The USS Constellation (FFG-62) frigate program is doing little to refurbish the U.S. Navy’s reputation for competence. Intended to deliver a flotilla of at least twenty small, hard-hitting surface combatants in reasonably short order at manageable cost, the program is 36 months—and counting—behind schedule. And over budget. And manufacturing the first hull without a complete design for it. This is not a good look—especially when compounded by the past two decades of shipbuilding travails.

And looks matter. Such self-inflicted troubles have direct diplomatic import, and not for the better. To gauge why, consider the frigate program through the eyes of antagonists, allies, and friendly powers the United States would like to woo. And look at it in relative terms. Relative to America’s rivals, chiefly China. In peacetime strategic competition, after all, influential audiences—allies, friends, prospective foes—judge which contestant would be the likely victor in wartime. Their subjective view prevails. The victor in the war for perceptions triumphs in peacetime competition.

People love a winner and scorn a loser.

If you were considering siding with the United States or China, which contender would you regard as the more impressive partner: the predominant seafaring state that seems unable to keep its fleet from dwindling in numbers, or the challenger with ten major surface combatants and three coastguard cutters under construction at a single shipyard and a fleet inventory on the upswing?

That thought experiment should give you pause.

Diplomatic historian extraordinaire Henry Kissinger portrayed deterrence as a product of our military capability, our willpower to use it, and the degree to which the opponent we aspire to deter believes in our capability and willpower—in our strength, in other words. If hostile leaders believe we can and will thwart their aims, they ought to desist from actions we forbid. If they scoff at our capability, our resolve, or both, they may fling the dice and defy our deterrent threat.

Kissinger reminds us that deterrence is a product of multiplying—not adding—the three constituent factors. If any one factor in a multiple is zero, deterrence is zero. Algebra I says so. If an opponent doubts our martial prowess, deterrence will suffer. That remains true even if its subjective judgments are wrong.

Kissinger didn’t repurpose his formula to describe........

© The National Interest