This open access volume surveys the state of the field to examine whether a fifth wave of deterrence theory is emerging. Bringing together insights from world-leading experts from three continents, the volume identifies the most pressing strategic challenges, frames theoretical concepts, and describes new strategies. The use and utility of deterrence in today’s strategic environment is a topic of paramount concern to scholars, strategists and policymakers. Ours is a period of considerable strategic turbulence, which in recent years has featured a renewed emphasis on nuclear weapons used in defence postures across different theatres; a dramatic growth in the scale of military cyber capabilities and the frequency with which these are used; and rapid technological progress including the proliferation of long-range strike and unmanned systems. These military-strategic developments occur in a polarized international system, where cooperation between leading powers on arms control regimes is breaking down, states widely make use of hybrid conflict strategies, and the number of internationalized intrastate proxy conflicts has quintupled over the past two decades. Contemporary conflict actors exploit a wider gamut of coercive instruments, which they apply across a wider range of domains. The prevalence of multi-domain coercion across but also beyond traditional dimensions of armed conflict raises an important question: what does effective deterrence look like in the 21st century? Answering that question requires a re-appraisal of key theoretical concepts and dominant strategies of Western and non-Western actors in order to assess how they hold up in today’s world. Air Commodore Professor Dr. Frans Osinga is the Chair of the War Studies Department of the Netherlands Defence Academy and the Special Chair in War Studies at the University Leiden. Dr. Tim Sweijs is the Director of Research at The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies and a Research Fellow at the Faculty of Military Sciences of the Netherlands Defence Academy in Breda.

Chapter 1. Introduction.- Part I. Concepts of Deterrence (Evolution, Rediscovery, Conventional, Nuclear, Cross-domain).- Chapter 2. Understanding Deterrence.- Chapter 3. Deterrence Rediscovered: NATO and Russia.- Chapter 4. The Continuing Relevance of Conventional Deterrence.- Chapter 5. Nuclear Deterrence: A Guarantee for or Threat to Strategic Stability?.- Chapter 6. The US and Extended Deterrence.- Chapter 7. Deterrence by Punishment or Denial: The EFP Case.- Chapter 8. The Essence of Cross-domain Deterrence.- Part II. Non-Western Concepts of Deterrence.- Chapter 9. Deterrence à la Ruse: Its Uniqueness, Sources and Implications.- Chapter 10. An Overview of Chinese Thinking about Characteristics of Deterrence.- Chapter 11. Japanese Concepts of Deterrence.- Chapter 12. Deterrence (In)stability between India and Pakistan.- Chapter 13. Iran's Syria Strategy.- Chapter 14. The Evolution of Deterrence.- Part III. Deterrence of Non-State Actors.- Chapter 15. Deterring Violent Non-State Actors.- Chapter 16. All Deterrence is Local: The Utility and Application of Localised Deterrence in Counterinsurgency.- Chapter 17. "This has triggered a civil war" Russian Deterrence of Democratic Revolts.- Chapter 18. Deterrence in Peace Operations.- Part IV.- New Instruments and Domains of Deterrence.- Chapter 19. Sanctions and Deterrence: Targeted Sanctions.- Chapter 20. Deterrence, Resilience and the Shooting Down of Flight MH17.- Chapter 21. Cyber Deterrence: The Past, Present, and Future.- Chapter 22. New Technologies and Deterrence: Artificial Intelligence and Adversarial Behaviour.- Part V Rationality, Psychology and Emotions.- Chapter 23. Nuclear Deterrence in the Algorithmic Age: Game Theory Revisited.- Chapter 24. What's on the Human Mind? Decision Theory and Deterrence.- Chapter 25. Deterrence: A Continuation of Emotional Life with the Admixture of Violent Means.- Chapter 26. The Missing Component in Deterrence Theory: The Legal Framework.- Conclusion: Insights from Theory and Practice.

