Perubahan Konsep dan Strategi Deterens Amerika Serikat Saat dan Pasca Perang Dingin

RYA STEVANI GUNTUR, Drs. Muhadi Sugiono, M.A.

2016 | Skripsi | S1 ILMU HUBUNGAN INTERNASIONAL

Deterens menjadi ternama setelah Presiden John F. Kennedy, dalam rangka menciptakan perdamaian, secara tersurat menyatakan bahwa senjata nuklir Amerika Serikat hanya digunakan untuk menangkal atau mengimbangi kekuatan nuklir Uni Soviet. Pidato ini mendapat respon baik dari Nikita Khrushchev dan berhasil menjadi landasan yang cukup kuat bagi kedua negara untuk bekerjasama dalam hal pembatasan senjata strategis. Sebelum Krisi Misil Kuba, Amerika Serikat menggunakan strategi kompelens, yang jauh lebih agresif, sebagai strategi mereka. Namun demikian, logika MAD menunjukkan bahwa senjata nuklir tidak dapat benar-benar digunakan karena, tidak peduli siapa yang melancarkan serangan pertama, kedua pihak terlibat akan mengalami kehancuran yang besar dan eksistensial. Ketika Perang Dingin berakhir dan Uni Soviet runtuh, kekhawatiran utama Amerika Serikat berpindah kepada proliferasi senjata nuklir oleh negara-negara kecil yang mereka sebut sebagai negara-negara berbahaya, seperti Irak, Iran, dan Korea Utara. Peristiwa 9/11 semakin memperburuk ketakutan Amerika Serikat akan senjata nuklir, terutama bila senjata penghancur tersebut jatuh ke tangan teroris. Presiden George W. Bush lantas menggunakan strategi preemptif untuk secara unilateral melakukan invasi militer terhadap Irak karena takut akan keterlibatan Irak dengan al Qaeda dan asumsi bahwa Irak akan memfasilitasi kelompok teroris tersebut dengan senjata nuklir. Presiden Bush memastikan bahwa kekuatan militer Amerika Serikat bukan hanya memiliki kemampuan untuk menghalau kekuatan konvensional tetapi juga memiliki kemampuan untuk menakut-nakuti negara lain. Presiden Bush mengatakan bahwa akan sulit bagi Amerika Serikat untuk menangkal negara-negara berbahaya bila negara-negara tersebut berhasil memiliki senjata nuklir. Kita dapat melihat bahwa deterens, sebuah konsep yang lahir pada masa perang Dingin, masih digunakan dan dipercaya walaupun konteks dan struktur internasional telah berubah dari bipolar ke multipolar.Itulah mengapa skripsi ini akan menjelaskan bagaimana deterens digunakan oleh Amerika Serikat dalam konteks pasca Perang Dingin dan menunjukkan pada pembaca bahwa terjadi perubahan dalam konsep dan strategi deterens itu sendiri.

Deterrence began to flourish after President John F. Kennedy, in order to achieve genuine peace, had explicitly said that the weapons the United States possessed were designed only to deter the Soviet Union. This speech was well received by Nikita Khrushchev and laid a rather strong ground for both countries to open mutual agreements to limit strategic weapons. Before the Cuban Missile Crisis, the United States used compellence, a much more aggressive measure, as their main strategy. The logic of MAD (mutually assured destruction), however, showed both the United States and the Soviet Union that nuclear weapon could never actually be used to physically attack other states because both the deterrer and the deterred would experience the same devastating impact as the other if one of them chose to launch a nuclear attack. Once the Cold War had ended and the Soviet Union had fallen, the primary concern of the United States shifted to the proliferation of nuclear weapons by much smaller countries they claimed as rogue states, such as Irak, Iran, and North Korea. The tragedy of 9/11 enhanced the fear of nuclear weapons, especially if those destructive weapons fell into the hands of terrorists and were used to spread terror around the world. President George W. Bush then used preemption to unilaterally invade Irak in fear of Irak handing over their nuclear weapons to al Qaeda and their relationship with the latter. President Bush also made it sure that their military power was not only meant to defend the state from conventional forces; their military power must have been able to dissuade/discourage other from even trying (to beat the United States). President Bush stated that it would be difficult for the United States to deter their adversaries, rogue states mainly, if these dangerous states were to obtain nuclear weapons. We could see that deterrence, a concept that was born during the era of Cold War, was still used and believed by the United States although the context and even the international structure had changed from bipolar to multipolar. That was why this thesis was created to answer the question of how deterrence was being used by the United States in the post-Cold War era and to show the readers more of the changing concept and strategy of deterrence.

Kata Kunci : deterrence, nuclear weapon, rogue states, preemption, bipolar, multipolar