501. No I in Team: Integrated Deterrence with Allies and Partners
- Author:
- Stacie L. Pettyjohn and Becca Wasser
- Publication Date:
- 12-2022
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Center for a New American Security (CNAS)
- Abstract:
- The United States faces a strategic landscape unlike anything it has encountered in its recent history. It faces a rising great power in China, a diminished but still dangerous Russian military threat, and myriad “lesser threats” in the form of Iran, North Korea, and violent extremist organizations. Moving forward, the United States will need to deter aggression by two nuclear armed great-power adversaries while also keeping other threats at bay to protect the U.S. homeland and its global interests. But Washington finds itself in a precarious position where it may not have sufficient capacity, capability, nor readiness to contend with multiple advanced threats and crises. The Pentagon, therefore, needs allies and partners to help it deter Chinese and Russian aggression and manage the lesser but persistent threats that could grow if ignored. To overcome these challenges, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) has advanced the concept of integrated deterrence in the 2022 National Defense Strategy (NDS). Integrated deterrence seeks to integrate all tools of national power across domains, geography, and spectrum of conflict, while working with allies and partners. But what integrated deterrence entails in practical terms remains unclear, particularly to the very allies and partners Washington wants more from. This ambiguity raises the risk that integrated deterrence may find itself dead on arrival—and along with it, the ally and partner line of effort in the NDS. This risk is particularly high since the unclassified version of the NDS, which is the only one that is available to most allies and partners, was long delayed and finally released in late October 2022. To enable the DoD’s NDS implementation efforts and turn integrated deterrence from rhetoric to reality, the authors developed a framework to help the department think about and implement its strategy of integrated deterrence with allies and partners. This framework highlights three levels of integration between the United States and its allies and partners: tactical, institutional, and strategic.
- Topic:
- Defense Policy, Alliance, and Deterrence
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus and United States of America