What do you think?
Rate this book
Perfect Deterrence
This book provides the first general analysis of deterrence since the end of the Cold War, offering a new approach to its assumptions, and analyzing them using non-cooperative game theory. Drawing on numerous historical examples, the authors focus on the relationship among capability, preferences, credibility, and outcomes to achieve a new understanding of threats and responses. The book's distinctive approach yields some surprising conclusions, indicating that credible threats to respond to attack can sometimes make an attack more likely, and that incredible response threats can sometimes promote peace.
442 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2000
1 person is currently reading
13 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
March 14, 2026
Reread the book because the world has changed to even worse since I read this book. Deterrence is the main problem of today. Deterring Russia from attacking e.g. Finland. (A second reason for rereading the book - besides the world situation - is my increasing interest in Bayesian Game Theory and Bayesian thinking in general.)
Some points:
- The issue of extended deterrence discussed in Part III of the book - how e.g. other NATO members commit to security guarantees for boarder countries - is even more problematic than before. Under the cold war there was confusion about "Would US risk Washington to protect Paris". In other words would US and other NATO countries risk their own security on behalf of some ally. Now when Trump is president in US we can ask whether US even has allies in Europe. Is Extended Deterrence relevant at all? Is it more a question about how US colonialists are going to divide Europe with Russian colonialists? European countries of course have allies inside Europe but how committed are they?
- US and UK betrayed Ukraine in the sense they had given security guarantees but did not care about it when Ukraine was attacked by Russia. Ukraine and Russia were pretty much in a Direct Deterrence situation before the war - like Finland and Russia in 1939 - not in Extended Deterrence situation.
- Direct Deterrence failed because Russia had the wrong belief Ukraine is Soft and gives up fight. In the same way Russia had wrong belief Finland is Soft and gives up fight. What made Ukraine and Finland so Hard, i.e. committed to fight, was how Russia behaved towards their own citizens and towards Ukrainian and Finnish citizens of Russia particularly. Cultural and physical genocide is the Russian way towards Finns and Ukrainians and many other groups. Example: Year 1930 many workers in Finland thought Soviet Union was a Paradise of workers. In 1939 it was pretty evident Soviet Union even for many Finnish communists Soviet Union was a Hell of the Finnish people whether workers or Bourgeois.
So my conclusion: Deterrence certainly is relevant even today. But Extended Deterrence much less as in the Glorious years of NATO during the Gold War.
My old review written in a more optimistic time just a few years ago:
A sound game-theoretic approach to deterrence based on the "game theory with incomplete information". I think the approach can be seen as some kind of major disruption with the older literature more based on ad hoc explanations, or unsound thinking like deterrence based on irrational/incredible threats.
The Perfect Deterrence Theory also solves the conflict between Classical Deterrence Theory believing in nuclear weapons ensuring deterrence success and the competing Spiral Theory which claims the probability of escalation to all-out-war is always very probable by analyzing the conditions under which the deterrence success is more probable and those conditions under which they are less probable.
The book also shows theoretically that a Flexible response - based on two-level threats (first level based on a threat of use of conventional weapons or tactical nuclear weapons, second level based on the use of strategical nuclear weapons) - really increases the probability of deterrence success compared to Massive retaliation (based on the threat of using Strategic nuclear weapons´) in case of an attack on a near ally).
This was to me also an introduction to the subject of deterrence and nuclear deterrence. As such this was a very very heavy read. Many questions remained open. The deterrence success is never for sure (!) but it is more probably successful - in an asymmetric situation where e.g. Russia/China is challenging the status quo - when the defender is defending homeland or when the challenger is not totally unsatisfied with the status quo. In situations when the ally of the defender is strongly linked to the defender - like using the NATO fifth article - the deterrence is also quite possible.
