ABSTRACT
The term the authors use to describe a strategy of pure defense is nonprovocative defense (NPD). In this chapter, they discuss the historical roots of NPD, its advantages, its components, and its critics. The authors ultimately recommend that NPD become the organizing principle for the military forces of every nation and every alliance. Most of the work on NPD was done in the 1980s by Europeans who were terrified of the prospect of a Soviet-US nuclear war. The essential value of NPD is that it can create for two competing countries or coalitions a stable condition of mutual defensive superiority. NPD requires more than an announcement of defensive intentions. To be credibly nonprovocative, NPD weapons must be deployed in unambiguously defensive ways. Few nations have adopted NPD, in part because its theory and practice really only became widely discussed in the 1980s.
