Deterrence of Irregular Threats

[Dayuhan]

Huh? Sorry do not understand. I said that deterrence is based on deterring action, not thought, intent or desire. If you seek to deter an action and that action does not occur, by any measure the deterrence has been successful. If you have another definition, I'm all ears.

If you seek to deter an action and that action does not occur, that does not necessarily mean that the action didn't occur because of something you did to deter it. I would think that to declare a policy of deterrence "successful" there would be have to be some evidence to suggest that our actions deriving from the policy of deterrence were the cause of the inaction.

If there was an intention to carry out more attacks on the US, and those attacks were not carried out because our actions left the enemy unable to proceed with their intention, the policy of deterrence was successful. If there was no intention to carry out further attacks, the policy of deterrence was irrelevant. If a riot policeman holds up a shield when the people throwing rocks have already moved on to other targets, it's hard to declare that the shield was what protected the policeman.

The question is whether no further attacks were made because we prevented them, or because, having achieved the desired goal, the enemy had no further need or desire to attack. Of course we don't know which is the case, but there's enough uncertainty there that I wouldn't want to claim success for a policy of deterrence.

[William F. Owen]

If you seek to deter an action and that action does not occur, that does not necessarily mean that the action didn't occur because of something you did to deter it. I would think that to declare a policy of deterrence "successful" there would be have to be some evidence to suggest that our actions deriving from the policy of deterrence were the cause of the inaction.

Agreed. You'll never know, but that in no way negates threatening people with greater harm, if they harm you. You may deter threats you never knew existed, just because of reputation.
It's having the reputation which is key, and reputations are built on clear and unambiguous threats (capability and intent) of the use force.