology Conditions” envisions localized, short-duration, and high-intensity conflicts. The Indian military is also working on a “Pro-Active Doctrine” (colloquially known as Cold Start) of limited war with Pakistan, which entails seizing Pakistani territory to strengthen India’s position in any subsequent peace settlement. Other Asian militaries like Australia and Singapore are working on similar concepts for short, high-intensity conflict for limited political objectives. The net effect of these factors is a lowering of the bar for military conflict and consequently reduces the effectiveness of any conventional deterrence strategy.

Third, there is deliberate and unintentional obfuscation over what territorial disputes Asian powers are genuinely willing to go to war for alongside the deliberate attempt to incrementally undermine conventional deterrence by so-called gray-zone coercion or actions under the threshold of open aggression in order to avoid open military conflict by almost all regional powers. For example, despite the U.S.-Japan security treaty and public pronouncements to the contrary, it is far from clear whether the United States and Japan would go to war with China over the Senkakus/Diaoyus, an uninhabited group of islands in the East China Sea. Furthermore, the refusal to sell advanced U.S. military technology to Taiwan (e.g., submarines) may also beg the question over the real U.S. defense commitments to the island. Additionally, the threshold of war is blurry when it comes to the South China Sea territorial disputes and China’s building of man-made islands. Among other things, Beijing continues to refuse to define what its so-called nine-dash line in the South China Sea means. It is also uncertain what type of military action could be triggered by the ongoing Chinese-Indian territorial disputes as last year’s faceoff at Doklam illustrated. In short, these uncertainties can endanger a country’s credibility, a key component of any successful deterrence strategy.

Fourth, current force postures of regional militaries, either allied or partnering with the United States, make it difficult to assess how seriously they are committed to conventional deterrence. For example, it is doubtful whether Japan, despite the recent creation of its first amphibious warfare brigade, is capable of rapidly deploying its forces along the along the Ryukyu Islands chain to deter Chinese aggression. Taiwan has so far failed to invest in asymmetric capabilities such as new surface-to-air missile systems to deny China a quick disarming strike on Taiwanese military installations. Despite Indian efforts, the Cold Start doctrine so far primarily exists on paper, as the Indian military has repeatedly shown it lacks equipment and training to successfully implement it in the event of conflict with Pakistan. The South Korean military’s lack of investment in intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities calls into doubt its “Kill-Chain” pre-emptive strike program, an integral part of the government’s Korea Massive Punishment and Retaliation deterrence strategy. These force postures reveal a certain complacency, perhaps accentuated by a belief in U.S. extended deterrence, and threaten to undermine the credibility of any conventional deterrence strategies adopted by these countries.

The last point is especially worth highlighting as it could lead to alliance decoupling with the United States, which is increasingly reluctant to risk its conventional military assets in the region unless its allies and partners are willing to contribute to the overall deterrence posture. It is worthwhile also pointing out that as conventional precision-strike capabilities expand, we should expect a gradual shift of emphasis from deterrence by punishment to deterrence by denial, as the increasing merging of conventional and nuclear capabilities for “punishment missions” risks miscalculation and a further escalation of any conflict (also known as the “discrimination problem”). Consequently, conventional forces, including their anti-access and area-denial capabilities, are bound to play a larger role in military affairs in the future.

As John Mearsheimer wrote in the 1980s, if one side thinks it has the capacity to launch a Blitzkrieg-style military operation and achieve a quick military victory without having to fear massive retaliation, conventional deterrence is likely to fail. As I noted above, there are a number of factors independent of military calculations, but that may influence it in one way or the other, which make a failure of conventional deterrence and the event of limited conventional war a possibility in the Indo-Pacific region. To prop up conventional deterrence, the U.S. and its regional allies will need to invest in military capabilities and continue to realign their military posture to deny any enemy a quick and decisive military victory. This also entails more clearly delineating U.S. and allied defense commitments. For the United States, this means first and foremost maintaining and boosting its superior military logistical capabilities, which enable it to quickly transfer troops and materiel to the region in the event of a crisis.

However, the question remains how important conventional deterrence really is in keeping the peace in the Indo-Pacific region. If the assumption is that regional actors such as China and North Korea have aggressive intentions (e.g., in the South China Sea and on the Korean Peninsula), conventional and nuclear deterrence may contribute to keeping their aggressive policies in place. If their intentions are not aggressive, stronger or weaker deterrence postures would have little impact on their respective policies. In that context, it is worthwhile noting that modern deterrence theory emerged in the 1950s as a result of the miscalculation of Soviet intentions and their military capabilities. That should be kept in mind when objectively trying to assess the utility of deterrence as a guiding principle for defense policies.

The lack of a large-scale conventional arms race in the region could indicate that no country has the intention to pursue aggressive and expansionist policies via military means (although there are various mini-arms races, particularly in the fields of precision-guided weaponry and undersea warfare) reducing the importance of conventional and nuclear deterrence. In that regard, the absence of an increase in military conflict in the region – the last time the Chinese People’s Liberation Army saw combat was in 1988 – despite weakening conventional deterrence is perhaps a positive, but ultimately ambiguous, indication of the too-unthinkable-to-fail effect of nuclear deterrence. Going forward, policymakers must continually reassess the exact actions conventional forces are supposed to deter and their reliance on the false security blanket of nuclear annihilation in the Indo-Pacific region and beyond.