Deterrence and Fear; Incorporating Emotions into the Field of Research

Remy Maduit | Authors published

For many years, deterrence was seen and has been constructed as a rational strategy, relying on the view that policymakers are making cost-benefit calculations when they are considering challenging their opponents. These theories were based on the assumption that rational actors would avoid challenging their opponents (the deterrer actor) if the costs of such attacks are higher than the gain they can achieve. Indeed, as early as the 1970s, important works showed how psychological factors take part in shaping the practices of deterrence (e.g., Jervis et al., 1985). However, these psychological approaches were mainly auxiliary tools to explain actors’ divergence from the rational model. In a nutshell, these approaches provided a more accurate account of how actors respond to threats given the various biases they have in acquiring and interpreting information. These psychological approaches could not provide alternative frameworks to explore deterrence.

Within these theories, emotions, and specifically fear, were left out of the study. Indeed, some scholars and practitioners mentioned fear as part of the practices of deterrence. For example, Morgan argues that deterrence ‘is the use of threats to manipulate behavior so that something unwanted does not occur.’ [i] He sharpens this view by relying on the definition of the Department of Defense Dictionary (1994) according to which deterrence ‘is the prevention from action by fear of the consequences’ (in Morgan, 2003: 1, my emphasis). However, despite the nuanced and detailed discussion of the practices of deterrence Morgan provides in his book, the notion of ‘fear’ is repeated throughout the manuscript without elaboration on how it shapes deterrence practices, and how it differs from mere cost-benefit calculations. [ii] How Morgan treats fear is not an exception and other scholars who study this strategy (or the security dilemma) while acknowledging the influence of fear on actors’ behavior [iii] do not untangle its influence on international security. [iv]

With a few exceptions, omitting fear from the study of deterrence, even after the advances in the study of emotions in the last two decades, is not surprising. Several challenges complicate the research on emotions, given that they seem to be difficult to observe. [v] The study of deterrence, which mainly focuses on deterrence success — the manner through which threats affect opponents’ use of force — further exacerbates this problem. In these situations, an arguably non-occurrence (lack of violence) is to be explained by an unobservable mechanism (an emotion, i.e., fear). As Booth and Wheeler argue, leaders do not want to show fear. [vi] According to them at the political level, showing fear ‘is not the way to engender the confidence of one’s community or to deter those who might be threats’. [vii]

Fear which is a ‘basic emotion directed at a specified object that prompts an adaptive response: fight or flight’, plays a significant role in the practices of deterrence. [viii] As several scholars suggest, the study of fear as a collective emotion based on interpretative methods is a promising direction to better understand how deterrence works. [ix] I suggest that the emerging research on emotions—, for example, focusing on their representation [x], their circulation [xi], and how they spiral [xii]—can be incorporated into the study of deterrence in a way that allows to draw important insights and thus help to build alternatives to the rational models of deterrence. It is beyond this piece to fully discuss the various connections between the emotion of fear and deterrence, but I present below several more specific directions. One promising direction to incorporate fear into the study of deterrence may be based on a securitization approach to deterrence [xiii], as not only deterrence but also securitizing moves themselves are shaped by fear. [xiv] Fear may become an important aspect of securitization because a securitizing move may generate a collective fear, which, as Bleiker and Hutchison argue, serves as an important source for justifying collective political and moral foundations. [xv] According to Van Rythoven, securitizing moves in part succeed ‘because they resonate with preexisting meaning in the local audience’s security imaginary, which satisfies the structural requirements for a fear appraisal. Audiences fear threats because they represent phenomena they have already learned to fear or imaginably foresee fearing’. Conversely, when securitizing actors cannot generate collective fear, the securitizing move can be more easily contested. [xvi]

Securitizing moves of deterrence may target different audiences for various purposes, such as acquiring domestic justification for the need to adopt a deterrent strategy and issuing the deterrent threat. [xvii] Acknowledging that deterrence is shaped by securitizing moves allows tracing how actors employ this strategy, and how fear is a part of it. In this respect, fear evoked by domestic audiences is part of a securitizing move that attempts to justify a deterrent threat, or aims to enhance its credibility by pointing to an existential threat this strategy seeks to prevent. Likewise, the securitizing move may attempt to inflict fear on an opponent as part of issuing the deterrent threat. [xviii] In these dynamics, fear as part of a securitizing move plays an important role in the practices of deterrence. Both the established frameworks of securitization and the frameworks for studying collective emotions can be combined to explore these practices.

