ASSESSING COMPETING DEFENSE POSTURES - THE STRATEGIC IMPLICATIONS OF FLEXIBLE RESPONSE

A two-stage Asymmetric Escalation Game is developed to explore the con nection between stage credibility and deterrence stability. There are two players in the model: Challenger and Defender. Challenger may init iate or not. If Challenger initiates, Defender may do nothing, respond in kind, or escalate; Challenger may then escalate or counterescalate , and so on. Each player is uncertain about the other's intentions at the final stage of the game. Escalation represents a choice that both players believe is qualitatively different from other available respon ses. Thus the model applies to any situation in which Defender may res pond by crossing a threshold, thereby inducing a (psychologically) dis tinct level of conflict. The Perfect Bayesian Equilibria are identifie d and interpreted, and inferences are drawn about the viability of lim ited war options and various competing flexible response deployment po licies. In general, the model reveals that substrategic deployments ad d little to overall deterrence stability. Under certain relatively rar e conditions, a policy called no-first-use in the superpower context o ffers Defender advantages that might conceivably warrant the deploymen t stance associated with it. But a warfighting deployment never benefi ts Defender. Within the confines of the model, therefore, limited or s ubstrategic wars are possible but unlikely.