Memory laws regulate the legitimate frames of remembering the past righteous and perpetrators. But who is supposed to be afraid of memory laws? What do memory laws seek to prevent and how is their deterrent effect supposed to be achieved? What can they practically expect to avoid from taking place? Building on the collaborative Volkswagen Foundation-supported MEMOCRACY-project (2021-2024), this talk will engage Central and East European memory laws as unorthodox deterrence devices in national and international ontological security politics. In this IIR Advances in International Studies series contribution, I conceptualise mnemopolitical deterrence and assess the aims and sought effects of various CEE memory laws.