Louis René Beres
Professor of International Law
Department of Political Science
Purdue University
West Lafayette IN 47907
Tel 765/494-4189
E mail lberes@purdue.edu
If there should be no eleventh-hour preemption against Iran’s developing nuclear weapon infrastructures, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and his security cabinet will have to focus intently on the country's longstanding policy of nuclear ambiguity. This would be a prudent and possibly indispensable new focus, because effective nuclear deterrence against an already-nuclear Iran will require certain selected confirmations of Israel's secure and penetration-capable retaliatory forces. Soon, inter alia, if faced with a now-expected nuclear fait accompli in Iran, Israel's bomb will have to be brought out of the “basement."
A core element of Israel's nuclear posture has always been "deliberate ambiguity," or the so-called "bomb in the basement." According to longstanding conventional wisdom, this policy of strategic under-statement makes eminently good sense. After all, everyone in authority already knows that Israel continues to hold nuclear weapons that are (1) survivable, and (2) capable of penetrating any determined enemy's active defenses.
Further, Israel's nuclear arsenal is plainly governed by a very sophisticated command/control system, and by a carefully conceived targeting doctrine. So, why rock the boat? A partial answer must be rooted in today's continuing instability in the region, that is, in still-expanding patterns of revolutionary unrest and uncertainty. Even in Egypt, a country "at peace" with Israel since 1979, the post-Mubarak era will likely exhibit widening geo-strategic risks for Israel, possibly with heightened prospects for larger domains of Islamist or Jihadist power. Still more portentous, such hazardous developments could arise not only in Egypt and Libya, but additionally, over time, in Syria, and perhaps even Saudi Arabia. In the case of the Saudis, soon to be faced with a Shi'ite nuclear adversary in Tehran, there could even be a growing incentive to "turn nuclear" themselves.
Significantly, for Israel, there is a simultaneously emergent, and oddly un-recognized, threat. This is the impending creation of “Palestine." A Palestinian state - any Palestinian state - could pose serious perils to Israel, not only in the direct military sense of a deteriorating regional "correlation of forces," or even in "Palestine's" more certain role as a base of operations for increasingly lethal terrorist attacks, but also in both foreseeable and unexpected synergies with assorted "Arab Spring" and Iranian nuclearization outcomes.
Assuming progressively "successful" Fatah-Hamas rapprochement, and also at least an incremental U.N. recognition of "Palestine," such perilous interactions are no longer hypothetical. They are distinctly plausible.
What is Israel to do? What, more precisely, should it do about its current nuclear posture? How, exactly, should this still-ambiguous stance now be adapted to the increasingly convergent and inter-penetrating threats of surrounding Middle Eastern/North African revolutions, with Iranian nuclearization, and with its own corollary (and more or less volitional) territorial dismemberment?
In these matters, the conventional wisdom routinely assumes that credible nuclear deterrence is somehow an automatic consequence of merely holding nuclear weapons. By this argument, removing Israel's nuclear bomb from the “basement” would only elicit new waves of global condemnation, and without returning any commensurate benefits.
Notably, conventional wisdom is often unwise, and the principal strategic issues here are not at all simple or straightforward. Instead, in the necessarily arcane world of Israeli nuclear deterrence, it can never be adequate that enemy states simply acknowledge the Jewish State's nuclear status. Rather, it is important, inter alia, that these states also believe that Israel holds distinctly usable nuclear weapons, and that Jerusalem/Tel-Aviv would be willing to actually employ these usable weapons in certain clear, and situationally identifiable, circumstances.
There are, therefore, very sound reasons to doubt the argument that Israel would necessarily benefit from any seamless continuance of its deliberate nuclear ambiguity. It would seem, from certain apparent developments within Mr. Netanyahu's inner cabinet, that Israel's leadership now understands such informed skepticism.
Israel needs its nuclear weapons, and, correspondingly, a purposeful strategic doctrine. This basic need exists beyond any reasonable doubt. Without such weapons and doctrine, Israel could not survive over time, especially if certain neighboring regimes should soon become more adversarial, more Jihadist, and/or less risk-averse. Incontestably, nuclear weapons and purposeful nuclear doctrine could prove vital to various predictable requirements of both retaliation and counter-retaliation.
For Israel, the principal risks are more particular than general or generic. This is because its extant regional adversaries will likely be joined by: (1) a new Arab state of “Palestine;” and also by (2) a newly-nuclear Iran. At a minimum, if somehow deprived of its own nuclear weapons, Israel would then be thoroughly unable to deter major enemy aggressions. Without these critical weapons, an admittedly unlikely scenario that could play out only in the aftermath of a genuine "nuclear weapon free-zone" in the Middle East, Israel could not always respond convincingly to existential hazards with any plausible threats of retaliation, and/or counter-retaliation.
