elli lieberman | University of Maryland Baltimore County (original) (raw)
Books by elli lieberman
Reconceptualizing Deterrence Nudging toward rationality in Middle Eastern rivalries Elli Lieberman, 2012
Throughout its history Hezbollah was at one time a terrorist organization as well as a non-state ... more Throughout its history Hezbollah was at one time a terrorist organization as well as a non-state actor. According to new lines of argumentation that developed after the end of the Cold War deterring such actors is difficult, if not impossible, and is bound to lead to failure. The argument is that a new complex deterrence environment has developed making deterrence success difficult. There are many threads to this argument. 1 One line of argument suggests that in the new situation characterized by new power asymmetries between state and non-state actors, the combination of nationalism and indirect strategy make it harder for deterrence to succeed. According to Ivan Arreguin-Toft, the balance of interests favors the weak, and terrorism is difficult to defeat. Furthermore, at the same time that the weaker actors are more willing to pay heavy costs, the strong actors have become more reluctant to use their overwhelming power to harm the weak. Not only are the strong less willing to coerce weak actors with violence or the threat of violence, but "Western" societies have developed a norm of self-preservation that stands above all other values. 2 Thus, in a world in which the weak are willing to die and the strong are neither willing to die, nor are they willing to kill, weak actors can challenge stronger defenders and deterrence is no longer a viable strategy.
Deterring Terrorism: A Model for Strategic Deterrence, 2018
Is deterring terrorism tenuous and elusive and, at best, only marginally successful, or can we fi... more Is deterring terrorism tenuous and elusive and, at best, only marginally successful, or can we find evidence where states can achieve a strategic level of deterrence against terrorism? Can we find evidence that the proper use of deterrence, based on a more careful understanding of the logic and scope of deterrence theory, leads terrorist organizations or violent non-state actors (VNSAs) to abandon the use of force? Or in cases where they do not completely abandon the use of force can we find evidence that they abandon their grander aspirational goals and are engaging in lower levels of violence? These are some of the questions this study attempts to answer. In the forward to Andreas Wenger's and Alex Wilner's Deterring Terrorism, Thomas Schelling observed that the United States government was slow to learn the rudiments of deterrence during the Cold War, expressing the hope that learning how to deter terrorism would proceed more rapidly.1 This was important, argued Schelling, because the present situation involving deterrence interactions between states and VNSAs was far more complicated than the simpler Cold War situation comprising of only two collaborating "rational" actors with little territorial interests at steak. Answering Schelling's call, the deterring terrorism literature, generally divided into skeptics and marginalists, has made great progress and many new core concepts have been explored and added to the theoretical foundation of deterrence. The deterrence trap, the power of weakness and weakness of power, 4the generation warfare (4GW) including asymmetric warfare and the indirect approach, counter-coercion, influence strategies, cumulative deterrence, resilience, delegitimization, and deconstruction and unpacking provides us with a much deeper understanding of deterrence dynamics between states and VNSAs as well as the tools needed to deter terrorist organizations. These studies establish many of the necessary nuts and bolts requirements for the establishment of deterrence.
Deterring Terrorism: A Model for Strategic Deterrence, 2018
This study examines whether deterrence properly understood and tested through a more proper resea... more This study examines whether deterrence properly understood and tested through a more proper research design would enable us to find empirical evidence for the proposition that strategic deterrence success could be achieved against terrorist organizations. If the study finds evidence for such success, then the study examines whether learning would have enabled deterrence success to be achieved earlier, and, whether deterrence could, then, be a reliable conflict management tool. The structure of the chapter is as follows. First, the reader is introduced in the most rudimentary fashion to the basic deterrence concepts that were developed during the Cold War and guided four waves of research. Then, the chapter describes the arguments developed in two schools of thought in the deterring terrorism literature, the skeptics and the marginalists. The section concludes with a description of unresolved issues and puzzles in the literature and suggests a framework that addresses them. To address these problems the chapter proceeds to a discussion of the logic and scope of deterrence theory with particular emphasis on the requirements for the resolution of the credibility problem in conventional asymmetric deterrence situations. The chapter describes the way present scholarship deviates from this perspective and the consequences the deviation had for theory construction and empirical validation and suggests what needs to be done to resolve the problem. The framework developed in the theoretical chapter is then examined in the case studies that follow in the book. The book ends with a concluding chapter that analyzes the findings. The State of the Literature
Routledge, Dec 1, 2018
This book examines the question of how to deter a non-state terrorist actor. Can terrorism be ... more This book examines the question of how to deter a non-state terrorist actor.
