Towards Comprehensive Deterrence—Rethinking European Deterrence in the 21st Century

ABSTRACT

Deterrence has re‐emerged as a central concept in international politics, but the dominant conception of it remains rooted in Cold War nuclear thinking. The paper argues that the concept of deterrence must be redefined to reflect the complexity of the current threat environment, in which hybrid, non‐military and societal threats increasingly blur the line between war and peace. The paper proposes comprehensive deterrence as a framework bringing together deterrence by denial, defensively oriented military capabilities and societal resilience. It argues that deterrence by denial is a more reliable and less provocative strategy than deterrence by punishment or retaliation and that societal resilience should be understood as an extension of denial. Focusing on the European security context, where the credibility of the US extended deterrence is increasingly uncertain, the paper contends that European deterrence should shift away from nuclear threats and punishment and towards stronger conventional capabilities, deterrence by denial and societal resilience as the basis of a comprehensive approach to deterrence.