After the Iraqi seizure of Kuwait in August 1990, one of my Pentagon colleagues was a bit dumbfounded by Saddam Hussein’s audacity, especially his apparent willingness to stand up to a global coalition’s compelling threats by engaging in a land defense of Iraq’s newly annexed “19th Province.” These were indeed unnerving times for those not yet affected by hindsight. The Iraqi Army was in a position to threaten Saudi Arabia by air and sea, mobilizing a large force to engage Saddam was a drawn-out and enormously expensive operation, the coalition was unwieldy, and standard combat models suggested that US units might suffer significant casualties. A financially cheaper, quicker, and less costly (in terms of US casualties) alternative to ground combat was available. A well- placed nuclear detonation might cause Saddam or his successors to reassess their position, leading to a prompt withdrawal from Kuwait. My colleague noted that this was not going to happen, but he suggested that the Iraqi regime should keep in mind that the United States had an alternative to all of the hoopla involved in a conventional effort to expel Iraq from Kuwait: nuclear weapons could settle the issue over the course of a long afternoon.

As Paul C. Avey notes, Saddam Hussein and his senior advisers were in fact quite aware of US nuclear capabilities, and they tailored their behavior to reduce the possibility of nuclear attack as they repeatedly challenged a nuclear-armed United States. Avey addresses the puzzle raised by Saddam’s behavior by asking a troubling question: Why do policy makers in a nonnuclear state believe that they can defy or even attack a nuclear-armed adversary without prompting nuclear retaliation? Avey goes beyond addressing why strong states often fail to deter or to compel weaker states to do their bidding to asses why some nuclear “have-nots” believe that they can tempt fate by running existential risks to secure their objectives.

Avey posits that leaders in weak states believe that they can stay below the nuclear threshold by using their vastly weaker conventional forces to pose limited threats to nuclear-armed adversaries. By not crossing self-imposed or otherwise obvious red lines, the leaders of nonnuclear states believe they can shape the cost-benefit calculations of their nuclear-armed opponents, thereby reducing the risks of nuclear attack. Avey does not purport to explain the reasons why nuclear weapons are not used in these conflicts or the perceptions and calculations of leaders in nuclear-armed states, but he does catalog the available evidence to show how nonnuclear actors perceived risk and how they limited their behavior. He also offers four predictions about these confrontations that reflect his cognitive-level explanation of policy-makers’ behavior. First, wars between conventionally powerful nonnuclear weapons states and nuclear-armed opponents will be rare, because conventionally powerful states can pose serious challenges that might prompt a nuclear response. Second, nuclear-armed states will not face challenges to their military or territorial integrity or vital interests. Third, the drawbacks of using nuclear weapons will loom large in the minds of the leaders of nonnuclear weapons states: they will focus on the costs, not the benefits, of their opponent’s nuclear-weapons use. Fourth, leaders of nonnuclear states will moderate their behavior to shape adversary cost-benefit calculations concerning the use of nuclear weapons.

To test his theory and predictions, Avey explores several instances in which nonnuclear weapons states with conventionally inferior forces confronted nuclear-armed opponents: Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait and its subsequent failure to capitulate to US coercive threats, Egypt’s initiation of the War of Attrition and the 1973 October War, Chinese intervention in the Korean War and the Offshore Islands crises, and the Soviet blockade of Berlin. He notes that, as his theory anticipated, each of these conventionally weak nonnuclear challengers posed little or no threat to the nuclear weapons state’s homeland or vital interests. They also recognized and responded to the possibility of nuclear escalation by limiting their objectives. Avey notes that challengers emerged as predicted and acted in ways that also were anticipated by the theory embedded in Tempting Fate.

Several elements of Avey’s analysis, however, give a critic reason to pause. For instance, with the possible exception of Egypt in the 1973 October War, Avey is correct that none of these challengers posed a significant threat to the homeland of their nuclear-armed opponent. Nevertheless, since World War II, the possession of a nuclear capability and the ability to hold targets at risk in an opponent’s homeland (at intercontinental ranges) have gone hand in hand, 9/11 excepted. In other words, a key part of Avey’s explanation for events largely exists in theory, not in reality. Additionally, it is not accurate to say that these nonnuclear challengers did not hold significant interests at risk. Iraq could attack Saudi Arabia, China forced US ground forces into the longest retreat in their history, and the Soviets threatened to swallow Western Europe.

It also is a bit of a stretch to call the nonnuclear actors in the case studies conventionally weak, especially in the local theater of operations. The Iraqi Army consisted of well over a million soldiers and at least 4,500 tanks—far more troops and tanks than the coalition brought to the fight to liberate Kuwait. Nearly three million members of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) fought in the Korean War; when the Chinese initially intervened, entire South Korean army divisions simply vanished from the battlefield. The Soviets also possessed overwhelming conventional superiority in Europe in 1949, a point captured at the time by British field marshal Sir Bernard Montgomery when he noted that all the Red Army needed to reach the English Channel was “an adequate supply of shoe leather.” Avey is correct to note that the quality of US and Israeli ground forces, to say nothing of their air and naval units, outclassed those of their opponents, leading to asymmetric casualty ratios and the ultimate defeat of the nonnuclear challengers. Nevertheless, sometimes quantity has a quality all its own. Conventionally “weak” PLA units pushed US forces back from the Yalu River to the 38th parallel in a stalemate that lasted for years.

A final caveat is in order. All of the major crises surveyed by Avey began with a surprise attack or fait accompli, events that deliver a strategic shock or a significant loss to the nuclear-armed opponent. These are extraordinarily risky stratagems because it is difficult to calculate the effects of surprise not just on the battlefield, but also in the mind of the opponent. After US forces reeled under PLA assault, it is possible that the Truman administration would have used nuclear weapons to prevent a retreat from turning into a blood-soaked rout. The surprise suffered at the outset of the October War also continues to reverberate in Israeli strategic culture, which testifies to the shock inflicted by the Egyptian attack. In other words, it is a bit of a stretch to say that the nonnuclear states surveyed by Avey behaved with moderation toward their nuclear-armed opponents. They attacked in a way that destroyed their opponent’s (deterrent) strategy, delivered a profound political shock, and inflicted serious losses. These sorts of insults to international decorum can set events in motion in unpredictable and uncontrollable ways.

After reading Tempting Fate it is possible to reach a conclusion slightly different from Avey’s analysis. Nonnuclear actors that possess significant conventional competences act boldly, seize their objectives, and shift the onus of escalation onto their nuclear-armed opponents. They in fact do tempt fate, and they do so in significant ways while banking on the fact that the target will tolerate the new status quo. This is risky business; eventually, somebody is going to make good on their nuclear “bluff.”

Nevertheless, by highlighting both the aggressive and conciliatory actions taken by nonnuclear actors, Avey provides an important contribution to ongoing debates about the efficacy of deterrence in general and nuclear deterrence in particular. Tempting Fate illustrates that, when it comes to challenging the strong, the weak seem to oscillate between faith in the nuclear taboo and fear of nuclear retaliation. This insight will make few theorists happy, but it does mark a step forward in our understanding of how nuclear weapons alter the calculus of risk-accepting decision makers.