Hawks,Doves,Owls and Loons: Extended Deterrence Without Flexible Response

Joseph S. Nye, Jr. , Graham T. Allison and Albert Carnesale , 'Analytic Conclusions: Hawks, Doves, and Owls', in Graham T. Allison , Albert Carnesale and Joseph S. Nye, Jr. , (eds.), Hawks, Doves, and Owls (New York: W.W. Norton , (985).

Ibid, p. 210.

This article uses the terms 'rationality' and 'irrationality' as they are generally used in economic and deterrence theory literature. An actor is rational if he employs a rational decision-making process; a rational decision-making process is one that uses information intelligently in selecting policies which maximise the decision-maker's consistently evaluated expected utility. Rational behaviour is behaviour not inconsistent with that which would have followed from a rational decision-making process. Irrationality exists if a decision-making process suffers from nonintelligent calculation of possible outcomes of possible policies, inconsistent evaluation of the expected utility of the costs and benefits of these outcomes or unreasoned choice of policies. Irrationality may stem from personality disorder, cognitive failure, situational stress or organisational dysfunction. On the nature of rationality and irrationality, see Edward Rhodes , Power and MADness: The Logic of Nuclear Coercion (New York : Columbia University Press, 1989 ), pp. 47-81.

Considerable empirical support for this proposition can be found. For example, on the basis of their monumental study of 1 1 deterrence cases, Alexander George and Richard Smoke concluded that 'the initiator's belief that the risks of options available to him are not calculable or controllable is usually a sufficient condition for deterrence success, with respect to those options.' See Alexander George and Richard Smoke , Deterrence in American Foreign Policy (New York: Columbia University Press, 1974), p. 529.

David Garnham , 'Extending Deterrence with German Nuclear Weapons ', International Security(Vol. 10, No. I, Summer 1985), p. 96.

On the assumption that the credibility of threats requires the ex post rationality of executing them, see Rhodes , op. cit., in note 3, pp. 19-46.

Caspar W. Weinberger , Annual Report to the Congress, Fiscal Year 1984 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1983). p. 52.

Colin Gray and Keith Payne , 'Victory is Possible', Foreign Policy (Vol. 39. Summer 1980), p. 14.

Bruce Russett , Prisoners of Insecurity (New York: W.H. Freeman, 1983), p. 161.

Ibid, p.161.

Richard M. Nixon , The Real War (New York: Warner Books, 1980), p. 255.

Robert S. McNamara , as quoted in William W. Kaufmann , The McNamara Strategy (New York: Harper and Row , 1964), p. 75.

James R. Schlesinger , Annual Report to the Congress. Fiscal Year 1975 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1974), pp. 37-38.

Colin S. Gray , 'Targeting Problems for Central War', Naval War College Review (Vol. 33, No. 1, January-February, 1980), p. 7.

Robert Jervis , The Illogic of American Nuclear Strategy (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1984), p. 83.

Ibid, p. 83.

Harold Brown , Thinking About National Security ( Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1983 ), p. 274.

Harold Brown , Annual Report to the Congress, Fiscal Year 1979 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1978), p. 53.

Speech given at Princeton, NJ, 20 November 1983.

Desmond Ball , Can Nuclear War Be Controlled? ( London: International Institute for Strategic Studies , 1981), p. 37. Emphasis in original. Bruce Blair, in the most thorough unclassified examination of US command-and-control capabilities to date, has similarly concluded that 'In sum, an irreducible risk of discontinuity between national purpose and military operations will always exist. The scope for such divergence is sufficiently large that the paradox of assured destruction has not been resolved in practice. Carefully calibrated retaliation and strategic bargaining plans provide more academic than operational answers.' Bruce Blair , Strategic Command and Control (Washington, DC: Brookings , 1985), p. 77. For other discussions of the difficulties of controlling nuclear war, see also Desmond Ball , 'U.S. Strategic Forces: How Would They Be Used?', International Security (Vol. 7, No. 3, Winter 1982-83); Paul Bracken , The Command and Control of Nuclear Forces (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1983); John D. Steinbruner , 'National Security and the Concept of Strategic Stability', Journal of Conflict Resolution (Vol. 22, No. 3, September 1978); John D. Steinbruner , 'Nuclear Decapitation ', Foreign Policy (No. 45, Winter 1981-82); and Jervis , op. cit, in note 15, especially pp. 106-11.

Robert S. McNamara , 'The Military Role of Nuclear Weapons', Foreign Affairs (Vol, 62, No. I, Fall 1983), p. 72. Emphasis added.

Thomas Schelling , The Strategy of Canflict (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1960), P. 18.

See, for example, Irving L. Janis and Leon Mann , Decision Making (New York: The Free Press, 1977), pp. 45-133.

Bracken , op. cit, in note 20, p. 164.

Ibid, p. 165.

Ibid, p. 177.

See, for example, Samuel P. Huntington , 'Conventional Deterrence and Conventional Retaliation in Europe', International Security (Vol. 8, No. 3, Winter 1983 -84).

Ronald Reagan , as quoted by Gregory F. Treverton , 'Managing NATO's Nuclear Dilemma', International Security (Vol. 7, No. 4, Spring 1983 ), p. 94. Treverton provides a good sketch of the difference in interest between America and Europe over how to deter the Soviet Union (see pp. 93-94).

Josef Joffe , 'Europe's American Pacifier', Foreign Policy (No. 54, Spring 1984 ).

Ronald Reagan , as quoted by Caspar W. Weinberger , Annual Report to the Congress. Fiscal Year 1985 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office. 1984). p. 38.

Klaus Knorr , 'Limited Strategic War', in Klaus Knorr and Thornton Read (eds.l. Limited Strategic War (New York: Praeger, 1962), p. 30.