Deterrence is a fundamental concept in managing international conflicts. However, it’s important to note the confusion that often arises among non-specialists between the academic meaning of the concept, which typically does not involve the actual use of force, and the more common understanding that sees deterring an enemy as equivalent to defeating them with a successful military strike. This misunderstanding may stem from the language used in some Arab military statements, but a more significant reason might be that the failure of deterrence, as we will see, can lead to the actual use of force to restore it.
This article explores key ideas around the concept of deterrence and how to restore it when a party trying to deter its opponent fails to achieve its goal. In this context, the article reflects on the concept of deterrence and its restoration, then discusses observations from practical experiences, particularly in the Middle East, focusing on Israel and Iran, with references to significant international experiences that help clarify the concept further.
Conditions for Successful Deterrence
For a threat used by one international actor to deter an opponent to succeed, certain conditions must be met. The first of these, naturally, is that the threat must be backed by real power that enables the threatening party to execute the threat with certainty. For example, when the United States issued threats during the 1973 October War against the countries that participated in the oil embargo on pro-Israel states, it was naturally relying on its position as the world’s foremost military power.
The second condition is that the party issuing the threat must demonstrate the seriousness of its intent to carry it out, such as by sending warships into waters adjacent to the opponent’s territorial waters, occasionally violating these waters, or sending air force jets into the opponent’s airspace, as China often does during severe crises with Taiwan. The key is that the threatening party must appear irrational and ready to take any action, regardless of the cost.
The third condition, in stark contrast to the second, is that both sides of the deterrence equation must be entirely rational. The party issuing the threat should only do so if it is capable of carrying it out and prepared to do so if the opponent does not back down. The threatened party must recognize the seriousness of the threat and adjust its behavior to avoid the costs associated with the threat’s execution, except if complying with the threat involves sacrificing a supreme value (such as a state’s territorial integrity) that justifies bearing the costs of resisting the threat. It is essential to distinguish here between threats aimed at deterring the opponent and those formulated in an insulting manner to provoke them, making acceptance impossible as the cost of acquiescing would be greater than the cost of resisting the threat.
When rationality prevails, the parties involved in deterrence sometimes don’t even need to issue threats. This was the case with the nuclear balance of terror that emerged when the Soviet Union developed its ability to respond to any sudden nuclear attack by the United States after successfully launching a satellite into space in 1957, signaling its ability to deliver nuclear warheads anywhere in the United States, regardless of accuracy. This solidified the balance of deterrence, which remained effective until the end of the Cold War. However, both sides occasionally issued serious threats in specific situations where one side perceived an imbalance in the existing equilibrium, as former U.S. President John F. Kennedy did in October 1962 when Soviet medium-range nuclear missile bases were discovered under construction in Cuba. Kennedy declared that he would not allow this, demanded the Soviets dismantle the bases and remove all offensive weapons, or else he would destroy them, and quickly imposed a military blockade on Cuba. Here too, the importance of rationality in managing deterrence situations was evident, as the Soviets eventually acceded to Washington’s demands after securing an American pledge not to attempt another invasion of Cuba, as well as the withdrawal of U.S. nuclear missiles from Turkey and Italy in exchange.
When deterrence fails due to incomplete success conditions, the use of force becomes inevitable if the party issuing the threat wants to maintain its credibility and status, as Russian President Vladimir Putin did in February 2022 when he launched his military operation in Ukraine. It’s crucial to distinguish between military actions intended to convince the party that was not deterred by the threat that they were mistaken—actions that may cease as soon as the opponent is deterred—or that continue if the opponent is capable of holding out (as in the ongoing Ukraine war) or if the party attempting deterrence changes its objectives, especially if it finds that the opponent’s performance in combat was below expectations.
As far as the author of these lines is aware, there is no comprehensive study that has analyzed the success and failure rates in attempts to restore deterrence. However, the general impression from observing these operations suggests that restoring deterrence is not usually easy. First, simply challenging the threat suggests the opponent believes they can withstand it. Second, the behavior they are being forced to stop may involve a supreme value they cannot sacrifice. Third, the conflict may have been polarized within an international framework that provides significant support to the party being deterred (as is the case with Ukraine after two and a half years of war). Fourth, deterrence restoration situations may involve asymmetric wars—conflicts between regular armies and non-state armed actors—making them difficult to resolve, especially if these actors receive external support, as is happening in current Middle Eastern confrontations, which leads us to the second part of this article.
Israeli Behavior
The relevance of the previous analysis lies in its usefulness for understanding the developments around us, especially at present, given their impact on the stability and security of Arab countries. Therefore, the following analysis focuses on practical experience and lessons learned from the practices of key international actors in the region, selecting Israel and Iran due to their roles in the ongoing conflict, particularly in Palestine and the broader Middle East.
