Policymakers are seeking new concepts of deterrence to confront gray zone tactics. Deterrence by detection, however, has two critical flaws, writes Emily Harding: a lack of technical capability and lack of credible will to respond.
In this brief, the authors discuss a strategy that they have labeled the Minimal Exposure Strategy. The strategy’s core premise is that the United States is largely secure from military threats due to continental U.S. geography and the deterrent quality of its nuclear and other strategic capabilities.
This CSIS Brief is the first in a series that explores the contours and implications of strategies that might reduce the U.S. military’s mission space through greater constraints on its ends, ways, or means.
New missile defense plans depend upon the success or failure of one thing: a new layer of space-based sensors.
Geopolitical competition is increasingly playing out in the gray zone—the space beyond diplomacy and short of conventional war. The nature of this competition is forcing the United States to confront the liabilities of its strengths. This report assesses current U.S. government actions to deter, campaign through, and respond to competitors’ gray zone tactics.
With the significant costs of engaging the U.S. in combat and a growing range of non-military tools at their disposal, rivals threaten U.S. interests by operating in the “gray zone.” The U.S must employ a broad spectrum of tools and concepts to deter and compete in the gray zone.
Like its three predecessors, the 2018 Nuclear Posture Review reaffirmed the need for the nuclear triad of bombers, submarine-launched ballistic missiles and intercontinental ballistic missiles. Now comes the hard part.
In the past, U.S. leadership played a significant role in backchannel mediating between India and Pakistan, counseling strategic patience and brokering diplomatic talks even at the height of Indo-Pak tensions. With the United States currently showing little leadership in South Asia, what scenarios could play out and what might their implication be for the United States and other interests?
United States nuclear deterrent forces has been the bedrock of U.S. national security. The U.S. needs a modern, flexible, and adaptable nuclear enterprise suited to the deterrence challenges of the 21st century and yet current forces are outdated. This paper provides several changes to consider as the new administration conducts a nuclear review.