On Thresholds in Soviet Military Thought,
Abstract
Since the early 1960s, American strategic theory has dwelled heavily on the question of conflict thresholds and their significance in determining the advisability of various U.S. options in crises. This approach has been part of a broader American tendency to regard military power as a bargaining tool for selectively influencing adversary behavior in circumstances where the destructiveness of nuclear weaponry has ruled out more undisciplined modes of force employment. Its object has been to identify distinct levels in the scope and intensity of violence whose manipulation might influence an adversary's crisis decisionmaking and thus capitalize on his reluctance to assume escalatory risks. The quintessential example of this fixation was Herman Kahn's classic escalation ladder, which depicted 44 discrete rungs of interstate violence ranging from prewar crisis maneuvering to full-blown, insensate nuclear war. Although largely untested in practice, the intellectual premises that inspired this and similar notions have exerted a major influence on U.S. strategic concepts, not only for European and other regional contingencies but also for direct conflict with the Soviet Union. This paper reflects on how the Soviets have come to think about thresholds in their own strategic planning.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Mar 01, 1983
- Accession Number
- ADA151291
Entities
People
- B. S. Lambeth
Organizations
- RAND Corporation