Regarding Israel, it must be clarified at the outset, from the author’s perspective, that the Zionist movement and the resulting Jewish state in Palestine did not initially recognize the concept of deterrence. Instead, this movement pursued a political project to establish a Jewish state in Palestine, a goal it successfully achieved in 1948 on part of Palestinian land under the 1947 UN General Assembly partition plan, leading to confrontations with the Palestinian people and the Arab states supporting their rights.
Thus, concepts such as expansion and conflict are more appropriate to describe Israeli behavior, at least during the early decades of the Jewish state, because the movement’s strategic vision from the beginning considered all of Palestine as the territory of the Jewish state, necessitating the use of force rather than deterring adversaries. For this reason, Israel colluded with Britain and France behind the United States’ back in the 1956 attack on Egypt, in an attempt to crush Egypt’s liberation experiment, which it saw as an existential threat. Israel also lured Egypt and Syria into the 1967 war, whose outcome enabled Israel to take control of all of Palestine. At this point, Israel could have begun replacing the concept of expansion through the actual use of force with the concept of deterrence, but it was clear that the war’s outcome did not deter Egypt, which began fighting Israel the month after its defeat, escalating into a full-fledged War of Attrition that culminated in a joint Egyptian-Syrian military operation in October 1973, alongside substantial contributions from other major oil-exporting Arab states that supported the war effort by halting oil exports to Israel’s supporters, especially the United States.
On the other hand, Israel’s occupation of the remainder of Palestine led to the rise of the “Palestinian resistance,” against which the concept of deterrence was inapplicable, necessitating its destruction instead. The Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty in 1979 reopened the door for Tel Aviv to adopt deterrent behavior in its dealings with states and forces still in conflict with it, especially as the 1982 Fez Summit’s endorsement of the Saudi-proposed settlement initiative indicated that Arab coexistence with Israel was possible. However, two significant developments thwarted this possibility: the Iranian revolution, which adopted a stance of hostility toward Israel, and the escalation of the “Palestinian resistance,” which forced Israel into the 1982 Lebanon invasion—a move that highlighted the limits of Israeli deterrence. Israel invaded Lebanon, reaching and occupying its capital, Beirut, but failed to impose a peace agreement on it, as the Lebanese parliament, under public pressure, overturned it after its signing in 1983.
Israel was forced to withdraw from Lebanon, except for the border strip it had occupied since 1978, and was later compelled to withdraw from it in 2000. Israel’s last chance to deter Lebanon came with Hezbollah’s operation in 2006 to capture Israeli soldiers for exchange with
Lebanese prisoners held by Israel. Despite the intensity of Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon’s civilian infrastructure and Hezbollah’s strongholds in the southern suburbs of Beirut, it was unable to defeat Hezbollah in a way that would have deterred it from resuming its activities. Subsequently, Israel continued to pursue Palestinian resistance groups in the Gaza Strip after Hamas took control of it in 2007. Since then, Israel has engaged in five significant military confrontations with these factions, yet the facts on the ground indicate that the concept of deterrence does not apply in asymmetric wars between regular armies and armed non-state actors.
Iranian Behavior
From the preceding analysis, it’s clear that restoring deterrence against non-state armed actors is complex and rarely succeeds unless these actors become isolated from their support networks. Thus, restoring deterrence is only likely to succeed in conflicts between states and state-controlled entities. Accordingly, Iran, in its interactions with other states, recognizes the concept of deterrence, which can generally be inferred from the strategic rationale for Iran’s behavior since the 1979 revolution. The first test of this deterrence strategy was during the Iran-Iraq war. Despite Tehran’s initial inability to deter Saddam Hussein from attacking Iran, it eventually succeeded in exhausting Iraq to the point where the latter accepted UN Security Council Resolution 598 for a ceasefire on July 20, 1987, after much hesitation. This experience explains why Iran now asserts its intention to develop a regional deterrent capability against regional and international powers that might threaten its national security.
It seems that there is no immediate risk of Iran employing its deterrent capabilities, at least as long as it remains committed to the “Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action” (the nuclear agreement) despite Washington’s unilateral withdrawal from it. The Iranian leadership knows that any deviation from this commitment could lead to confrontation with the U.S. military, which still maintains superiority over Iran in some strategic capabilities. Therefore, Tehran must work to improve its strategic capabilities. This seems to be a significant lesson Iran learned from the U.S. withdrawal from the agreement, which exposed it to increased threats.
Iran’s conventional missile program remains a significant threat to the region, especially its neighbors in the Arabian Gulf, which Iran has targeted on multiple occasions. There is also concern that Iran could use drones to launch attacks on its opponents, as happened in 2019 with the attacks on Saudi oil facilities at Abqaiq and Khurais. Nevertheless, Iran remains fully aware that a direct confrontation with the United States would be catastrophic for it, which explains its current focus on developing its asymmetric capabilities.
