Does the US still have the power to deter its adversaries?
When the US launched airstrikes earlier this month against the proxy militias linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in retaliation for the attack that killed three US soldiers at a base in Jordan, President Joe Biden noted that while the US would continue to respond to Iran-linked attacks “at times and places of our choosing,” it “does not seek conflict in the Middle East or anywhere else.” Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin’s statement on the strikes used almost identical language.
Readers of these statements might reasonably wonder how one can bomb 85 targets and kill nearly 40 people without “seeking conflict.” B-1 bombers are not exactly an instrument of Gandhian nonviolent resistance. Officially, the motivation for the strikes, according to the letter the White House sent to notify Congress in accordance with the War Powers Resolution, was to “deter the IRGC and affiliated militia groups from conducting or supporting further attacks on United States personnel and facilities.”
Since the October 7 terrorist attacks in Israel and the war in Gaza that followed, “deterrence” — specifically deterring Iran and its various proxies from initiating a wider regional war — has been the guiding concept behind US policy. “Deterring a broader conflict” was cited by Pentagon officials as the motivation for deploying more US military assets, including aircraft carriers, to the Middle East last fall. In January, the US launched military strikes in Yemen with the goal of “deterring Houthi attacks in the Red Sea.”
This sort of language is not new. Establishing a “strong deterrent” against chemical weapons use was President Donald Trump’s stated motivation for launching airstrikes against Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria in 2018. President Barack Obama assured wary American allies in the Persian Gulf in 2016 that despite his attempts to reach a nuclear deal…
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