Regional Nuclear States & Deterrence of Conventional Conflict (PDF)

Regional Nuclear States and the Deterrence of Conventional Conflict Post-Proliferation Posture and Strategy While we are looking at Narang 2013 in detail here, you are still expected to read it yourself! Dr Susan B Martin BA3 WMD in IP 2023-24 Central Questions What do states do with nuclear weapons...

Regional Nuclear States and the Deterrence of Conventional Conflict Post-Proliferation Posture and Strategy While we are looking at Narang 2013 in detail here, you are still expected to read it yourself! Dr Susan B Martin BA3 WMD in IP 2023-24 Central Questions What do states do with nuclear weapons once they acquired them, and how can we best understand the variation in their postures and strategies? How do states understand nuclear weapons, and how does this influence or how is it reflected in their nuclear postures and strategies? Readings and central puzzles Narang 2013 (read by all): focuses on regional powers and what kind of nuclear force is required to deter conventional conflict with both conventional and nuclear opponents? Narang 2015 (read by some), Looking at North Korea and Iran, what are they trying to deter and what deterrent strategy do they pursue? Anderson et al, 2019 (read by some): Do nuclear weapons allow compellence outside of crisis settings, and what does this mean for nuclear postures? Overview of today’s session Lecture Review—nuclear weapons—what (if anything) are they good for? Why look at regional powers and nuclear weapons? Focus on Narang 2013: Posture versus strategy Regional nuclear states and three possible nuclear postures Hypotheses about deterrence Findings So what? Discussion: Nuclear strategies of North Korea and Iran What else can new NWS do with their nuclear weapons? (general compellence?) Key terms Typology built on US strategies, policies, debates and analyses during the Cold War Why should we care about nuclear postures and strategies of regional nuclear powers? Narang 2013 , ‘What does it take to deter? Regional Nuclear Postures and International Conflict.’ Central question: What kind of nuclear force deters conventional conflict with both conventional and nuclear opponents?* Assumption in much of literature on nuclear deterrence that nuclear weapons deter both nuclear and conventional conflict—why? US-Soviet experience a poor basis for analysing general relationship between deterrence and nuclear weapons—why? Focussing instead on regional nuclear states (states with independent nuclear forces, of less than several hundred missiles) Challenges existential deterrence (how/why?) Shifts our focus to how states configure their nuclear capabilities—to nuclear posture and strategies Regional Nuclear Powers-similarities Narang 2013 Regional nuclear powers are those states with independent nuclear forces (several hundred nuclear weapons or less) = China, France, India, Israel, Pakistan, and South Africa (at different times) Different from US-USSR: have financial and technical limits; because their nuclear forces are limited, they have to make choices about how to allocate their forces for deterrence Have also learned from US-USSR Argues that despite their differences in ‘aggregate power metrics,’ these NWS can be compared because they are similar in term of geostrategic situation and size of nuclear arsenals >>What do you think? Are they comparable? Regional Nuclear Powers differences Narang 2013 Despite their similarities and the fact that they all have nuclear weapons, they have had different degrees of success in deterring conventional conflict Pakistan has been able to deter India India has had less success deterring Pakistan (1999 Kargil war) Israel has also had less success (e.g. 1973) This is his central puzzle: Narang seeks to determine why-- what kind of nuclear force deters conventional conflict? Nuclear posture Narang 2013 ‘Refers ‘to the capabilities, employment doctrine, and command and control procedures [that] a state establishes to operationalise its nuclear weapons capability’ (483, emphasis added) ‘Overall orientation of a state’s nuclear force structure,’ including ‘Number and type of nuclear warheads and delivery vehicles Rules and procedures governing use, including command and control arrangements and ‘how and when those weapons and deployed and released, and against what targets’ (483). Why focus on posture? Narang argues that posture is a better indicator of deterrent power than numbers or declaratory doctrine—why might this be the case? Posture versus strategy Drawing on Liddle Hart’s definition of strategy, nuclear strategy as the art of distributing and applying nuclear weapons to fulfil the ends of policy (see Freedman 2003, xviii). Posture is how a state plans to operationalise its nuclear forces, and postures are distinguished by their primary envisioned employment—the use for which states have deployed and configured their weapons and operating procedures What are the different nuclear postures that Narang identifies? Table 1, Regional Power Nuclear Postures Narang 2013, 488 Hypotheses: Postures and Deterrent Power Narang 2013 Different postures generate ‘different spaces for conflict’—they create ‘different thresholds at which the threat to use NW becomes credible…establishing the point at which a given intensity of conflict should be deterred’ (488). Catalytic posture ‘renders threat of NW use very low in most realistic conventional scenarios,’ and depends on chance of 3rd party intervention>>offer little deterrent benefit even against high intensity conventional conflict (489) Assured retaliation aims at deterring nuclear use, so may be incapable of deterring conventional attacks (489) Asymmetric escalation ‘compresses space for conflict’—’even limited conventional breaches early in a conflict could trigger nuclear use’ (489) Hypotheses, cont. Narang 2013 Null hypothesis: No variation in the deterrent effect of regional nuclear power positions H Catalytic: ‘A catalytic posture would have little effect in deterring low- or high-intensity attacks by either nuclear or nonnuclear opponents’ (489) H AssdRetal: ‘States with an assured retaliation posture should face a reduced frequency of high-intensity attacks from both nuclear and nonnuclear opponents. They should face an increased frequency of low-intensity conventional attacks initiated by nuclear opponents, and an unchanged frequency of low-intensity of conventional attacks from nonnuclear opponents’ (490) H AsyEscal: ‘States with an asymmetric escalation nuclear posture should face fewer attacks from both nuclear and nonnuclear opponents across all measurable intensities of armed conflict.’ (491) Research Design Narang 2013 Does adoption of nuclear posture dampen average frequency of conventional attacks (across levels of intensity)? ‘large-n analysis that examines all states in the system across a large swath of time to systematically isolate the average effects of adopting a specific nuclear posture on the frequency and intensity of conflict’ (491) Allows examination of posture by a) looking at frequency of conflict before and after posture is adopted and b) comparing to similar states with different (or no) nuclear posture (491) Dependent variable Narang 2013 For each year and each state, did it initiate a military dispute against other states and if so, how far did it escalate (no dispute, dispute but no use of force, use of force by one state, use of force by both states but not to war, or escalation to full-scale war) Looking at ‘politically relevant state dyads’—’ interactions with major powers and geographically contiguous states (and those separated by some set distance of water)’ (492) Data set covers years 1816-1992 and 116,057 observations Additional data set 1816-2001 Statical analysis Narang 2013 Uses two different data sets (one from 1816-1992; one from 1816-2001) >>The idea of control variables is to control for the influence of other variables that influence conflict outbreak and escalation, so that the results of the analysis capture only the effect of nuclear posture Analysis of data set from 1816-1992 includes more control variables (see footnote 15) For analysis of data set from 1816-2001, control variables are: conventional balance of power, whether initiator state is a NWS, a Cold War dummy variable; revisionist intensions; and regime type measures. Interpretation of statistical analysis Narang 2013 Relative risk ratios should be interpreted as follows: A value of 1.00 means that adopting a particular posture has no effect on a state's ability to deter conflict at that level; the probability of conflict at a particular level of intensity before and after posture adoption is statistically equivalent. A risk ratio of greater than 1.0 means that the probability of conflict has increased after the adoption of a particular posture (for example, 3.00 indicates that the probability of conflict at that level after adopting a particular posture is three times higher than before). A risk ratio of less than 1.0 indicates that the probability of a conflict has decreased after the adoption of a posture. E.g., 0.33 means that the probability of conflict at that level is three times lower than before. Thus, deterrence success is indicated by relative risk ratios less than 1.00. Findings (see also Table 4) Narang 2013 Findings, 2 Narang 2013 The analysis suggests ‘that the asymmetric escalation posture is seemingly deterrence optimal [for the deterrence of conventional conflict]. ‘ Against nonnuclear initiators, the asymmetric escalation posture is unique in deterring conflict at every intensity level, whereas the catalytic and assured retaliation postures have had significant deterrence failures, including against full war. ‘Against nuclear opponents, all three postures experience roughly the same level of probing as before by other nuclear powers at low-level disputes (at DV = 1), but asymmetric escalation is unique in keeping these probes from escalating beyond a war of words’ (496). Findings, 3 and questions Narang 2013, 497 ‘Adopting an asymmetric escalation posture uniquely and significantly deters [conventional] conflict at every level of armed intensity’ (497). Little evidence for existential deterrent effect (but most numbers in right direction across postures?) ‘Assured retaliation posture generates little systematic deterrence power against conventional conflict’ (497--? More effective with more control variables?) Catalytic posture, on average, does not deter ‘even highintensity conventional conflict’ but see Tables 4 and 5—in some cases, deters everything but high intensity? ‘Not all deterrence postures deter equally well’; to deter conventional conflict, need a posture designed to deter convectional conflict (500) Methodological and data issues Narang 2013 This is not ‘final word’ (499) Results do not provide valid causal inferences—not designed to; states choose their own nuclear posture— they are ‘selected into treatment’ [correlation versus causation] (499) The limited number of regional nuclear powers and states per posture ‘means that a small number of states drives the effects of each posture’ (500) Questions Is the implication that all regional NWS should adopt an asymmetric escalation posture? What are its advantages and disadvantages? What are the costs and benefits of such a posture? Questions, 2 Narang’s null hypothesis is that ‘there should be no variation in the deterrent effect of regional power nuclear postures’ (489). Is this a correct reading of the deterrence literature? Again, balance of forces, balance of interests, nuclear danger? Nuclear deterrence as credible only for attack against vital interests? Questions, 3 Is the geopolitical situation of Narang's regional nuclear states really similar? May be similar in terms of relation to US/USSR, but is it similar in terms of regional security adversaries etc? China and France to South Africa and Israel? India and Pakistan to France? When is nuclear first use credible, against NNWS? Against NWS? What is relation among, and relative importance of, nuclear posture, the balance of forces, the balance of interests, and nuclear danger? >>>Do Narang’s control variables adequately capture these issues? Discussion What do Anderson et al mean by ‘general nuclear compellence’? According to their arguments, when can nuclear weapons be used for general compellence? Do they convince you? Discussion 2 According to Narang 2015, what drives states’ choice of nuclear postures? Can this be applied to Iran and North Korea, and if so, how? Does he convince you that this is useful? Vocabulary check/Key terms Existential deterrence Nuclear posture vs nuclear strategy Possible nuclear postures for regional NWS (catalytic, assured retaliation, asymmetric escalation) Stability-instability paradox General/immediate compellence/deterrence Command and control Civil-military relations More generally: Causation versus correlation Findings (see also Table 4) Narang 2013 Rest of Term (in FWB 2.46 unless noted otherwise) 2/2 Case Study: Coercion and Crises in Southern Asia On-line and then in class 9/2 CBN Weapons and Terrorism, Insurgency and Assassination 16/2 CBN and Arms Control (CWC, Landmines and TPNW) Waterloo FWB 3.146 23/2 Reading Week 20-24 February. 1/3 Arms Control and Use/Non-use: Syria 8/3 New Technologies, the Return of Major Power Competition, and New Questions about Limited Nuclear War 15/3 Current Issues/Simulation 22/3 Conclusion and Review (Practice for exam) Exam Period 29/4-31/5