Since 2021, the Biden administration’s key defense concept has been “integrated deterrence.” The administration’s first strategy document, the March 2021 Interim National Security Guidance (INSG), provided a partial rationale for developing this concept when it identified the threats posed by both China and Russia and the challenge of deterring their “aggression.” To deter these adversaries and prevent them from “directly threatening the United States and our allies, inhibiting access to the global commons, or dominating key regions,” the INSG asserted, the United States would have to “work with like-minded partners” and “pool our collective strength” to “counter threats to our collective security, prosperity, and democratic way of life.”

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin subsequently built on this in speeches from May and July of 2021. During an address to the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command in Hawaii on May 3, 2021, Austin affirmed that the “cornerstone of America’s defense is still deterrence,” which “meant fixing a basic truth within the minds of our potential foes: that the costs and risks of aggression are out of line with any conceivable benefit.” But to achieve this in the twenty-first century, the United States must undertake “integrated deterrence.” This would mean not only “us[ing] existing capabilities, and build[ing] new ones, and us[ing] all of them in networked ways” but also doing so “hand in hand with our allies and partners.” A similar definition was then offered during an address in Singapore on July 27, 2021, where the Secretary of Defense described “integrated deterrence” as “using existing capabilities, and building new ones, and deploying them all in new and networked ways – all tailored to a region’s security landscape, and growing in partnership with our friends.”

Yet the exact content of this neologism and how it differed from the multitude of adjectival forms of deterrence that have punctuated U.S. defense strategy in recent decades remained a mystery that was not resolved until the administration’s almost simultaneous release of its National Defense Strategy (NDS) and National Security Strategy in October 2022. These documents, in combination with an examination of the administration’s approach to the war in Ukraine, provide a clearer picture of that “integrated deterrence” has less to do with the deterrence of immediate threats than with the dissuasion of adversaries using not primarily military instruments but diplomatic and economic ones and greater burden sharing with allies.

As such, “integrated deterrence” is less than meets the eye. While seeking to integrate military, diplomatic, and economic instruments of national power and encourage greater burden-sharing with allies may be sensible, “integrated deterrence” does not contain a theory of coercion that explains how the United States will seek to manipulate risk, make credible threats to prevent adversary actions or apply force in the pursuit of well-defined goals.

Defining Integrated Deterrence

The October 2022 NDS presented a three-pronged approach to counter what it termed the U.S.’ “most consequential strategic competitor” (i.e., China): “integrated deterrence,” “campaigning,” and “building enduring advantages.”

“Integrated deterrence” was defined as “developing and combining our strengths to maximum effect, by working seamlessly across warfighting domains, theaters, the spectrum of conflict, other instruments of U.S. national power, and our unmatched network of Alliances and partnerships. Integrated deterrence is enabled by combat-credible forces, backstopped by a safe, secure, and effective nuclear deterrent.” “Campaigning,” meanwhile, meant “the conduct and sequencing of logically-linked military initiatives aimed at advancing well-defined, strategy-aligned priorities over time” so that the Department of Defense could “operate forces, synchronize broader Departmental efforts, and align Departmental activities with other instruments of national power, to undermine acute forms of competitor coercion, complicate competitors’ military preparations, and develop our own warfighting capabilities together with Allies and partners.” Finally, “building enduring advantages,” entailed “undertaking reforms to accelerate force development, getting the technology we need more quickly, and making investments in the extraordinary people of the Department, who remain our most valuable resource.”

Satirist James H. Boren once described such “bureaucratese” as “mumbling with professional eloquence.” Such mumbling, he argued, was defined by “mixing tonal patterns with multisyllabic words for the purpose of projecting an image of knowledgeability and competence without regard to either knowledge or competence.”

Deconstructing in plain language what this “mumbling” means in practice reveals that it has little to do with deterrence as it is conventionally understood.

On the one hand, a core and admirable thrust of administration statements on “integrated deterrence” is to show that it seeks to communicate that “deterrence is distinct from the nuclear deterrent,” that the United States will utilize “all aspects of national power, not just the military, to communicate intent” and to “ensure that U.S. signals are coordinated with those of allies and partners.”

