Jenkins is quick to add that in some cases deterrence may be unreliable. Terrorists with nuclear weapons are one such case. Al-Qaida is the only terrorist group capable of obtaining and using nuclear weapons, says Jenkins. His advice is not to wait: "Wipe them out now."
During the Cold War, of course, deterrence was an everyday but unnerving reality.
Nine thousand of the American and Soviet missiles that clamped humanity in that nuclear stand-off still hum on alert in their silos in Krasnoyarsk and Wyoming. They may dissuade a major nuclear attack.
But in the two decades since the Cold War ended, neither these weapons nor the United States' unparalleled military power have been effective against lesser challenges.
In that period, for example, al-Qaida destroyed two U.S. embassies. Pakistan and India defied the United States and built nuclear bombs. Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait.
The U.S. stood by and wrung its hands while Rwandans slaughtered almost a million of their countrymen. Al-Qaida destroyed two American embassies.
China seized and held an American spy plane. North Korea and Iran thumbed their noses at Washington. President Bush condemned the slaughter of innocents in Darfur to no avail. Just last month Russia invaded Georgia while Washington fumed.
And the study and practice of deterrence declined.
"I am a little concerned because we have maybe taken our eye off that ball over the past 15 years," said Chilton, who commands American nuclear war-fighting forces and strategic conventional forces, in addition to responsibility for war in space and cyberspace.
The brute-force military the United States built for the Cold War is still needed, he said, as long as potential adversaries - most particularly Russia - also have long-range nuclear weapons. But the United States also needs the strategy and the tools to deter, or dissuade, the tin-pot dictators, the rogue states and terrorists.
That, said Chilton, "is probably the most difficult." Doing it successfully will require going "beyond pure military might."
A team under Chilton's direction at Stratcom headquarters in Omaha is working from an internal Pentagon assessment that concluded in December 2006 that the United States requires "a new concept for 'waging' deterrence," a new "national strategy that integrates diplomatic, informational, military and economic powers."
