You can access my explanation from 9/29/14 to see why answer choice (C) is wrong. Now, let's discuss why answer choice (D) is correct.
(D): "It is in the interests of a nation that seeks deterrence and has unsurpassed military power to let potential aggressors against it become aware of its power of retaliatory attack."
We are told in the argument that "to maintain military deterrence, a nation would have to be believed to have retaliatory power so great that a potential aggressor nation would have reason to think that it could not defend itself against such retaliation."
The argument states that military deterrence is achieved by other nations believing that they are weaker than a specific nation, i.e. "fear of retaliation makes a would be aggressor nation hesitate before attacking and is often sufficient to deter it altogether form attacking."
Thus, if one nation has a stronger military than any other nation, and then it is in the interest of the strongest nation to let the other nations know of its military strength--this way the other nations will be deterred from attacking.
Hope that clears things up! Please let us know if you have any other questions.
awashingNovember 10, 2016
I toggled between C and D before ultimately choosing C. My belief was that by D stating 'has unsurpassed military power' it was commenting on its actual ability to defend itself against a retaliatory attack. Am I reading this part too stringently? As you mentioned when going over choice E, it's just belief which the passage comments on and not actual capacity. Could you explain why that part doesn't make choice D necessarily false?
irinacioncaNovember 13, 2017
I agree with all people who didn't choose D. We were taught to stay away from ''extreme language'' and this answer contained it so I eliminated it (opting for C instead). This is not the first time this happens with questions for practice in this course. You need to better address this issue so that we stop making this mistake based on the lesson that we are to stay away from passages with extreme language. :(
philpetrina13January 9, 2019
I am encountering the same problems as mentioned above. It is questions like these that I get down to two answer choices and can never seem to figure out which answer is right and which answer is wrong, given time constraints. It is discouraging getting these questions wrong because the right answer choice seems nearly impossible to arrive at.
MichelleRodJanuary 13, 2019
Hey @awashing @philpetrina13 thanks for your questions!
You are right that we should generally stay away from coming to conclusions with extreme language. But in this case, answer choice D does not ask us to conclude that any country has "unsurpassed military power." We are being given a hypothetical in which a country has unsurpassed military power. We are reaching a conclusion according to the following question: "IF a country has unsurpassed military power, THEN what should they do according to this theory?" The conclusion we reach is that such a country should make their power known to their enemies. Making this known to the world would in turn create the BELIEF which is relevant to the theory.
Hope this helps!
husky07August 17, 2020
i had the same issue. I looked at answer option D and automatically eliminated it, due to extreme language. :(
