Quote Originally Posted by William F. Owen View Post
Wallah! If my Aunt had wheels she would be truck.
Can you deter anything but an action? No you cannot.
Correctly applying the threat of harm to your opponent is required. Did I say anything different?
We can use HA as an example. To what can/should we attribute their lack of attacks against Israel since 2006? From your earlier comments in this thread it appears you believe that the cause of their inaction is the deterrent effect from the 2006 campaign. There may be something to that, but there are other causes that are probably just as important if not more so. After all, Nasrallah publicly said the event that precipitated that conflict was a mistake and that HA did not expect the Israeli response. IOW, it was miscalculation that caused that conflict and not any failure of deterrence. Deterrence has limited power over miscalculation.

The point is that lack of action is not proof an opponent is deterred since there can be (and often are) many reasons an actor may not pursue a particular COA. The danger is that one may think deterrence is "working" when in fact it isn't working at all.