Russia’s “preventive deterrence” and the Ukraine war

Unlike Western conceptualisations of deterrence, which usually rely on employing the threat of force to deter adversaries from causing aggression, the Russian conceptualisation involves the actual use of force to signal adversaries and deter any military action. This article employs the concept of “preventive deterrence” to explain the Russian Special Military Operation (SMO) in Ukraine. On this note, the Russian invasion was not the very breakdown of deterrence, but, from Russia's perspective, it was one of the measures to deter the adversary from changing the status quo and launching aggression in the future. The idea of preventive deterrence, which merges the two distinct concepts – deterrence and preventive war – better explains the nuances of Russia's rationale for the invasion and the intended length and style of the SMO. It explains that when a Blitzkrieg operation fails, it turns into a war of attrition.