My personal interest was mainly to understand how to deter Russia from (again) attacking the people of Eastern Europe or the similar situation of China attacking Taiwan - and possibly the two acting coordinated and so threatening the West to come in a two-front conflict. The risk of a conflict looks quite high in 2021 due to the dissatisfaction of both China and Russia with the status quo and some very uncommitted presidents having been in power in the US before Biden. Biden has taken deterrence seriously by e.g. creating the AUKUS agreement. AUKUS agreement is e.g. according to Pekka Virkki probably also to the benefit of Europe. The risk of two-front conflict is decreased and thus also the risk of Russian aggression against Europe. http://www.suomensotilas.fi/aukus-on-...
Some points:
- The issue of extended deterrence discussed in Part III of the book - how e.g. other NATO members commit to security guarantees for boarder countries - is even more problematic than before. Under the cold war there was confusion about "Would US risk Washington to protect Paris". In other words would US and other NATO countries risk their own security on behalf of some ally. Now when Trump is president in US we can ask whether US even has allies in Europe. Is Extended Deterrence relevant at all? Is it more a question about how US colonialists are going to divide Europe with Russian colonialists? European countries of course have allies inside Europe but how committed are they?
- US and UK betrayed Ukraine in the sense they had given security guarantees but did not care about it when Ukraine was attacked by Russia. Ukraine and Russia were pretty much in a Direct Deterrence situation before the war - like Finland and Russia in 1939 - not in Extended Deterrence situation.
- Direct Deterrence failed because Russia had the wrong belief Ukraine is Soft and gives up fight. In the same way Russia had wrong belief Finland is Soft and gives up fight. What made Ukraine and Finland so Hard, i.e. committed to fight, was how Russia behaved towards their own citizens and towards Ukrainian and Finnish citizens of Russia particularly. Cultural and physical genocide is the Russian way towards Finns and Ukrainians and many other groups. Example: Year 1930 many workers in Finland thought Soviet Union was a Paradise of workers. In 1939 it was pretty evident Soviet Union even for many Finnish communists Soviet Union was a Hell of the Finnish people whether workers or Bourgeois.
So my conclusion: Deterrence certainly is relevant even today. But Extended Deterrence much less as in the Glorious years of NATO during the Gold War.
My old review written in a more optimistic time just a few years ago:
A sound game-theoretic approach to deterrence based on the "game theory with incomplete information". I think the approach can be seen as some kind of major disruption with the older literature more based on ad hoc explanations, or unsound thinking like deterrence based on irrational/incredible threats.
The Perfect Deterrence Theory also solves the conflict between Classical Deterrence Theory believing in nuclear weapons ensuring deterrence success and the competing Spiral Theory which claims the probability of escalation to all-out-war is always very probable by analyzing the conditions under which the deterrence success is more probable and those conditions under which they are less probable.
The book also shows theoretically that a Flexible response - based on two-level threats (first level based on a threat of use of conventional weapons or tactical nuclear weapons, second level based on the use of strategical nuclear weapons) - really increases the probability of deterrence success compared to Massive retaliation (based on the threat of using Strategic nuclear weapons´) in case of an attack on a near ally).
This was to me also an introduction to the subject of deterrence and nuclear deterrence. As such this was a very very heavy read. Many questions remained open. The deterrence success is never for sure (!) but it is more probably successful - in an asymmetric situation where e.g. Russia/China is challenging the status quo - when the defender is defending homeland or when the challenger is not totally unsatisfied with the status quo. In situations when the ally of the defender is strongly linked to the defender - like using the NATO fifth article - the deterrence is also quite possible.
My personal interest was mainly to understand how to deter Russia from (again) attacking the people of Eastern Europe or the similar situation of China attacking Taiwan - and possibly the two acting coordinated and so threatening the West to come in a two-front conflict. The risk of a conflict looks quite high in 2021 due to the dissatisfaction of both China and Russia with the status quo and some very uncommitted presidents having been in power in the US before Biden. Biden has taken deterrence seriously by e.g. creating the AUKUS agreement. AUKUS agreement is e.g. according to Pekka Virkki probably also to the benefit of Europe. The risk of two-front conflict is decreased and thus also the risk of Russian aggression against Europe. http://www.suomensotilas.fi/aukus-on-...
Displaying 1 of 1 review