Threat vs deterrence

A threat is understood to be the result of a physical event of natural origin, or caused voluntarily by human action—and even if it may appear accidentally—which, due to its idiosyncrasy and implementation, may produce a danger of various dimensions depending on its degree of severity and effectiveness, and which may cause loss of life, injury, or other impacts on health, as well as damage or destruction to property, infrastructure, and more.

On the other hand, the Pan-Hispanic Dictionary of Doubts states that to dissuade means ‘to convince [someone] to give up an idea or purpose’.

Thus, a threat appears to be something negative that remains on the negotiating table and may occur if one or the other party insists on maintaining their position and does not reach a prior agreement or in the middle of a conflict.

For centuries, states and empires have fought each other through declarations of war, even without a threat in between, and any spark has been enough for highly intense conflicts with serious consequences, such as World War I, to break out and change the course and mark of history.

It was mainly during the entire Cold War and its aftermath after the fall of the Berlin Wall that the concept of deterrence was used primarily to maintain the balance between the two resulting blocs and to prevent any of their satellite or proxy countries from attempting to break away or move from their position in the international picture that everyone understood.

For this to have the desired effect, we must be grateful for the emergence of the term known as Mutually Assured Destruction, a concept reviled by many but ultimately very effective.

It is only recently, with the emergence of genuine satraps, lunatics, false emperors, and visionaries, that threats themselves have become more effective, and the international arena has become filled with them; some, incidentally, very well known, bloody and with disastrous results, which have forced the main tools of the international community, some political-military associations of various kinds and capacities, to mobilize and intervene and to put on the table the remaining role left to Russia and the US.

Today, there are many loudmouths on every continent who use clear and direct threats either to contain their peoples, who are generally subjugated, or to silence external pretensions. But the main and greatest champion of threats today is undoubtedly President Donald Trump.

A man who, since the middle of his first term and the end of that presidential period, has made many of them very clear both domestically and internationally, among which the demand for the famous percentage of defense spending for all NATO members (2%) adopted at the Wales Summit in 2014 stands out for its great subsequent impact.

This agreement has led to an increase in spending to 5% in Trump's second term and to the assertion that the world has been living off the magnanimity of the Americans, leaving us entangled in an agreement with no clear, clean, or equitable end to the famous tariffs on bilateral imports and exports of all countries with the US.

Of all the threats that have come out of Trump's mind and mouth, very few have been carried out except for the short-range surgical military action that was sold to the world as having “stopped Iran's nuclear program for years” and which provided some relief for Israel. the truth is that this short attack was carried out once the ineffectiveness and limited capacity of Iran's offensive and defensive weapons had been proven.

At this very moment, we are immersed in another of Trump's great threats, and this time, he has once again changed the theater of operations. After having ignored, spat on, and trampled on President Zelensky in the White House itself, Trump has now given Putin a short deadline to cease hostilities and get down to work on peace negotiations with Ukraine.

To force this situation, it was announced with great fanfare a few days ago that two nuclear submarines were leaving to position themselves near Russia in case their military participation was required. This news alarmed the world, but I do not share this alarm at all, given that, although Trump's mental and physical problems are serious, they are not enough to trigger a total nuclear war.

On the other hand, the scope of this threat is as empty and false as almost all the others because, as we learned today in the national press from retired Admiral Garat, all submarines in the US are nuclear and, although there are different types depending on the weapons they are equipped with, the most deadly and effective ones do not need to approach Russia due to the long range of their missiles. It is therefore believed that this move is a bluff or is motivated by other interests and circumstances.

There are just over forty-eight hours left for Trump's representative, currently in Moscow, to convince Putin to abandon his intentions and accept his proposal.

I am inclined to think that, as ‘dogs don't eat dogs’, this situation will end in a diplomatic solution for both leaders and that Ukraine will continue to bear the brunt, with the highest number of deaths, while Europe finances the military equipment from its own sources or by purchasing it from the Americans.