In an era marked by great power competition between the United States and China, and amid ongoing conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine that threaten to escalate into broader regional confrontations, Erik Gartzke and Jon R. Lindsay’s Elements of Deterrence: Strategy, Technology, and Complexity in Global Politics offers a critical reevaluation of deterrence theory for the 21st century. Culminating their decade-long research project, the book’s publication could not be more timely.

Much has been written about deterrence before, and Gartzke and Lindsay are fully aware of this extensive literature. They begin the book by explaining why deterrence theory needs revisiting, arguing that its understanding is too grounded in Cold War, nuclear weapons-dominated thinking. They continue by outlining the bargaining model of war to underpin their revision of deterrence theory and use this model to illustrate the complexities of deterrence—their central argument focusing on the inevitable trade-offs involved in deterrence strategy. Subsequent sections discuss these trade-offs and the consequent problems for deterrence strategy, delve deeper into them in the cyber domain, provide empirical evidence from the land, sea, air, and space domains, explore the strategic implications of complexity in trade, cyber, and grey zones, and conclude with policy implications for current US strategy vis-à-vis China.

There is much to like about the book and, admittedly, also much to question. A hostile reviewer trying to undermine the project would find some support. For instance, such a critic might argue that the book’s central argument—that “deterrence is not a simple, monolithic strategy but rather a bundle of different goals and practices” (p. 5)—is somewhat unspecific. After reading the book, one might be left wondering what the research puzzle, overarching research question, or central hypothesis is, beyond the assertion that deterrence is complex and that there are trade-offs in deterrence strategy and force posture. The book’s structure could also be criticized, as some sections and chapters—like the one about trade, asymmetry, and multipolarity—may appear less than tightly connected to the overall flow of ideas. This is especially true for chapters devoted to various individual domains. Most of these chapters have already been published as standalone articles, and while the authors did their best to integrate them into the book, they remain closer to articles than to cohesive book chapters, offering diverging hypotheses about domains and methods to test them.

Yet, while a hostile reviewer would find reasons to criticize the book, a friendly reviewer would find even more to praise. Gartzke and Lindsay provide important and much-needed insights into the dynamics of deterrence in the twenty-first century. Most importantly, they outline tensions among influence, stability, efficiency, and effectiveness, the most significant of which is probably the one between what they call “winning” and “warning.” Gartzke and Lindsay compellingly argue that military capabilities optimized for winning wars may not be effective for deterrence—a paradox with significant policy implications. Policymakers frequently adopt strategies that overlook inherent trade-offs, often obscuring these tensions with vague terminology such as “tailored” and “integrated” deterrence. Gartzke and Lindsay might be slightly overstating how unrecognized these tensions have been in the expert community, but certainly, while many trade-offs have been recognized individually, they have not been systematically addressed together.

A fair reviewer should also stress that trade-offs are not limited to deterrence; writing a book also involves trade-offs. Gartzke and Lindsay could have settled for a more limited argument, such as focusing solely on the trade-off between winning and warning. They provide elaborate discussions in the sections about the cyber domain and touch upon many others. The book insightfully theorizes why sometimes even effective weapons, like cyber weapons, can be poor tools of deterrence because they rely on secrecy. This happens when such capabilities cannot be revealed without allowing the adversary to counter them and render them ineffective. If capabilities cannot be revealed, their use cannot be credibly threatened and hence cannot serve as tools of coercive diplomacy. This is a critical argument, and its exploration alone would have likely sufficed for a book. However, Gartzke and Lindsay strive to show more and provide a bigger picture of trade-offs in deterrence strategy. Consequently, many topics are sketched but not necessarily explored in sufficient detail. But this is not a flaw.

In its scope, Elements of Deterrence does not focus on a very deep exploration of a relatively small incremental innovation; it is not the “minimum publishable unit” that is common in current academia. Instead, it aims high. Many pertinent questions are sketched, and provisional insights are provided. For instance, the book argues that the traditional “guns and butter” trade-off model should be supplemented with a “guns and guns” framework, emphasizing the necessity of allocating resources across various military domains. Each operational domain—nuclear, land, sea, air, space, and cyber—offers distinct advantages for strategies of defense, deterrence, and deception, and understanding these nuances is crucial for effective force posture decisions. States distributing their resources among these domains should be aware of these advantages. Gartzke and Lindsay also outline the importance of cross-domain strategies, even though they delve deeply only into the exploration of the role cyber capabilities play when employed in support of nuclear operations. Again, this is not a flaw but the cost of aiming high. Not everything can be explored in sufficient detail in one book, but it can be touched upon to inspire others for future research.

Ultimately, Elements of Deterrence is a significant contribution that challenges traditional theories of deterrence and invites scholars and practitioners to reconsider the complexities introduced by modern technology and renewed great power competition. While the book’s breadth occasionally comes at the expense of depth, its ambitious scope opens avenues for future research and discourse in international security. In many ways, Elements of Deterrence echoes the seminal insights of Thomas Schelling’s (1966) Arms and Influence, updated for the complexities of the twenty-first century. This comparison serves as both a compliment highlighting the book’s ambition to reshape our understanding of deterrence and a criticism, suggesting that while it revisits foundational themes, it may offer limited novelty to scholars intimately familiar with deterrence theory. Those who have not spent years studying deterrence would benefit enormously from reading Schelling today, as it would enhance their understanding by providing a big picture. Elements of Deterrence does something similar. Those who have spent years studying deterrence would still benefit from rereading Schelling. For them, the novelty may be limited, and their understanding of deterrence may not change significantly. However, they will probably still find much to inspire them. Again, Elements of Deterrence works similarly.