detterence morgen review

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Southern Political Science Association

Deterrence: A Conceptual Analysis. by Patrick M. MorganReview by: Robert C. GrayThe Journal of Politics, Vol. 41, No. 1 (Feb., 1979), pp. 245-247Published by: Cambridge University Presson behalf of the Southern Political Science AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2129606.

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BOOK REVIEWS 245regimes are, in essence, advocated by their creators, there is nooverly sanguine cast to their arguments; that the regime they ad-vocate has problems as well as promise is clearly recognized byeach. It is to their credit that the advocates devote careful attentionto these problems, even if they do not always resolve them.With regard to the fourth possibility, strategic deterioration,Gompert cautions against overdrawing estimates of such processesas proliferation and strategic disparity, but points out that Americanchoices in dealing with inferiority come down to one of the basicdilemmas of the nuclear age: to prepare for the worst or to do thebest to ensure that the worst does not occur. This dilemma is notconfined to the worst case alone, but is present, to one degree oranother, in each of the other regimes. The efforts of Gompert andhis collaborators do not solve the dilemma, but they clarify thechoices and their likely consequences.

RANDOLPH M. SIVERSON, University of California, Davis

Deterrence: A Conceptual Analysis. By PATRICK M. MORGAN.(Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications, 1977. Pp. 216. $11.00cloth, $6.00 paper.)As Patrick Morgan accurately observes, deterrence has been thefocus of one of the more elaborate attempts at rigorous theory inthe social sciences. (p. 25) It is to his credit that his book, theproduct of a year at the Woodrow Wilson International Center forScholars, manages to make a useful contribution to a crowded field.He differentiates between two types of deterrence situations.Immediate deterrence is a situation in which an attack is beingactively considered by one or the other side. General deterrencedeals with opponents who maintain armed forces to regulate theirrelations even though neither is anywhere near mounting an attack.(p. 28) Much of the book is an attempt to reformulate deterrencetheory by placing immediate deterrence in the framework of politi-cal decision-making.- Among the useful contributions of the volume is a considerationof deterrence in terms of different levels of analysis. Following thegeneral approach of Graham Allison, Morgan discusses what would

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246 THE JOURNAL OF POLITICS, VOL. 41, 1979be required for deterrence to work at the level of the individual(personality), the group level (bureaucratic politics and organiza-tional process), and the level of the national actor, pointing outthat one's conceptual lense affects one's notion of deterrence.Having considered these varying perspectives, Morgan concen-trates on immediate deterrence and the assumption of rationalitythat underlies so much of the literature. He describes perfectdecision-making (such as game theory) and criticizes it for beingirrelevant to the world of the decision-maker. He considers ra-tional decision-making and finds it lacking because of its focus onprocess rather than on the objectives of decision-makers. Thus,he concludes that the most common conceptions of rationality inthe theoretical literature cannot be used to explain how deterrenceworks. (p. 101)As an alternative, he constructs a model of sensible decisionmaking, in which policy-makers approach problems under the con-straints of political realities. In describing how deterrence wouldwork under the assumptions of this model, Morgan returns to theseveral levels of analysis discussed earlier and enumerates the manyfactors (largely neglected in the classic literature on deterrence)that affect how a government might react to the essence of immedi-ate deterrence, a retaliatory threat.His treatment of crises provides a good example of how he drawson diverse factors that condition decision-making. He suggests thatidiosyncratic and organizational factors may make prolonged crisesmore conducive to the breakdown of deterrence than acute ones.This is so because a leader would have more time to adjust toadopting the contingency plans resulting from organizational rou-tines. As he puts it: Eventually the crisis may reach a point whereit takes a non-incremental decision to not go to war. (p. 191)Because deterrence continues to be a cornerstone of Americanforeign policy, it is imperative that we understand how it works.Morgan suggests that classic deterrence theory fails in this regardand that there are two possible responses. One is the inductiveapproach of Alexander L. George and Richard Smoke's recent work,Deterrence in American Foreign Policy: Theory and Practice, inwhich numerous instances of attempts to deter are examined. Theother is that of Morgan, wherein the theory itself is reformulated.The two approaches (and these two books) are complementary.Every serious student of deterrence and of American foreign policyshould read both, for in doing so it is difficult to resist the conclusion



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BOOK REVIEWS 247that deterrence theory as it has existed and been applied by U.S.leaders needs re-examination and re-formulation.

Morgan's book, being much shorter and focusing much morespecifically on theoretical issues, is the more accessible of the twobooks. It would provoke a major re-evaluation of one of the mostimportant concepts in the field of foreign policy.ROBERT C. GRAY, Franklin and Marshall College

Military Expenditure Limitation for Arms Control: Problems andProspects. By ABRAHAM S. BECKER. (Cambridge, MA: Bal-linger Publishing Co., 1977. Pp. xiv, 352. $17.50.)In this RAND Corporation study supported by the U.S. Arms Con-trol and Disarmament Agency, Abraham S. Becker crisply surveysthe complexity inherent in a military expenditure limitation (MEL)approach to arms control and provides a useful collection of perti-nent documentary materials.He presents a series of well-reasoned counter-arguments to theSoviet position that MEL through matching percentage reductionsin aggregate defense budgets provides a simple mode of arms con-trol devoid of special national advantage or destabilizing effects.MEL initially seems attractive because of the lack of progresswith physical limitations area control agreements and as a remedyfor problems which that approach leaves untouched. These includethe shift of military effort into unlimited military programs, the in-ability to simulate R&D and thus the momentum for qualitativearms races in force size terms, and the need to allow different na-tions to adjust their military posture in line with unique securityand political economy considerations. MEL steps seem to promisea release of resources from the defense sector to other uses andallow advocates of MEL to curry political favor with potential re-cipients of the freed resources, e.g., by promising unrequited trans-fers to the less developed countries.Becker pierces this surface plausibility and attractiveness to cata-logue the difficulties in designing and implementing MEL so as toachieve arms control benefits. He examines MEL in terms of:measurement and comparison of military utility, costs, and outputsacross defense categories and organization, stability implications of


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