Still, for Israel, merely having nuclear weapons, even when they are fully recognized by enemy states, will not automatically ensure successful deterrence. In this connection, although starkly counter-intuitive, an appropriately selective and nuanced end to deliberate ambiguity could substantially improve and sustain Israel’s otherwise-imperiled nuclear deterrent. More exactly, the probability of assorted enemy attacks in the future could likely be reduced by making selectively available certain additional information concerning Israel’s nuclear weapons, and/or its relevant strategic postures. This crucial information, carefully limited yet helpfully more explicit, would center on distinctly major issues of Israeli nuclear capability, and Israeli decisional willingness.
Skeptics, no doubt, will disagree. It is, after all, seemingly sensible to assert that nuclear opacity has “worked” thus far. To be sure, while Israel’s nuclear ambiguity has done little to deter “ordinary” enemy aggressions, or multiple acts of terror, it has succeeded in keeping the country’s enemies, singly or in collaboration, from mounting any authentically existential aggressions.
Ominously, these larger aggressions could have been mounted even without nuclear or biological weapons. As the nineteenth-century Prussian strategic theorist, Karl von Clausewitz, observed in his classic essay, On War, there inevitably does come a military tipping point when “mass counts.” Perhaps more than any other imperiled state on earth, Israel needs to steer clear of such a tipping point.
Israel is half the size of Lake Michigan. Its enemies have always had an utterly undeniable advantage in “mass.” Excluding non-Arab Pakistan, which is itself hardly a pillar of stability these days, none of Israel’s extant Jihadist foes has “The Bomb." But, together, in a determined collaboration, they could still have acquired the capacity to carry out intolerably lethal assaults. Acting collectively, these states and their insurgent proxies, even without nuclear weapons, had they been capable of cooperation, could have already inflicted unacceptable harms upon the Jewish State.
An integral part of Israel's multi-layered security system lies in "active" or ballistic missile defenses, primarily, the Arrow or "Hetz." Yet, even the well-regarded and successfully-tested Arrow, augmented by the newer and shorter-range operations of "Iron Dome," could never achieve a sufficiently high probability of intercept to protect Israeli civilians. No system of missile defense can ever be entirely "leak proof," and even a single incoming nuclear missile that somehow managed to penetrate Arrow or corollary defenses could conceivably kill tens or perhaps hundreds of thousands of Israelis.
But the inherent "leakage" limitations of Arrow could be correspondingly less consequential if Israel's continuing reliance on deliberate ambiguity were suitably diminished.
The Israeli policy of an undeclared nuclear capacity would not work indefinitely. Left unrevised, this policy could fail. Leaving aside a Jihadist takeover of nuclear Pakistan, the most obvious locus of failure would be a nuclear Iran.
To be deterred, a newly-nuclear Iran would need convincing assurance that Israel’s atomic weapons were both (1) invulnerable and (2) penetration-capable. Any Iranian judgments about Israel’s capability and willingness to retaliate with nuclear weapons would then depend largely upon some prior Iranian knowledge of these weapons, including their degree of protection from surprise attack, and their ultimate capacity to “punch-through” all pertinent Iranian active and passive defenses.
Ironically, the perception of Israeli nuclear weapons as uniformly “too large” and “too powerful” could actually weaken Israel’s nuclear posture. For example, Iranian perceptions of exclusively mega-destructive Israeli nuclear weapons could effectively undermine the credibility of Israel’s indispensable nuclear deterrent. Here, although counter-intuitive, Israel’s credibility would vary inversely with the perceived destructiveness of its nuclear arms.
In the bewilderingly-complex world of nuclear strategy, some essential truths are counterintuitive. Coexisting with an already-nuclear Iran, Israel would likely benefit not from any increased nuclear secrecy (the orthodox and ordinary expectation), but, instead, from certain forms of expanded nuclear disclosure. In essence, these forms would mean a full or partial end to Israel’s bomb in the basement.
However regrettable and once-preventable, a fully nuclear Iran may already be a fait accompli. Neither the “international community” in general, nor Israel in particular, has managed to display sufficient willingness to support timely preemptions. Significantly, such preemptions, although, admittedly, an operational nightmare, could still have been consistent with the codified criteria of anticipatory self-defense under international law.
It is likely that Israel has already undertaken some very impressive and original steps in cyber-defense and cyber-war, but even the most remarkable efforts in this direction would not be enough to stop Iran altogether. Needless to say, from the standpoint of halting Iranian nuclearization, the so-called “sanctions” sequentially leveled at Tehran over the years have impacted little more than a fly on the elephant’s back.
A nuclear Iran might decide to share some of its nuclear components and materials with Hezbollah, or with another kindred terrorist group. To prevent this, Jerusalem would need to convince Iran, inter alia, that Israel possesses a range of distinctly usable nuclear options. Israeli nuclear ambiguity could be loosened by releasing certain general information regarding the availability of appropriately low-yield weapons. A policy of continued nuclear ambiguity, on the other hand, might not be sufficiently persuasive.