Can terrorism be deterred? This book argues that current research is unable to find strong cases of deterrence success, because it uses a flawed research design which does not capture the longitudinal dynamics of the process. So far, the focus of inquiry has been on the tactical elements of a state’s counterterrorism strategy, instead of the non-state actor’s grand strategies. By studying the campaigns of Hezbollah, the Palestinians, the Irish Republican Army, Chechens, the Kurdistan Workers' Party, and Al-Qaeda/Taliban and ISIS over time, we can see that deterrence strategies that target the cost-benefit calculus of terrorist organizations lead to wars of attrition – which is the non-state organization’s strategy for victory. To escape the attrition trap, the state must undermine the attrition strategy of terrorist organizations by using offensive campaigns that become critical educational moments. The case studies presented here uncover an evolutionary process of learning, leading to strategic deterrence successes. Some terrorist organizations abandoned the use of force altogether, while others abandoned their aspirational goals or resorted to lower levels of violence. These findings should enable policymakers to transition from the failed policy that sought to defeat the Taliban and al-Qaeda in the unending war in Afghanistan to a policy that successfully applies deterrence.
" This book offers a reconceptualisation of conventional deterrence theory, and applies it to ... more "
This book offers a reconceptualisation of conventional deterrence theory, and applies it to enduring rivalries in the Middle East.
The work argues that many of the problems encountered in the development of deterrence theory lay in the fact that it was developed during the Cold War, when the immediate problem it had to address was how to prevent catastrophic nuclear wars. The logic of nuclear deterrence compelled a preoccupation with the problem of stability over credibility; however, because the logic of conventional deterrence is different, the solution of the tension between credibility and stability is achieved by deference to credibility, due to the requirements of reputation and costly signaling.
This book aims to narrow the gap between theory and evidence. It explores how a reconceptualization of the theory as a process that culminates in the internalization of deterrence within enduring rivalries is better suited to account for its final success: a finding that has eluded deterrence theorists for long.
This interdisciplinary book will be of much interest to students of deterrence theory, strategic studies, international security, Middle Eastern studies and IR in general.
"
Public reporting burden for the collection of information is estimated to average 1 hour per resp... more Public reporting burden for the collection of information is estimated to average 1 hour per response, including the time for reviewing instructions, searching existing data sources, gathering and maintaining the data needed, and completing and reviewing the collection of information. Send comments regarding this burden estimate or any other aspect of this collection of information, including suggestions for reducing this burden, to Washington Headquarters Services, Directorate for Information Operations and Reports, 1215 Jefferson Davis Highway, Suite 1204, Arlington VA 22202-4302. Respondents should be aware that notwithstanding any other provision of law, no person shall be subject to a penalty for failing to comply with a collection of information if it does not display a currently valid OMB control number.
Papers by elli lieberman
Impact of the Israeli Hamas War on Israeli Domestic Politics and Foreign Policy Conference, Johns Hopkins University, 27 October 2024, 2025
Why Deterrence Failed on October 7th, 2023? ... more Why Deterrence Failed on October 7th, 2023?
Elli Lieberman
While deterrence failures, such as Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7th, 2023, have always puzzled deterrence theorists, they would not have surprised sceptics in the fourth wave of deterrence theory. Sceptics have long argued that terrorist organizations are not deterred because they choose attrition strategies that empower them, while stronger defenders are constrained from using their overwhelming power to establish a credible deterrence threat. ‘Marginalists,’ on the other hand, argue that the use of cumulative deterrence strategies, denial and punishment, could lead to deterrence successes against some actors, some of the time, and that denial has become the cornerstone of deterring terrorism, trumping punishment. Overlooked in this literature is the observation that cumulative deterrence strategies, as well as robust denial capabilities, lead to an attrition trap, which is the weak actor’s strategy of victory, thus leading to deterrence failure rather than success. Using a longitudinal perspective, we find that different causal mechanisms better explain deterrence failures, such as the recent Hamas’ attack, and suggest a framework for achieving strategic deterrence success against terrorist organizations. First, deterrence success in conventional deterrence, against states and terrorist organizations alike, is achieved once the credibility problem on capability and will is solved through victory in war. Second, because such wars could lead to wars of attrition, the winning war strategy of weak states, defenders need to know when to stop and disengage. Finally, in difficult contests of resolve, such actors escape the attrition trap when they move beyond cumulative deterrence strategies and use wars of maneuver that serially target the strategy of the terrorist organization. This paper argues that Israel’s robust denial capability, the Iron Dome, absolved her from the need to resolve its credibility problem on will during the cycles of deterrence campaigns and reinforced her reluctance to solve the credibility problem by engaging in a costly war of maneuver that would have enabled her to escape the attrition trap and undermine Hamas’ strategy of attrition.
