One of the military’s main purposes is to act as a deterrent force. There is a lot of research on deterrence that mainly deals with how great powers should use deterrence, but not as much research on how small states can deter great powers. How can a small state with less resources deter a great power?  The purpose of the essay is to understand how a small state successfully can deter a great power and the research question is “what leads to successful deterrence for small states?”. To answer the question, a theory-testing comparative case study with a most similar design has been conducted. The theory that has been tested is Freedman’s (2004) theory of deterrence.  The results show that there is a certain connection between successful deterrence and the factor broad deterrence, but no connection between successful deterrence and extended deterrence or deterrence through denial.