Deterrence is concerned with the exploitation of potential force. It is concerned with persuading a potential enemy that he should in his own interest avoid certain courses of activity. There is an important difference between the intellectual skills required for carrying out a military mission and for using potential military capability to pursue a nation’s objectives. A theory of deterrence would be, in effect, a theory of the skillful nonuse of military forces, and for this purpose deterrence requires something broader than military skills.

XREF: Connects to Schelling's work on strategy and the credibility of threats, where the art lies in what forces are NOT used.

Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, loc. 29