How should states respond to threats of nuclear coercion, such as those that come from North Korea and Pakistan? It is difficult to identify a pragmatic policy course: if a state don’t respond, it erodes deterrence; if the response is too punitive, it risks escalation. For a variety of reasons, including politics and psychology, policymakers and military strategists tend to gravitate to punitive approaches. Yet most of these options, if exercised alone, increase the risks of conflict escalation and deterrence failure. One way to mitigate such risk is through strategies that combine punitive threats with reassurance and incentives for improved relations.
Event coverage
Dr Toby Dalton from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace delivered an evening talk on 10 January 2018, entitled “Coercion in the New Nuclear Age”.
Dr Dalton noted that the global security environment has changed significantly since the end of the Cold War. With an increase in the number of nuclear states that perceive the strategic value of nuclear power differently, and none of them willing to relinquish their arsenals, there needs to be a critical evaluation of previously-held assumptions in this new nuclear age.
Commenting on the current North Korean crisis, Dr Dalton stressed the need for leaders to obviate the threat but also prevent escalation in the crisis. Past failures in negotiations with North Korea have narrowed the space of diplomacy, while the US does not wish to damage its credibility among allies and face an embarrassing loss of reputation by backing down. Yet, history has shown that coercion under the shadow of nuclear weapons has had very little success and that carrying through on threats would likely lead to cataclysmic consequences.
Dr Dalton proposed that the US should combine coercion with reassurance to achieve the overarching objective of averting conflict and limiting proliferation. To that effect, the US should cease activities that muddle signalling and risk escalation, while refocusing military options away from punishment and towards defence. The US should also seek other non-military ways to pressure North Korea without driving them to desperation. Most importantly, Washington needs to find ways to signal reassurance and restraint.
Reassurance to adversaries might be unpalatable and could run the risk of being exploited or encourage further provocative behaviour, but Dr Dalton warned that the consequences of conflict escalation would be far worse.