Denial

Defensive strategy used to make it prohibitively difficult for an opponent to achieve a military objective. A denial strategy can be distinguished from a deterrence strategy or a compellence strategy.

In a deterrence strategy, a protagonist threatens to punish an opponent for taking a particular undesirable action. In a compellence strategy, a protagonist threatens continued punishment unless a particular undesirable action is ceased. For both deterrence and compellence, the protagonist aims to change an opponent's mind about pursuing a certain course of action. By contrast, a denial strategy does not seek to change an opponent's mind. Rather, the protagonist simply puts the opponent's objective beyond the reach of the opponent, regardless of whether the opponent chooses to pursue it.

A physical wall exemplifies a denial strategy. For example, the primary objective of the barrier that Israel has been constructing around the West Bank has the goal of preventing Palestinian suicide bombers and other attackers from penetrating into Israeli population centers. By resorting to this strategy, Israeli defense planners have expressed uncertainty about whether they can alter the motivations behind suicide bombings and other such attacks on Israelis. Thus, the barrier has been erected with the understanding that such attacks may continue but they will be much less likely to succeed. Insofar as a national missile defense system attempts to create an impenetrable barrier to [Page 197]foreign ballistic missiles, it too is based on a denial strategy (analogous to a wall).

In another type of denial strategy, a protagonist attempts to disable an opponent, often by exploiting an opponent's weaknesses. Possible weaknesses the protagonist might exploit include military production facilities or rear combat support functions vulnerable to air strikes. For example, the Allied aerial bombing of German military production facilities during World War II sought to disable the Nazis' ability to continue the war.

The success of a denial strategy sometimes depends on the opponent's strategy. The vulnerabilities of a modern mechanized military force are different from those of a guerrilla force. Modern forces, for example, rely heavily on logistical support and communication. By targeting and disrupting logistical flows, a protagonist can disable an opponent. In contrast, such an approach may be less effective against guerilla forces, which do not rely on military logistical lines for supplies but rather on local populations. Consider, for example, the futile efforts of the United States during the Vietnam War to bomb the supply lines of the Vietcong, who were not dependent on logistical supplies.

The relative usefulness of denial strategies, compared to deterrence or compellence, is a regular subject of debate among military strategists. Denial strategies are usually costly and rather extreme. The examples mentioned previously from Israel, Germany, and Vietnam have proven to be devastating for the target populations and have involved significant costs to the protagonists, either politically or in terms of resources. Ultimately, a denial strategy is reflective of the most pessimistic estimation of an opponent's motivations.