Deterrence creates a mutual vulnerability and respect that reduces likelihood of war

Since deterrence can become part of the actors’ identity, it is also involved in the actors’ will to achieve ontological security, securing the actors’ identity and routines. As McSweeney explains, ontological security is “the acquisition of confidence in the routines of daily life—the essential predictability of interaction through which we feel confident in knowing what is going on and that we have the practical skill to go on in this context.” These routines become part of the social structure that enables and constrains the actors’ possibilities (McSweeney, 1999: 50-1, 154-5; Wendt, 1999: 131, 229-30). Thus, through the emergence of the deterrence norm and the construction of deterrence identities, the actors create an intersubjective context and intersubjective understandings that in turn affect their interests and routines. In this context, deterrence strategy and deterrence practices are better understood by the actors, and therefore the continuous avoidance of violence is more easily achieved. Furthermore, within such a context of deterrence relations, rationality is (re)defined, clarifying the appropriate practices for a rational actor, and this, in turn, reproduces this context and the actors’ identities. Therefore, the internalization of deterrence ideas helps to explain how actors may create more cooperative practices and break away from the spiral of hostility that is forced and maintained by the identities that are attached to the security dilemma, and which lead to mutual perception of the other as an aggressive enemy. As Wendt for example suggests, in situations where states are restrained from using violence—such as MAD (mutual assured destruction)—states not only avoid violence, but “ironically, may be willing to trust each other enough to take on collective identity”. In such cases if actors believe that others have no desire to engulf them, then it will be easier to trust them and to identify with their own needs (Wendt, 1999: 358-9). In this respect, the norm of deterrence, the trust that is being built between the opponents, and the (mutual) constitution of their role identities may all lead to the creation of long term influences that preserve the practices of deterrence as well as the avoidance of violence. Since a basic level of trust is needed to attain ontological security,21 the existence of it may further strengthen the practices of deterrence and the actors’ identities of deterrer and deterred actors. In this respect, I argue that for the reasons mentioned earlier, the practices of deterrence should be understood as providing both physical and ontological security, thus refuting that there is necessarily tension between them. Exactly for this reason I argue that Rasmussen’s (2002: 331-2) assertion—according to which MAD was about enhancing ontological over physical security—is only partly correct. Certainly, MAD should be understood as providing ontological security; but it also allowed for physical security, since, compared to previous strategies and doctrines, it was all about decreasing the physical threat of nuclear weapons. Furthermore, the ability to increase one dimension of security helped to enhance the other, since it strengthened the actors’ identities and created more stable expectations of avoiding violence.