Rich Lowry, posting at National Review's "The Corner"
The statement by the Hezbollah official the other day that they didn't expect Israel's response raises a point—assuming he's telling the truth—about the limits of deterrence. Advocates of deterrence and containment sometimes seem to think they are magical forces that always work. In fact, if someone is deterrable, it doesn't mean he will always be successfully deterred. Deterrence depends on everyone knowing the rules and not miscalculating. Hezbollah thought it knew the rules—that border skirmishes would result only in some tit-for-tat fighting. It wasn't that Hezbollah was absolutely undeterrable. It was deterrable in the sense that it cared what the Israeli response would be and was modulating—so it thought—it actions accordingly. All this should be kept in mind when people say Iran is deterrable. Perhaps it is. But are we willing to tolerate the consequences if deterrence fails, as it did two weeks ago? |