Date of Recording: 24/09/2018

Centre for Science & Security Studies Event co-hosted with Swansea University’s International Studies, Conflict and Security Research Group

Abstract

The concept of cross-domain deterrence (CDD) emerged in the late 2000s as American defense policymakers perceived increasing threats to data networks and satellite systems, in particular from China and Russia. What, if anything, does the notion of CDD add to the venerable concept of deterrence? The Pentagon describes five warfighting domains—land, sea, air, space, and cyberspace—but any means of signaling and influence might differ from others with respect to their utility for political bargaining. CDD can be understood as the use of threats of one type, or some combination of different types, to dissuade a target from taking actions of another type that would change the status quo. CDD is not a new historical phenomenon—deterrence has always involved choices across unlike instruments—but it has become newly salient. As technological innovation expands the portfolio of options available for deterrence, trade-offs across technological means and political ends become more complex. We infer hypotheses about how different warfighting domains affect the conduct of military operations and thus, indirectly, political trade-offs in strategic bargaining. This work builds on Jon R. Lindsay and Erik Gartzke, eds., Cross-Domain Deterrence: Strategy in an Era of Complexity (Oxford University Press, Forthcoming). 

Biography

Jon R. Lindsay is Assistant Professor at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy and the Department of Political Science at the University of Toronto. His research examines the relationship between technology and international security. His publications include China and Cybersecurity: Espionage, Strategy, and Politics in the Digital Domain (Oxford University Press, 2015) with Tai Ming Cheung and Derek Reveron, and Cross-Domain Deterrence: Strategy in an Era of Complexity (Oxford University Press, 2019) with Erik Gartzke. He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an M.S. in Computer Science and B.S. in Symbolic Systems from Stanford University. He has also served in the U.S. Navy with operational assignments in Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East.

Event: Cross-Domain Deterrence: Politics by Many Means

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