Draft
How do battlefield outcomes convert to strategic deterrence stability? Does the use of traditiona... more How do battlefield outcomes convert to strategic deterrence stability? Does the use of traditional tools of conventional deterrence, tools such as punishment, denial, or cumulative deterrence, lead to strategically successful deterrence outcomes against states and non-state actors, or does such an outcome depend on battlefield victory? And, if the latter, under what circumstances? Policy makers and scholars interested in how conventional deterrence works against states and non-state actors (NSAs) cannot provide a reassuring answer. Israeli policy makers have long been puzzled
Contemporary Security Policy
Journal of Cold War Studies, 2016
Contemporary Israel, 2018
Reconceptualizing Deterrence
1. Theoretical Considerations 2. The Israeli-Egyptian Rivalry, 1948-1973 Part I: From Failure to ... more 1. Theoretical Considerations 2. The Israeli-Egyptian Rivalry, 1948-1973 Part I: From Failure to Success, 1948-1967 Part II: Turning Point: The Six-Day War Part III: "Design Around I": The War of Attrition Part IV: "Design Around II" The Yom Kippur War 3. The Israeli-Hezbollah Rivalry Conclusion
Public reporting burden for the collection of information is estimated to average 1 hour per resp... more Public reporting burden for the collection of information is estimated to average 1 hour per response, including the time for reviewing instructions, searching existing data sources, gathering and maintaining the data needed, and completing and reviewing the collection of information. Send comments regarding this burden estimate or any other aspect of this collection of information, including suggestions for reducing this burden, to Washington Headquarters Services, Directorate for Information Operations and Reports, 1215 Jefferson Davis Highway, Suite 1204, Arlington VA 22202-4302. Respondents should be aware that notwithstanding any other provision of law, no person shall be subject to a penalty for failing to comply with a collection of information if it does not display a currently valid OMB control number.
EDITOR’S PREFACE: Elli Lieberman’s Reconceptualizing Deterrence is a wide- ranging study of deter... more 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.
Reconceptualizing Deterrence Nudging toward rationality in Middle Eastern rivalries Elli Lieberman, 2012
Throughout its history Hezbollah was at one time a terrorist organization as well as a non-state ... more Throughout its history Hezbollah was at one time a terrorist organization as well as a non-state actor. According to new lines of argumentation that developed after the end of the Cold War deterring such actors is difficult, if not impossible, and is bound to lead to failure. The argument is that a new complex deterrence environment has developed making deterrence success difficult. There are many threads to this argument. 1 One line of argument suggests that in the new situation characterized by new power asymmetries between state and non-state actors, the combination of nationalism and indirect strategy make it harder for deterrence to succeed. According to Ivan Arreguin-Toft, the balance of interests favors the weak, and terrorism is difficult to defeat. Furthermore, at the same time that the weaker actors are more willing to pay heavy costs, the strong actors have become more reluctant to use their overwhelming power to harm the weak. Not only are the strong less willing to coerce weak actors with violence or the threat of violence, but "Western" societies have developed a norm of self-preservation that stands above all other values. 2 Thus, in a world in which the weak are willing to die and the strong are neither willing to die, nor are they willing to kill, weak actors can challenge stronger defenders and deterrence is no longer a viable strategy.
Deterring Terrorism: A Model for Strategic Deterrence, 2018
Is deterring terrorism tenuous and elusive and, at best, only marginally successful, or can we fi... more Is deterring terrorism tenuous and elusive and, at best, only marginally successful, or can we find evidence where states can achieve a strategic level of deterrence against terrorism? Can we find evidence that the proper use of deterrence, based on a more careful understanding of the logic and scope of deterrence theory, leads terrorist organizations or violent non-state actors (VNSAs) to abandon the use of force? Or in cases where they do not completely abandon the use of force can we find evidence that they abandon their grander aspirational goals and are engaging in lower levels of violence? These are some of the questions this study attempts to answer. In the forward to Andreas Wenger's and Alex Wilner's Deterring Terrorism, Thomas Schelling observed that the United States government was slow to learn the rudiments of deterrence during the Cold War, expressing the hope that learning how to deter terrorism would proceed more rapidly.1 This was important, argued Schelling, because the present situation involving deterrence interactions between states and VNSAs was far more complicated than the simpler Cold War situation comprising of only two collaborating "rational" actors with little territorial interests at steak. Answering Schelling's call, the deterring terrorism literature, generally divided into skeptics and marginalists, has made great progress and many new core concepts have been explored and added to the theoretical foundation of deterrence. The deterrence trap, the power of weakness and weakness of power, 4the generation warfare (4GW) including asymmetric warfare and the indirect approach, counter-coercion, influence strategies, cumulative deterrence, resilience, delegitimization, and deconstruction and unpacking provides us with a much deeper understanding of deterrence dynamics between states and VNSAs as well as the tools needed to deter terrorist organizations. These studies establish many of the necessary nuts and bolts requirements for the establishment of deterrence.
Deterring Terrorism: A Model for Strategic Deterrence, 2018
This study examines whether deterrence properly understood and tested through a more proper resea... more This study examines whether deterrence properly understood and tested through a more proper research design would enable us to find empirical evidence for the proposition that strategic deterrence success could be achieved against terrorist organizations. If the study finds evidence for such success, then the study examines whether learning would have enabled deterrence success to be achieved earlier, and, whether deterrence could, then, be a reliable conflict management tool. The structure of the chapter is as follows. First, the reader is introduced in the most rudimentary fashion to the basic deterrence concepts that were developed during the Cold War and guided four waves of research. Then, the chapter describes the arguments developed in two schools of thought in the deterring terrorism literature, the skeptics and the marginalists. The section concludes with a description of unresolved issues and puzzles in the literature and suggests a framework that addresses them. To address these problems the chapter proceeds to a discussion of the logic and scope of deterrence theory with particular emphasis on the requirements for the resolution of the credibility problem in conventional asymmetric deterrence situations. The chapter describes the way present scholarship deviates from this perspective and the consequences the deviation had for theory construction and empirical validation and suggests what needs to be done to resolve the problem. The framework developed in the theoretical chapter is then examined in the case studies that follow in the book. The book ends with a concluding chapter that analyzes the findings. The State of the Literature
Routledge, Dec 1, 2018
This book examines the question of how to deter a non-state terrorist actor. Can terrorism be ... more This book examines the question of how to deter a non-state terrorist actor.
Can terrorism be deterred? This book argues that current research is unable to find strong cases of deterrence success, because it uses a flawed research design which does not capture the longitudinal dynamics of the process. So far, the focus of inquiry has been on the tactical elements of a state’s counterterrorism strategy, instead of the non-state actor’s grand strategies. By studying the campaigns of Hezbollah, the Palestinians, the Irish Republican Army, Chechens, the Kurdistan Workers' Party, and Al-Qaeda/Taliban and ISIS over time, we can see that deterrence strategies that target the cost-benefit calculus of terrorist organizations lead to wars of attrition – which is the non-state organization’s strategy for victory. To escape the attrition trap, the state must undermine the attrition strategy of terrorist organizations by using offensive campaigns that become critical educational moments. The case studies presented here uncover an evolutionary process of learning, leading to strategic deterrence successes. Some terrorist organizations abandoned the use of force altogether, while others abandoned their aspirational goals or resorted to lower levels of violence. These findings should enable policymakers to transition from the failed policy that sought to defeat the Taliban and al-Qaeda in the unending war in Afghanistan to a policy that successfully applies deterrence.
" This book offers a reconceptualisation of conventional deterrence theory, and applies it to ... more "
This book offers a reconceptualisation of conventional deterrence theory, and applies it to enduring rivalries in the Middle East.
The work argues that many of the problems encountered in the development of deterrence theory lay in the fact that it was developed during the Cold War, when the immediate problem it had to address was how to prevent catastrophic nuclear wars. The logic of nuclear deterrence compelled a preoccupation with the problem of stability over credibility; however, because the logic of conventional deterrence is different, the solution of the tension between credibility and stability is achieved by deference to credibility, due to the requirements of reputation and costly signaling.
This book aims to narrow the gap between theory and evidence. It explores how a reconceptualization of the theory as a process that culminates in the internalization of deterrence within enduring rivalries is better suited to account for its final success: a finding that has eluded deterrence theorists for long.
This interdisciplinary book will be of much interest to students of deterrence theory, strategic studies, international security, Middle Eastern studies and IR in general.
