Allies of Resistance: America Needs More Porcupine Partners
The Pentagon loves to talk about deterrence. Nearly every Defense Department document or senior leader talking point, from the strategic to the tactical, calls out deterring U.S. adversaries as a central goal. Earlier this week, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told a room full of special operations forces that they underpin “deterrence in the Indo-Pacific,” the most strategically important region for the Pentagon to counter what they refer to as the “sole pacing threat” from China.
Yet there is currently a major gap in U.S. deterrence strategy and posture. Washington rightly focuses on and fully resources expensive but critical nuclear deterrence, also known as strategic deterrence, and conventional deterrence capabilities (think sophisticated weaponry and troops stationed around the globe). Avoiding the devastating consequences of great power war is one of the most important and enduring goals of U.S. defense policy and grand strategy. Successive administrations over the last 80 years have been remarkably successful at achieving this objective through their deterrence strategies.
This past success does not guarantee future results, however, especially amid new threats, emboldened adversaries, and a rapidly changing world order. The potential for great power rivals like China and Russia to destabilize or annex key U.S. allies and partners like Taiwan or the Baltics present particularly worrying flashpoints that could very well push the great powers to the brink of war.
Washington needs a new approach to deterrence that better uses and fully resources all relevant tools across the spectrum of conflict, from the nuclear to the unconventional. In short, the Pentagon’s deterrence rhetoric is not adequately backed by action in the “left of bang” realm that falls short of major combat operations.
It’s past time for the Pentagon to walk the talk on asymmetric types of deterrence and truly prioritize unconventional advise and assist missions–so-called “porcupine” strategies–that will help deter, and if necessary, fight, U.S. adversaries.
Imbalance Remains Despite Past Efforts
The Biden administration made strides in advancing new deterrence concepts. The idea at the heart of the 2022 National Defense Strategy, integrated deterrence, aimed to better sync the many disparate efforts throughout the U.S. government and with allies and partners. The strategy also forwarded the associated idea of deterrence by resilience: “the ability to withstand, fight through, and recover quickly from disruption,” a concept that NATO, the Baltics and Nordic countries in particular, have likewise embraced over the past decade or so under the rubric of “total defense.”
Prior Pentagon efforts also pioneered new and updated old asymmetric deterrence concepts. The Resistance Operating Concept, a joint effort by the U.S. Joint Special Operations University and the Swedish Defence University released in 2020, established a framework to help operationalize resilience and resistance support to partners and allies at risk of adversary aggression.
The document defines resistance as: “A nation’s organized, whole-of-society effort, encompassing the full range of activities from nonviolent to violent, led by a legally established government (potentially exiled/displaced or shadow) to reestablish independence and autonomy within its sovereign territory that has been wholly or partially occupied by a foreign power.”
The second Trump administration’s Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance, distributed in late March, looks set to continue this enduring American focus on deterrence. The interim guidance forwards a three-pronged approach centered around protecting the homeland, deterring a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, and increasing burden sharing with partners and allies; all goals that ramped up deterrence efforts will help advance.
But the deterrence rhetoric has not been sufficiently backed by action. Last month, General Bryan P. Fenton, commander of U.S. Special Operations Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that he has had to turn down more than 40 recent requests for deterrence-related missions due to being stretched on other priorities, such as crisis response and direct action, like targeting terrorists.
Current U.S. efforts focused on building the porcupine capabilities of partners and allies remain paltry compared to the tens of billions of dollars spent annually on other forms of deterrence, such as nuclear or conventional. The Pentagon allocates over $4.6 billion annually to security cooperation activities around the world, but only $20 million or less is dedicated to irregular types of support.
Moreover, the United States does not currently have the necessary policy, doctrine, and legal authorities in place to effectively choose partners or quickly provide resilience or resistance warfare support.
Once support is provided, Washington also lacks a public and private communications plan to effectively signal partners and allies’ resilience and resistance capabilities. Deterrence rests on changing the cost-benefit analysis of an adversary, making smart strategic communication a critical piece of any successful deterrence strategy. If a resistance capability is formed in the forest but no one hears about it, the deterrent effect is lost.
Past Deterrent and Punishment Success
History suggests that this type of asymmetric deterrence approach can work, dating back to World War II when Switzerland deterred German designs on its territory with a so-called “porcupine” strategy. Likewise, Finland’s total defense approaches may have helped to deter aggression from Russia, especially in the decade prior to the country’s entrance into NATO in 2023 (when the country did not enjoy Article 5 protection).
The prospect of guerrilla warfare insurgencies has also deterred or slowed U.S. military actions in the past. In the endgame of Desert Storm and the early days of Bosnia in the early 1990s, U.S. officials warned of a quagmire in Iraq if they continued onto Baghdad and Serb nationalists promised a Vietnam in the heart of Europe, contributing to U.S. decisions to rule out ground invasions.
Washington has, intermittently, applied this same logic to deter and impose costs on its adversaries. For instance, in February 2022, Russia’s unprovoked full-scale invasion of Ukraine was met with a strong Ukrainian national resistance that shocked the world with its effectiveness. While the Ukrainians deserve much of the credit, a little-known U.S. effort to help build national resilience and resistance capabilities in the run-up to the invasion appears to have contributed to Ukraine’s increase in military effectiveness.
Although great power war has so far been avoided—no small achievement—U.S. and Ukrainian efforts were ultimately unable to deter the full-scale invasion. But U.S. support contributed to Ukraine’s success on the battlefield, helping to ensure the country’s sovereignty and survival, key American objectives.
Ironically, although deterrence failed, Russia’s much higher than expected costs, both in blood and treasure, are likely to promote future deterrence in future contingencies, such as Taiwan. Indeed, Taiwan has learned from the Ukrainian experience and is taking important steps to shore up its own resilience and resistance capabilities, with support from the United States.
How to Raise a Porcupine
Despite these welcome moves in Taiwan, America can and should do more with at-risk partners facing potential aggression from U.S. adversaries. Washington should fully man, equip, train, and organize the Pentagon for these types of missions with frontline partners and allies at scale.
Good places to start would be Moldova, Georgia, Mongolia, the Philippines, and Guyana. The Pentagon and NATO should also double down on existing support efforts in the Baltics and Nordic countries, especially Finland, as well as rapidly increase resilience and resistance advising and asymmetric weapons deliveries to Taiwan.
While this somewhat niche type of military assistance directly supports all three of the Pentagon’s current main strategic objectives, it is also likely to appeal to many in the Trump administration because of its focus on burden sharing, or burden shifting. Fully embracing an allies of resistance framework will lead to more self-reliant defense partners while at the same time avoiding escalation risks, since this support is purely defensive in nature.
By forcing adversaries to think twice before attempting to swallow a neighbor, this type of porcupine strategy is a low-cost, potentially high-impact tool that is vastly undervalued and underused. Strengthening and extending America’s irregular deterrence and resistance warfare capacity building efforts will lay the groundwork for a prickly path to peace that will help deter, and if necessary, fight U.S. adversaries.
