📢 New article🌟
👤 Do Young Lee (ISV) @doyoung-lee.bsky.social
👉 Why reassuring allies is harder than deterring adversaries in extended deterrence: Evidence from US extended deterrence for South Korea
📖 Published in British Journal of Politics & International Relations.
🔗 doi.org/10.1177/1369...
📣 New #openaccess #BJPIR article out now!
'Why reassuring allies is harder than deterring adversaries in extended deterrence: Evidence from US extended deterrence for South Korea' by @doyoung-lee.bsky.social
🔗 buff.ly/hKd5ICi
@polstudiesassoc.bsky.social
The fact that Moscow’s grey-zone activities are increasing yet remain limited may reflect a modest degree of deterrence success. [10/10]
This study offers implications for #NATO-Europe today. While US ambiguous commitments amplify allied anxiety, they may also force #Putin to continually gauge US responses. [9/10]
Drawing on the collected works of Kim Il-sung, the founder of NK, published in Pyongyang, this study shows that US ambiguous commitments toward SK often confused his expectations about US wartime responses and induced caution regarding a re-invasion of the South. [8/10]
To probe the plausibility of this argument, I examine how American ambiguity has been perceived in both South and North Korea. Historically, NK’s perception of US commitments to Seoul has been understudied, largely due to the difficulty of accessing reliable data. [7/10]
In short, ambiguity degrades reassurance while sustaining deterrence. I argue that this dual effect of a patron’s ambiguous commitments makes reassuring allies harder than deterring adversaries. [6/10]
Conversely, a patron’s ambiguity generates deterrence-equilibrium effects: positive and negative effects cancel out, yielding a net-neutral impact on deterring adversaries. These offsetting effects help sustain a consistent deterrent outcome. [5/10]
To mitigate the risk of entrapment, a patron introduces ambiguity into extended deterrence commitments. Yet this makes commitments appear unreliable to allies, heightening fears of abandonment. Its effect on reassurance is uniformly negative. [4/10]
While his claim has been widely cited among scholars and practitioners, the question of why reassurance is harder than deterrence has remained theoretically unexplained. My research fills this long-standing gap in the extended deterrence/alliance literature. [3/10]
Former British defence minister Denis Healey famously argued that it “only takes 5 percent credibility of American retaliation to deter an attack [from the Soviets], but it takes a 95 percent credibility to reassure the allies.” [2/10]
Thrilled to share that my article has been published
@bjpir.bsky.social sky.social In this piece, I explain why reassuring allies is harder than deterring adversaries from invading those allies in the context of extended deterrence. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... [1/10]
A senior official in the Japanese government commented that Japan should possess nuclear weapons. It seems like a good time to post again my co-authored open access article with @doyoung-lee.bsky.social . www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10..... Curious about the domestic and international reactions.
Our latest roundtable examines the rapidly evolving global nuclear order. From North Korea to NATO, China to Latin America, this collection of essays explores the domestic and international forces reshaping nuclear security.
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