The Romans said if you want peace, prepare for war. Figuring out conventional deterrence is a tricky thing. Trying to get the nuanced amount of force to deter an enemy rather than paying the price to prepare to defeat an enemy is a path to losing a war your enemy decides to risk--or at least getting a needless war.
China says American aid won't deter its "will" to absorb Taiwan:
China's Taiwan Affairs Office issued a statement late Saturday opposing the military aid to Taiwan, which China claims as its own territory.
“No matter how much of the ordinary people's taxpayer money the ... Taiwanese separatist forces spend, no matter how many U.S. weapons, it will not shake our resolve to solve the Taiwan problem. Or shake our firm will to realize the reunification of our motherland,” said Chen Binhua, a spokesperson for the Taiwan Affairs Office.
China is telling us they don't calculate deterrence the way we do.
Calls for Taiwan to use a "porcupine" strategy to deter China by raising the price China would pay to defeat Taiwan has a feel of bargain-hunting for your very existence. Last year I wrote a post about an author who said China can't be deterred from invading Taiwan. Which flies in the face of claims that a "porcupine" strategy can inflict so many casualties that it will deter China. It seems promising on the surface. After all, China apparently gave us a metric to work with.
Does Russia's continued invasion after perhaps 100,000 dead soldiers and a weakened and isolated economy disprove this claim in light of the belief I shared that Russia was casualty averse even 75 years after the massive losses of World War II?
Perhaps knowing that outcome would happen would have deterred Russia. But Russia clearly did not think it would suffer unacceptable casualties when it invaded in its parade ground formations. Yet once committed to war, the price Putin and Russians are willing to accept very clearly went up.
I was long skeptical that America "signaled" acceptance of Saddam's invasion of Kuwait. My view was that our ambassador admitting a small border adjustment by Iraq might not be a cause for war was not a trigger for full Iraqi invasion. And the concurrent signal of American naval demonstrations should have countered that, in any case. This article explores Iraq's decision to invade in 1990 as an internal debate with different assumptions about the world that American words did not affect. And similarly, Biden's apparent signal that America would accept a small Russian invasion of Ukraine had no effect on curbing Putin's grand ambitions of restoring the Russian/Soviet empire.
I'm highly skeptical that nuanced "signalling" with announcements and actions has much of an effect, especially in a crisis. I think diplomats and leaders flatter themselves that the "right" subtle formulation of a finely wordsmithed statement made publicly or privately can solve a crisis without war. That assumes a degree of our foe's understanding of our cultural and governmental differences and a high degree of understanding subtle differences in language. It also to a great degree denies other countries agency, assuming they simply react to our actions and words. Our job under that delusion is to figure out the right "trigger" for these unthinking states that lack their own motivations.
I've long been highly skeptical that our mil-to-mil contacts with China deter them.
Heck, I recently read that America's placing South Korea outside of our defense perimeter before the Korean War had no effect on North Korean and Russian decision-making about invading South Korea. I'd long accepted that our statement virtually invited the invasion. Apparently not. And I should have known given my skepticism about our signalling capabilities.
Clearly, a lot of factors are involved.
--What information is an enemy getting from its own government?
--Does an attacker think the target is weak from some fatal flaw that creates a temporary window of vulnerability? Or is there a temporary window of friendly advantages that provide a fleeting opportunity?
--Does an attacker think it is stronger than it is?
--Does a country think it is deterring Action A but is only deterring Action B? In the case of China and Taiwan, is America working to deter a Chinese conquest of Taiwan (Action A) while China is only aiming to land and remain on Taiwan as stage one of a takeover (Action B)? The cost to China gets much lower for that course of action, no?
--How does an attacker cope with a defender's actions to deter the attacker? Will the attacker believe it has nullified enough of the defenders deterrence measures for long enough to win without triggering intervention?
--And what if the attacker believes its nuclear weapons are the ultimate deterrence to a conventional response by the defender? Russia claims to think this.
--Does an attacker think its greater claim of interest means a defender with lesser interests will give way to higher willingness to sacrifice?
--Deterring an enemy requires at least a reputation for resolve. Deterrence may falter without it. A state without a reputation may not have its sincere words believed.
--And when you consider that the Chinese Communist Party considers its survival paramount over protecting China from damage, is our deterrence concept based on a Western model of what leaders value?
Too often, analysts who speak of deterring a potential enemy assume that
deterrence-level forces can be deployed to maintain peace. This is
supposed to be less expensive than building military forces capable of
winning a war. That kind of nuanced defense thinking is folly. It invites war.
And God help us, but sliding down from military superiority to military deterrence leads to even more BS levels of deterrence strategy.
UPDATE: This is the wrong question:
In 2020, [Representative] Mac Thornberry wanted to answer two questions: How much is the U.S. spending to prevent a war with China, and is it enough?
Ask if what America needs to spend in order to defeat China in a war. China's view on what deters them can change in a heartbeat. But what America has to defeat China changes slowly. Get the latter, please.
NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here.
