Why reassuring allies is harder than deterring adversaries in extended deterrence
Evidence from US extended deterrence for South Korea
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12607828 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Do Young Lee (0000-0002-3348-6698, University of Oslo, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Publication date | 2025-12-30 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The British Journal of Politics and International Relations (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1369-1481 • E-ISSN: 1467-856X |
| Publisher | SAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/13691481251403338 |
| OpenAlex | W7117698098 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 53 |
In extended deterrence, a nuclear patron assumes a dual role: reassuring its clients while deterring adversaries. Policymakers and scholars widely recognise that for a patron, reassurance is more challenging than deterrence. Why? What makes reassurance harder? I argue that a patron’s deliberate introduction of ambiguity into its extended deterrence commitments – designed to reduce the risk of entrapment – makes reassurance more difficult. This ambiguity makes a patron’s security umbrella appear unreliable to clients, thereby producing uniformly negative effects on reassurance. Conversely, a patron’s ambiguous commitments have a net-neutral effect on adversaries, sustaining a consistent deterrent effect. Ultimately, this dual effect of ambiguity renders reassurance a more difficult task than deterrence. I illustrate the plausibility of this argument by examining how ambiguities in US extended deterrence have been perceived by South Korea and North Korea
Ambiguity · Argument (complex analysis · Deterrence (psychology · Deterrence theory · Dual (grammatical number · Task (project management · Global Security and Public Health · International Relations and Foreign Policy · Terrorism, Counterterrorism, and Political Violence
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| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |