Elli Lieberman, Reconceptualizing Deterrence: Nudging toward Rationality in Middle Eastern Rivalries. New York: Routledge, 2013. xiv + 310 pp.
Editor's Preface: Elli Lieberman's Reconceptualizing Deterrence is a wide-ranging study of deterrence in the Middle East over the past seven decades. For the JCWS, Lieberman's analysis of how deterrence worked (and did not work) in the Middle East during the Cold War is of particular relevance. We asked three leading experts on conventional and nuclear deterrence—George H. Quester, Patrick M. Morgan, and Jeffrey S. Lantis—to provide short commentaries on this and other aspects of the book. Their commentaries are published here seriatim along with a reply by Lieberman.
Elli Lieberman's very interesting book continues a debate that raged throughout the Cold War among political scientists and strategic planners about whether deterrence can really work, and about how it actually does work. The debate remains as timely as ever in the...