Thread by @KofmanMichael

Fascinating podcast on tripwire forces & deterrence, but in listening to this, and reading the article I have questions. If just having sufficient forces to blunt was a solution, then we wouldn’t have weaker states attacking stronger ones. How much does the mil balance matter? 1/

https://twitter.com/WarOnTheRocks/status/1418460879138566150

The authors seem to stray a bit into the best deterrence is defense. That’s not true, defense is not deterrence. However, the belief that having deployed forces to blunt an attack & thereby achieve deterrence by denial is the prevailing conventional wisdom in DC. 2/

The problem is that military establishments come to different impressions of the military balance, expectations for how a war might go, and political leaders are not impressed by capability/operational concepts anyway. Having more stuff is only part of the equation. 3/

There are also counterfactual problems. If you deploy X forces, then they will deploy Y, especially when its on their border. Just because it is not possible to win easily & cheaply, doesn’t mean that leaders will eschew a war if they feel they must use force. 4/

Then there is the boogeyman that is fait accompli. Fait accomplis are an understood phenomenon. Fait accompli strategies, which is what DC planners are talking about, represent a lazy kitchen sink term to describe various forms of rapid conquest and/or coercion. 5/

War optimism is a major factor, war pessimism as well. Also, we have plenty of literature showing that political leaders don’t step through windows of opportunity & don’t pursue gains when the mil balance favors them, so how can we explain this? 6/

War has political causes, not military balance causes. The latter is an enabling condition when political causes exist. However, deploying more forces is a goldilocks proposition. Defense planners believe in the magic of favorable mil balances, but history doesn’t support this.

Having more forces logically creates doubt that a quick and cheap victory is possible, but there are equal problems involved in believing that more forces = more deterrence. Don't think the authors are saying this, but you could get that impression. @ProfPaulPoast