"
Public reporting burden for the collection of information is estimated to average 1 hour per resp... more Public reporting burden for the collection of information is estimated to average 1 hour per response, including the time for reviewing instructions, searching existing data sources, gathering and maintaining the data needed, and completing and reviewing the collection of information. Send comments regarding this burden estimate or any other aspect of this collection of information, including suggestions for reducing this burden, to Washington Headquarters Services, Directorate for Information Operations and Reports, 1215 Jefferson Davis Highway, Suite 1204, Arlington VA 22202-4302. Respondents should be aware that notwithstanding any other provision of law, no person shall be subject to a penalty for failing to comply with a collection of information if it does not display a currently valid OMB control number.
Impact of the Israeli Hamas War on Israeli Domestic Politics and Foreign Policy Conference, Johns Hopkins University, 27 October 2024, 2025
Why Deterrence Failed on October 7th, 2023? ... more Why Deterrence Failed on October 7th, 2023?
Elli Lieberman
While deterrence failures, such as Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7th, 2023, have always puzzled deterrence theorists, they would not have surprised sceptics in the fourth wave of deterrence theory. Sceptics have long argued that terrorist organizations are not deterred because they choose attrition strategies that empower them, while stronger defenders are constrained from using their overwhelming power to establish a credible deterrence threat. ‘Marginalists,’ on the other hand, argue that the use of cumulative deterrence strategies, denial and punishment, could lead to deterrence successes against some actors, some of the time, and that denial has become the cornerstone of deterring terrorism, trumping punishment. Overlooked in this literature is the observation that cumulative deterrence strategies, as well as robust denial capabilities, lead to an attrition trap, which is the weak actor’s strategy of victory, thus leading to deterrence failure rather than success. Using a longitudinal perspective, we find that different causal mechanisms better explain deterrence failures, such as the recent Hamas’ attack, and suggest a framework for achieving strategic deterrence success against terrorist organizations. First, deterrence success in conventional deterrence, against states and terrorist organizations alike, is achieved once the credibility problem on capability and will is solved through victory in war. Second, because such wars could lead to wars of attrition, the winning war strategy of weak states, defenders need to know when to stop and disengage. Finally, in difficult contests of resolve, such actors escape the attrition trap when they move beyond cumulative deterrence strategies and use wars of maneuver that serially target the strategy of the terrorist organization. This paper argues that Israel’s robust denial capability, the Iron Dome, absolved her from the need to resolve its credibility problem on will during the cycles of deterrence campaigns and reinforced her reluctance to solve the credibility problem by engaging in a costly war of maneuver that would have enabled her to escape the attrition trap and undermine Hamas’ strategy of attrition.
Draft
How do battlefield outcomes convert to strategic deterrence stability? Does the use of traditiona... more How do battlefield outcomes convert to strategic deterrence stability? Does the use of traditional tools of conventional deterrence, tools such as punishment, denial, or cumulative deterrence, lead to strategically successful deterrence outcomes against states and non-state actors, or does such an outcome depend on battlefield victory? And, if the latter, under what circumstances? Policy makers and scholars interested in how conventional deterrence works against states and non-state actors (NSAs) cannot provide a reassuring answer. Israeli policy makers have long been puzzled
Contemporary Security Policy
Journal of Cold War Studies, 2016
Contemporary Israel, 2018
Reconceptualizing Deterrence
1. Theoretical Considerations 2. The Israeli-Egyptian Rivalry, 1948-1973 Part I: From Failure to ... more 1. Theoretical Considerations 2. The Israeli-Egyptian Rivalry, 1948-1973 Part I: From Failure to Success, 1948-1967 Part II: Turning Point: The Six-Day War Part III: "Design Around I": The War of Attrition Part IV: "Design Around II" The Yom Kippur War 3. The Israeli-Hezbollah Rivalry Conclusion
Public reporting burden for the collection of information is estimated to average 1 hour per resp... more Public reporting burden for the collection of information is estimated to average 1 hour per response, including the time for reviewing instructions, searching existing data sources, gathering and maintaining the data needed, and completing and reviewing the collection of information. Send comments regarding this burden estimate or any other aspect of this collection of information, including suggestions for reducing this burden, to Washington Headquarters Services, Directorate for Information Operations and Reports, 1215 Jefferson Davis Highway, Suite 1204, Arlington VA 22202-4302. Respondents should be aware that notwithstanding any other provision of law, no person shall be subject to a penalty for failing to comply with a collection of information if it does not display a currently valid OMB control number.
EDITOR’S PREFACE: Elli Lieberman’s Reconceptualizing Deterrence is a wide- ranging study of deter... more 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.
Jerusalem Post, Oct 13, 2014
The working of deterrence puzzles Israelis.