While fear plays an important role in the practices of deterrence, it does not mean that fear only enhances deterrence success. Fear may undermine deterrence. For example, Lebow asserts that for actors who are motivated by fear, the deterrent threat will not be effective. This is because it may ‘confirm their worse suspicions and intensify conflict by convincing them that unless they stand firm or even issue counter-challenges, they will be perceived as weak and subject to greater threats and demands’. [xix] According to him, fear may cause a cycle of escalation, as was evident in the big crises of the Cold War. [xx] This is an important observation that the emerging research on emotion may help to clarify. How inflicting fear on an opponent affects deterrence success. For example, how such actions are represented and interpreted by an opponent, and how actors are attempting to inflict fear. Following Lebow’s assertion, it is also possible to argue that even if a deterrer actor intimidated an opponent, it does not mean that the opponent will submit to the deterrer threats. The targets of such threats might be so fearful that they think they have nothing to lose, and that nothing they do will affect the deterrer’s behavior, who is expected to anyhow retaliate. [xxi]

Another direction to incorporate the study of fear into the research of deterrence is to trace the connections between fear and other emotions. As Ross argues, emotions themselves are interwoven, and ‘because emotional circulations come in composites, we need to avoid the temptation to isolate single emotions from the others that work with them’. [xxii] Especially interesting are the connections between fear and anxiety. This is because fear related to deterrence can be understood as a mechanism to address ontological insecurity and anxiety. [xxiii] While, as noted above, fear is evoked when physical security is threatened (i.e., survival), anxiety follows threats to the self. [xxiv] As Tillich put it, fear concerns a definite object (i.e., “being afraid of something.”) Conversely, anxiety is about the uncertainty and the threat of non-being. The notion of death exemplifies the difference between fear and anxiety. One may fear dying but be anxious about death. [xxv] Following Tillich, Rumelili [xxvi] asserts that anxiety leads individuals ‘to channel his/her anxieties about death into fears as much as possible because fear can be met by courage and protective measures’. According to Steele, the need for ontological security—the security of the self—is satisfied by ‘securitizing the unknown into an identifiable threat … by turning anxiety into fear’. [xxvii]

Practices of deterrence, especially mutual practices of deterrence, such as MAD, help actors to transform deep uncertainty of interactions with, for example, nuclear opponents, into fear, thus creating a more predictable environment. This controlled and certain environment is achieved through the generation of collective fear–experienced by both sides. [xxviii] This is not to argue that nuclear deterrence is a safe strategy, but that we can see how nuclear deterrence was constructed in a way that emphasizes how it helps to control the environment and thus provides an alleged solution to nuclear weapons that helps to mitigate the unease and anxiety they create.

A deterrence theory based on emotions, ontological security, and securitization provides not only directions to complement the study of rational theories of deterrence. Rather, these notions provide directions to develop alternative frameworks to study deterrence, and to highlight issues concerning the practices of deterrence that have not received enough scholarly attention. For example, issues such as domestic politics and the public, how actors adopt a strategy of deterrence, and how evoking emotional reactions from an opponent affect deterrence success.

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[i] Morgan, Patrick M., 2003. Deterrence Now. Cambridge University Press.

[ii] Id.

[iii] Schelling, Thomas. 1966. Arms and Influence. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Kugler, Jacek., Organski, A. F. K., & Fox, Daniel J. (1980). Deterrence and the Arms Race: The Impotence of Power. International Security, 4(4), 105-138.

[iv] Crawford, Neta .C., 2000. The Passion of World Politics: Propositions on Emotion and Emotional Relationships. International Security, 24(4), pp.116-156.
Bleiker, Roland and Hutchison, Emma. 2008. Fear No More: Emotions and World Politics. Review of International Studies, 34(s1), pp.115-135.

[v] Id.

[vi] Booth, Ken and Wheeler Nicholas J., 2007. The Security Dilemma: Fear, Cooperation, and Trust in World Politics. Palgrave. 

[vii] Id.

