What’s with this love for proportionality?

I’m referring to the notion that one side in a conflict should limit its response to an attack to be equal in force to that of the other side’s provocation. But nothing more.

Can someone please explain why this is a good idea?

The putative rationale I’ve heard is that a limited response avoids escalating the conflict. Assuming for a moment that this might work against a dangerously committed and well-armed adversary, would this even be a worthy goal?

Stepping back, what’s the point of responding to an assault in the first place?

Presumably the objective of responding is to compel one’s adversary to refrain from launching further attacks in the future.

Yet, if an enemy expects proportionality, it can comfortably calibrate its attacks even as it prepares to defend against a reliably equivalent response. When both sides embrace proportionality it’s hard to tell whose strategy is whose, as each side strives to mirror the actions of the other.

But if the objective is to avoid being attacked again, an enemy’s behavior must be more effectively managed than this. Thus enters the notion of deterrence.

Deterrence is not about capability. It’s about intent – the fundamental psychological construct that drives behavior.

Meaningful deterrence requires the belief that an attack under consideration will be met with an even greater response – i.e., an escalation.

Escalation succeeds by throwing comfortable military calculus out the window. At its core, the discomfiting fear of escalation is where the psychology of deterrence works its way into play and ultimately shapes intent.

To deploy a meaningfully protective defensive shield against an attack requires instilling the firm belief by one’s adversary that any attack will be met by a superior and disproportionately escalatory response. That’s what true deterrence is all about; it’s how one stops a bully.

To illustrate in the extreme: It is deterrence that provides the (most humane?) rationale for building an arsenal of nuclear weapons. The purpose is not to launch them. The true objective is to never have to do so. This is achieved by instilling fear that the attack on a nuclear military power may well be met with a disproportionately devastating response.

This is the peaceful fruit produced by a healthy fear of escalation. The greater the likelihood of escalation, the more likely that peace remains unbroken. Sustaining fear of a stiff reprisal in countering an attack is the best way to avoid conflicts in the first place.

Tit-for-tat proportionality, on the other hand, reflects a wasted opportunity to establish meaningful deterrence. Not only is it ineffective at preserving a sustainable peace, but it prolongs the agony of endless conflict during which the cumulative horrors of war are tallied ever higher.

Proportionality is a tactic for those who feel compelled to respond but are not truly intent on ending the conflict – no less, winning.

Thinking back throughout history, I cannot name a conflict in which the United States was engaged where the principle of proportionality resulted in a victory of any kind. In contrast, the nation’s victories were achieved only by significantly escalating the conflict to the point where the adversary unconditionally surrendered. That’s the point at which the killing actually stops.

[Moreover, one could argue that those conflicts which the USA ultimately abandoned were those in which it was our adversaries who escalated the conflict beyond our sustainable comfort level.]

Proportionality in conflict is a recipe for an extended, costly, agonizing conflict – the worst of all kinds with little hope for a victorious end for anyone.

Escalation, on the other hand, is how wars end – most likely with fewer cumulative casualties.

A call for carefully calibrated proportionality in response to an attack sounds well-intended to some. But absent a meaningful escalation, conflicts rarely end well – nor even end poorly. Sadly, they rarely end.