384 Journal of the Spanish Institute for Strategic Studies N. 6 / 2015 security on the assumption that other actors will be deterred from their action after knowing the other party capabilities. In order to work, deterrence strategies should operate in a situation where both actors do their calculations based on their respective values but sharing the same rational framework. Deterrence is commonly thought as a decision making process relation between two rational entities, where one of the two entities issues a threat of retaliation which carries a very high damage that the other state then balances that the benefits obtained by an attack are not enough to justify the attack itself.8 However, in order to pose a credible and convincing threat, normally military threats accompany all types of deterrence strategies. In the context of an overall policy, military force is likely to be only “one tool among many diplomatic, economic, political, military responses or anticipatory actions designed to guide development of an international interaction in directions that will prevent an outcome inimical to our interests”.9 This brings to different basic conclusions that can be extracted from the deterrence theory itself. Firstly, deterrence assumes a shared rationality within a deciding process where both states will be also able to know the costs and benefits being balanced by the other actor. Secondly, deterrence in order to work needs that the other entity notices the threat as real and credible. A state who has a reputation for standing firm not only will be able to win disputes by threatening to fight, will be able to avoid confrontations without damaging its image.10 When looking into the Middle East reality, this has been one of the main founding principles of the traditional deterrence Israeli policy, where all the country retaliatory and preemptive actions intended to have a parallel effect and wanted to arouse a firm reputation in order to avoid possible future confrontations. Thus, on the other hand, this can be found in the Iranian nuclear aspirations conducted during the last three presidential administrations, where the country sough a deterrence power to counter balance the Israeli deterrence power by gaining a reputation of renewed regional power. Overall, a deterrence strategy cannot be considered as a static situation, therefore it does involve specific dynamics. Firstly, it should balance the main factors involved in the situation that the country wants to avoid, what is wanted to be avoided and which is the new desired scenario. The target of deterrence also needs to be accurately defined so that the necessary analyses can be undertaken to understand the adversary’s objectives. A very complex process where the action that is to be deterred, the key 8 SODUPE, Keppa. La teoría de la disuasión: un análisis de las debilidades del paradigma estatocéntrico, Barcelona: Àfers Internacionals, núm. 22, CIDOB, 1991, p. 62. 9 NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL, Post-cold war conflict deterrence, National Academy of Sciences, 1997, p. 12. 10 JERVIS, R, Deterrence and perception, International security, vol. 7, winter 1982-83, p. 9. http://revista.ieee.es/index.php/ieee
Revista del IEEE 6
To see the actual publication please follow the link above