[viii] Kinnvall, Catarina and Mitzen, Jennifer. 2020. Anxiety, Fear, and Ontological Security in World Politics: Thinking with and Beyond Giddens. International Theory, 12(2), pp.240-256.

[ix] Crawford, Neta .C., 2000. The Passion of World Politics: Propositions on Emotion and Emotional Relationships. International Security, 24(4), pp.116-156.
Bleiker, Roland and Hutchison, Emma. 2008. Fear No More: Emotions and World Politics. Review of International Studies, 34(s1), pp.115-135.

[x] Hutchison, Emma. and Bleiker Roland. 2014. Theorizing Emotions in World Politics. International Theory 6(3): 491-514.

[xi] Ross, Andrew. 2014. Mixed Emotions: Beyond Fear and Hatred in International Conflict. Chicago: University of Chicago.

[xii] Lupovici, Amir. 2019a. The Spiraling Effect: Emotional Representations and International Interactions. In Methodology and Emotion in International Relations: Parsing the Passions edited by Eric Van Rythoven Mira Sucharov. Routledge, pp. 97-112.

[xiii] Lupovici, Amir. 2019b. Toward a Securitization Theory of Deterrence. International Studies Quarterly, 63(1), pp.177-186.

[xiv] Van Rythoven, Eric., 2015. Learning to Feel, Learning to Fear? Emotions, Imaginaries, and Limits in the Politics of Securitization. Security Dialogue, 46(5), pp.458-475.
Vuori, Juha A. 2011. How to do Security with Words: A Grammar of Securitisation in the People’s Republic of China. PhD Dissertation, Turku: University of Turku.

[xv] Bleiker, Roland and Hutchison, Emma. 2008. Fear No More: Emotions and World Politics. Review of International Studies, 34(s1), pp.115-135.

[xvi] Van Rythoven, Eric., 2015. Learning to Feel, Learning to Fear? Emotions, Imaginaries, and Limits in the Politics of Securitization. Security Dialogue, 46(5), pp.458-475.

[xvii] Lupovici, Amir. 2019b. Toward a Securitization Theory of Deterrence. International Studies Quarterly, 63(1), pp.177-186.

[xviii] Vuori, Juha A. 2008. Illocutionary Logic and Strands of Securitization: Applying the Theory of Securitization to the Study of Non-Democratic Political Orders. European Journal of International Relations 14(1): 65–99.

[xix] Lebow, Richard .N., 2007. Thucydides and Deterrence. Security Studies, 16(2), pp.163-188.

[xx] Crawford, Neta .C., 2000. The Passion of World Politics: Propositions on Emotion and Emotional Relationships. International Security, 24(4), pp.116-156.

[xxi] Huth, Paul .K. 1999. Deterrence and International Conflict: Empirical Findings and Theoretical Debates. Annual Review of Political Science, 2(1), pp.25-48

[xxii] Ross, Andrew. 2014. Mixed Emotions: Beyond Fear and Hatred in International Conflict. Chicago: University of Chicago.

[xxiii] Lupovici, Amir. 2016. The Power of deterrence. Cambridge University Press.

[xxiv] Steele, Brent. 2008. Ontological Security in International Relations: Self-Identity and the IR State. Routledge.

[xxv] Tillich, Paul. (1959) The Courage to Be. Yale University Press.

Lupovici, Amir. 2016. The Power of deterrence. Cambridge University Press.

[xxvi] Rumelili, Bahar. 2015. Ontological (In)security and Peace Anxieties: A Framework for Conflict Resolution. In Conflict Resolution and Ontological Security: Peace Anxieties, edited by Bahar Rumelili, pp. 10-29. London: Routledge.

[xxvii] Steele, Brent. 2008. Ontological Security in International Relations: Self-Identity and the IR State. Routledge.
Huysmans, Jef. (1998) Security! What Do You Mean? From Concept to Thick Signifier. European Journal of International Relations 4(2): 226–55.
Kinnvall, Catarina and Mitzen, Jennifer. 2020. Anxiety, Fear, and Ontological Security in World Politics: Thinking with and Beyond Giddens. International Theory, 12(2), pp.240-256.

[xxviii] Lupovici, Amir. 2016. The Power of deterrence. Cambridge University Press.

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