Abstract:
Deterrence thinking shaped by the Cold War’s “existential bargaining” between states no longer fits the technological and political challenges of the contemporary security environment. New tools and domains of competition are expanding the competition space below the threshold of war. This is complemented by increasing complexity due to the growth of salient actors and interconnections between them. These features, while limiting the utility of traditional deterrence, make possible the concept of cross domain deterrence in which states use advantages in one domain to compensate for disadvantages in another and shift the bargaining terms.
Key words: Deterrence, cyber-deterrence, cross domain deterrence, gray zone conflict, complexity
Author:
Erik Gartzke and Jon Lindsay