Keith B. Payne – författare

The National Institute for Public Policy’s new book, Minimum Deterrence: Examining the Evidence, is the first of its kind. Dr. Keith Payne, former Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger and an unparalleled bipartisan group of senior civilian and military experts critically examine eight basic assumptions of Minimum Deterrence against available evidence. In general, Minimum Deterrence does not fare well under the careful scrutiny.

Proponents of a "Minimum Deterrent" US nuclear force posture believe that anywhere from a handful to a few hundred nuclear weapons are adequate to deter reliably and predictably any enemy from attacking the United States now and in the future. Because nuclear weapons are so destructive, their thinking goes, no foreign leader would dare challenge US capabilities. The benefits, advocates claim, of reducing US nuclear weapons to the "minimum" level needed are: better relations with Russia and China, reinforcement of the arms control and Nonproliferation Treaty, billions of defense dollars in savings, and greater international stability on the way to "nuclear zero."

As political pressure builds to pursue this vision of minimum US deterrence, Minimum Deterrence: Examining the Evidence stands as the seminal study to address the many claims of great benefit using available evidence.

This book was published as a special issue of Comparative Strategy.

The National Institute for Public Policy’s new book, Minimum Deterrence: Examining the Evidence, is the first of its kind. Dr. Keith Payne, former Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger and an unparalleled bipartisan group of senior civilian and military experts critically examine eight basic assumptions of Minimum Deterrence against available evidence. In general, Minimum Deterrence does not fare well under the careful scrutiny.

Proponents of a "Minimum Deterrent" US nuclear force posture believe that anywhere from a handful to a few hundred nuclear weapons are adequate to deter reliably and predictably any enemy from attacking the United States now and in the future. Because nuclear weapons are so destructive, their thinking goes, no foreign leader would dare challenge US capabilities. The benefits, advocates claim, of reducing US nuclear weapons to the "minimum" level needed are: better relations with Russia and China, reinforcement of the arms control and Nonproliferation Treaty, billions of defense dollars in savings, and greater international stability on the way to "nuclear zero."

As political pressure builds to pursue this vision of minimum US deterrence, Minimum Deterrence: Examining the Evidence stands as the seminal study to address the many claims of great benefit using available evidence.

This book was published as a special issue of Comparative Strategy.

For decades, the rational actor model served as the preferred guide for U.S. deterrence policy. It has been a convenient and comforting guide because it requires little detailed knowledge of an opponent’s unique decision-making process and yet typically provides confident generalizations about how deterrence works. The model tends to postulate common decision-making parameters across the globe to reach generalizations about how deterrence will function and the types of forces that will be "stabilizing" or "destabilizing." Yet a broad spectrum of unique factors can influence an opponent’s perceptions and his calculations, and these are not easily captured by the rational actor model. The absence of uniformity means there can be very few deterrence generalizations generated by the use of the rational actor model that are applicable to the entire range of opponents.

Understanding Deterrence considers how factors such as psychology, history, religion, ideology, geography, political structure, culture, proliferation and geopolitics can shape a leadership’s decision-making process, in ways that are specific and unique to each opponent. Understanding Deterrence demonstrates how using a multidisciplinary approach to deterrence analysis can better identify and assess factors that influence an opponent’s decision-making process. This identification and assessment process can facilitate the tailoring of deterrence strategies to specific purposes and result in a higher likelihood of success than strategies guided by the generalizations about opponent decision-making typically contained in the rational actor model.

This book was published as a special issue of Comparative Strategy.

For decades, the rational actor model served as the preferred guide for U.S. deterrence policy. It has been a convenient and comforting guide because it requires little detailed knowledge of an opponent’s unique decision-making process and yet typically provides confident generalizations about how deterrence works. The model tends to postulate common decision-making parameters across the globe to reach generalizations about how deterrence will function and the types of forces that will be "stabilizing" or "destabilizing." Yet a broad spectrum of unique factors can influence an opponent’s perceptions and his calculations, and these are not easily captured by the rational actor model. The absence of uniformity means there can be very few deterrence generalizations generated by the use of the rational actor model that are applicable to the entire range of opponents.

Understanding Deterrence considers how factors such as psychology, history, religion, ideology, geography, political structure, culture, proliferation and geopolitics can shape a leadership’s decision-making process, in ways that are specific and unique to each opponent. Understanding Deterrence demonstrates how using a multidisciplinary approach to deterrence analysis can better identify and assess factors that influence an opponent’s decision-making process. This identification and assessment process can facilitate the tailoring of deterrence strategies to specific purposes and result in a higher likelihood of success than strategies guided by the generalizations about opponent decision-making typically contained in the rational actor model.

This book was published as a special issue of Comparative Strategy.