ABSTRACT
Existing theories and the need of theoretical plurality In those formative years, scholars from the so-called “first cycle of strategic studies” mostly addressed the practical problems related to American deterrence of the Soviet Union such as basing patterns of long-range strategic bombers.2 Yet its practical orientation did not prevent the development of concepts that would play a central role in the study of deterrence in the years to come. By a coincidence, Albert Wohlstetter and his colleagues in RAND discovered the concept of second strike.3 Glenn Snyder theorized the distinction between deterrence by denial and deterrence by punishment.4 Thomas Schelling coined the term “compellence” as a persuasive compatriot of dissuasive deterrence in the field of coercive strategies.5 Those are only a few examples. Considering the lack of empirical data, the progress made by early students of deterrence is as impressive as it is impossible to do justice to all the influential scholars in this brief review.6