However, on the other hand, there is a lack of clear connection between the neologism and concepts central to deterrence, such as the manipulation of risk, establishment of credible threats to prevent adversary actions, or the application of force to achieve well-defined goals. Rather, as Van Jackson argues, “integrated deterrence” via its emphasis on greater burden shifting to allies and advanced conventional capabilities “backstopped” by its nuclear deterrent “is best understood as referring to escalation avoidance in contingency planning for limited war.”

That “integrated deterrence” is not concerned with a theory of coercion is indicated by some administration officials’ statements surrounding the war in Ukraine. Soon after the Russian invasion, anonymous Pentagon officials were quoted by the Washington Post that the U.S.-led response showed that the “model of integrated deterrence comes out smelling pretty good.” The rationale here, according to an anonymous official, was that the U.S. response leveraged its “primacy in the global financial system” and its alliance networks “in ways that can absolutely pummel aggressors.” This line of argument was subsequently deployed by Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks during a briefing in March 2022 on the administration’s 2023FY defense budget request. Here, Hicks asserted that the U.S.-led response to Ukraine had enhanced deterrence by making the “costs and folly of aggression” by adversaries “very clear.”

This line of argument, however, ignores the basic fact that Russia invaded Ukraine despite U.S.-led efforts to deter it from doing so. The official was perhaps referring to the administration’s effective marshaling of a U.S. and allied diplomatic and economic response to that fact. Significantly, the administration, both in its pre-invasion attempts to deter Vladimir Putin and post-invasion efforts to assist Ukraine, has studiously avoided consideration of the direct application of U.S. military capabilities. There are, of course, good reasons for this (e.g., concerns about risking escalation to a direct Russia-NATO confrontation), but it begs the question as to what role the administration sees American military capabilities playing in “integrated deterrence”?

What, then, of “campaigning”? The NDS tortuously defines this as “the conduct and sequencing of logically-linked military initiatives aimed at advancing well-defined, strategy-aligned priorities over time” so that the Department of Defense can “operate forces, synchronize broader Departmental efforts, and align Departmental activities with other instruments of national power, to undermine acute forms of competitor coercion, complicate competitors’ military preparations, and develop our own warfighting capabilities together with Allies and partners.” In plain language, as two analysts from the Hudson Institute note, this appears to be drawn from U.S. Marine Corps doctrine and refers to the “orchestration of military activities alongside economic, diplomatic, and information actions to achieve specific goals.”

Finally, “building enduring advantages,” is arguably the most straightforward, entailing “undertaking reforms to accelerate force development, getting the technology we need more quickly, and making investments in the extraordinary people of the Department, who remain our most valuable resource.” This amounts to a sensible focus on the material and human elements of capability acquisition and development necessary to counter perceived challenges/threats.

Deterrence Without coercion?

What does this “mumbling” mean for how we might understand the evolving U.S. defense posture?

“Integrated deterrence” suggests three major—and interlinked—dynamics. First, “integrated deterrence” appears not to be directly concerned with deterrence but rather dissuasion. The distinction between the two concepts is important. Deterrence, as Michael Mazzar states, “is the practice of discouraging or restraining someone” from “taking unwanted actions, such as an armed attack” and is designed “to stop or prevent an action” from taking place. Dissuasion, in contrast, is a broader concept that seeks to shape a (potential) adversary’s long-term behavior, “discouraging that country from embracing policies and building forces that could produce political confrontation, military competition, and war.”

Dissuasion, therefore, acts “not by threatening direct military retaliation as an ever-present reality”—as most theories of deterrence hold—but rather “by making clear that it will thwart and frustrate hostile steps through countervailing measures of its own.” Key to successful dissuasion is an element of reassurance: the dissuader must be able to assure the adversary that if it avoids “embracing policies and building forces” that could produce conflict, the dissuader will not proceed with countervailing measures. Dissuasion can thus be viewed as a kind of “pre-deterrence” as it is designed to address less immediate challenges through the leveraging not only of military but diplomatic and economic instruments of national power to convince a potential adversary not to pursue certain military and strategic actions that may make conflict more likely.