This is an open access volume of the NL ARMS offers an interdisciplinary view on the domain of Compliance and Integrity in International Military Trade (CIIMT), integrating defence economics, international law, arms export control frameworks and policies, information management, organizational sciences and ethics. Although, in academia, and from an interdisciplinary perspective, CIIMT constitutes a relatively novel research domain, across private and public defence-related sectors, the subject evokes high levels of attention and interest, instigating a need for critical thinking, reflection and creativity to address ensuing multi-faceted issues and problems. The Faculty of Military Sciences at the Netherlands Defence Academy extends an in-house MSc programme on CIIMT, which, by integrating practice-based and scientific-based knowledge, aims to contribute to this need. The MSc programme on CIIMT is concerned with exploring, analysing, understanding, explaining, controlling and improving the military dimension in international military trade. More particularly, CIIMT studies managerial questions regarding strategic trade control of military and dual-use goods and services. CIIMT ties in with the Netherlands Defence Academy's vision on scientific education, embedded in the reflective practitioners' paradigm uniting both management and leadership skills needed to decide and operate in high-tension and high-risk knowledge intensive environments. The Faculty of Military Sciences uses the reflective practitioners' paradigm to refer to critical thinking, reflection and Bildung that characterize its thinking doers, the so-called Thinking Soldiers, either at the academic Bachelor's or Master's level. In view of the complexity of the international trade regarding military and dual-use goods and services, the rapid evolvement of strategic trade control and frameworks, and its importance to procurement processes, defence organizations require innovative thinking doers, who, based on an in-depth understanding, from an interdisciplinary perspective can be expected to find - and take responsibility for - creative solutions to problems. NL ARMS 2021 comprises, amongst others, contributions from students and lecturers partaking in this programme. volume of the NL ARMS offers an interdisciplinary view on the domain of Compliance and Integrity in International Military Trade (CIIMT), integrating defence economics, international law, arms export control frameworks and policies, information management, organizational sciences and ethics. Although, in academia, and from an interdisciplinary perspective, CIIMT constitutes a relatively novel research domain, across private and public defence-related sectors, the subject evokes high levels of attention and interest, instigating a need for critical thinking, reflection and creativity to address ensuing multi-faceted issues and problems. The Faculty of Military Sciences at the Netherlands Defence Academy extends an in-house MSc programme on CIIMT, which, by integrating practice-based and scientific-based knowledge, aims to contribute to this need. The MSc programme on CIIMT is concerned with exploring, analysing, understanding, explaining, controlling and improving the military dimension in international military trade. More particularly, CIIMT studies managerial questions regarding strategic trade control of military and dual-use goods and services. CIIMT ties in with the Netherlands Defence Academy's vision on scientific education, embedded in the reflective practitioners' paradigm uniting both management and leadership skills needed to decide and operate in high-tension and high-risk knowledge intensive environments. The Faculty of Military Sciences uses the reflective practitioners' paradigm to refer to critical thinking, reflection and Bildung that characterize its thinking doers, the so-called Thinking Soldiers, either at the academic Bachelor's or Master's level. In view of the complexity of the international trade regarding military and dual-use goods and services, the rapid evolvement of strategic trade control and frameworks, and its importance to procurement processes, defence organizations require innovative thinking doers, who, based on an in-depth understanding, from an interdisciplinary perspective can be expected to find - and take responsibility for - creative solutions to problems. NL ARMS 2021 comprises, amongst others, contributions from students and lecturers partaking in this programme.

The moment in the sun for special operations sometimes appears to have passed, seemingly eclipsed by preparations for potential conflict under the guise of "great power" competition, combined with failure in Afghanistan. Yet the war in Ukraine serves as a reminder that special operations play an even greater role today?before, during and presumably after conflict. The challenge remains dealing with current irregular and hybrid threats, at the same time as preparing for an uncertain future, as threats and technologies evolve at a dizzying pace. Focusing too much on the future of conventional warfare creates a void in national security discussions related to special operations. This book seeks to fill that gap, drawing on the expertise of scholars and practitioners in the field, from the Indo-Pacific, Europe and the United States, to answer what, if anything, special operations can or should seek to do, and how. The contributors explore such topics as proxies, non-state special forces, capabilities, innovation and transformation, artificial intelligence, and special operations in space and cyberspace. These chapters are united by their analysis that special operations will have future strategic and operational value, for allies and adversaries alike, provided that difficult choices are made in the present.

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.

This book examines key issue areas of Indo-Pacific strategies such as cyber security, space security, maritime security, emerging technologies, and institutional frameworks in the context of deepening US–China rivalry. With greater interconnectedness across various fields, the Indo-Pacific region faces greater security challenges including future strategic power competition. States are increasingly engaging in intense strategic activities and strengthening partnerships. The first part of book focuses on the strategic competition between the United States and China in different areas including cyber security, space security, maritime security, emerging technologies, and institutional frameworks. The second part of the book presents the perspectives of different local actors in the regional theatre and the intentions and concepts behind their growing interconnectedness under Indo-Pacific strategies, including China, Russia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and North Korea. Through examining different aspects of US–Indo-Pacific strategy, this edited book contributes to a better understanding of Indo-Pacific strategy and its implications for broader security cooperation in a more interconnected world. The book will be of interest to scholars and policy makers working on Asian Security, Politics, International Relations, and the security dynamics of East Asia and the Indo-Pacific.