The Strategy of Denial: American Defense in an Age of Great Power Conflict

by Elbridge A. Colby

Once the alliance had broken the back of Russia’s forces in Eastern Europe and possibly Western Russia, what, Moscow might wonder, would stop them from going farther, perhaps exploiting Russia’s defeat by dictating political terms that would infringe on Russia’s own sovereignty, at least as Moscow understood it? NATO might deny any such aspirations, but would Moscow believe such protestations, especially given that war aims can so readily change during a conflict? To Russian decision-makers—and to those wondering how they might act—such a set of circumstances might appear to make deliberate nuclear escalation a less unattractive option for Russian decision-makers than conventional defeat and relying on the alliance’s clemency. In a sense, the strength of Russia’s strategy would lie in its weakness—its vulnerability if its forces defending its gains in the Baltics and Eastern Poland were to be ejected. Without this fundamental weakness, Russia’s threat to escalate would not, paradoxically, seem so credible.42