In Jerusalem and Tel-Aviv (Ministry of Defense), the following will soon need to be calculated vis-à-vis a nuclear Iran: the exact extent of subtlety with which Israel should now communicate key portions of its nuclear positions, intentions and capabilities. To ensure that its own nuclear forces appear sufficiently usable, invulnerable, and penetration-capable to all prospective attackers, Israel may soon benefit from selectively releasing certain broad outlines of strategic information. This disclosed information would concern, among other things, the hardening, dispersion, multiplication, basing, and yields of selected nuclear forces.
Once it is faced with a nuclear adversary in Tehran, Israel would need to convince its Iranian enemy that it possessed both the will and the capacity to make any intended Iranian nuclear aggression more costly than gainful. Of course, no Israeli move from ambiguity to disclosure would help in the case of an irrational nuclear enemy. For dealing with irrational enemies – those enemies who might not value their own continued national survival more highly than every other preference or combination of preferences - even preemption could now be too late.
To the extent that an Iranian leadership might subscribe to certain end-times visions of a Shiite apocalypse, Iran could surely cast aside all rational behavior. Were this to happen, Iran could effectively become a nuclear suicide-bomber in macrocosm. Such a destabilizing prospect is certainly improbable, but it is not inconceivable. A similarly serious prospect exists in already-nuclear and distinctly coup-vulnerable Pakistan.
To protect itself against military strikes from rational enemies, particularly those attacks that could carry existential costs, Israel will need to better exploit every aspect and function of its nuclear arsenal and doctrine. The success of Israel's efforts here would depend not only upon its selected targeting doctrine (enemy cities and/or military forces), but also upon the extent to which this choice is made known in advance. Before any rational enemies can be deterred from launching first strikes against Israel, and before they can be deterred from launching retaliatory attacks following any Israeli non-nuclear preemption, it will not be enough for them to know that Israel has The Bomb. These enemies would also need to recognize that usable Israeli nuclear weapons are sufficiently invulnerable to enemy attacks, and that at least a determinable number are capable of penetrating high-value population targets.
Removing the bomb from Israel's basement could enhance Israel's strategic deterrence to the extent that it would heighten rational enemy perceptions of both secure and capable Israeli nuclear forces. Such a calculated end to deliberate ambiguity could also underscore Israel’s willingness to use these nuclear forces in reprisal for certain enemy first-strike and retaliatory attacks. This brings to mind the so-called Samson Option, which would allow various enemy decision-makers to note and underscore that Israel is prepared to do whatever is needed to survive.
By definition, only a selective end to its nuclear ambiguity would allow Israel to exploit the potentially considerable benefits of a Samson Option. Should Israel choose to keep its Bomb in the “basement,” therefore, it could not make any use of the Samson Option.
Irrespective of its preferred level of ambiguity, Israel’s nuclear strategy is correctly oriented toward deterrence, not war-fighting. The Samson Option refers to a policy that would be based in part upon a more-or-less implicit threat of massive nuclear retaliation for certain specific enemy aggressions. Such a policy could be invoked credibly only in cases where such aggressions would threaten Israel’s very existence, and would involve far more destructive and high-yield nuclear weapons than what might otherwise be thought “usable.” This means that a Samson Option could make sense only in presumably “last-resort,” or “near last-resort,” circumstances.
It also means that where Samson is involved, an end to deliberate ambiguity would help Israel by emphasizing that portion of its nuclear arsenal that is less usable. This ironic fact is not a contradiction of the prior argument that Israel will need to take The Bomb out of its "basement" to enhance its deterrent credibility. Rather, it indicates that the persuasiveness of Israel's nuclear deterrent will require prospective enemy perceptions of retaliatory destructiveness at both the low and high ends of the nuclear yield spectrum. Ending nuclear ambiguity at the proper time would best permit Israel to foster precisely such perceptions.
The main objective of any Samson Option would not be to communicate the availability of any graduated Israeli nuclear deterrent. Instead, it would intend to signal the more-or-less unstated “promise” of a counter-city (“counter-value” in military parlance) reprisal. Made plausible by an end to absolute nuclear ambiguity, the Samson Option would be unlikely to deter any aggressions short of "high end" nuclear and/or (certain) biological first strikes upon the Jewish State.
Samson would “say” the following to all potential nuclear attackers: “We (Israel) may have to “die,” but (this time) we won’t die alone.” The Samson Option, made possible only after a calculated end to Israeli nuclear ambiguity, could serve Israel as an adjunct to deterrence, and to certain preemption options, but not as a core nuclear strategy.
The Samson Option should never be confused with Israel’s overriding security objective: to seek stable deterrence at the lowest possible levels of military conflict.
In broad outline, “Samson” could support Israel’s nuclear deterrence by demonstrating an Israeli willingness to take strategic risks, including even existential risks. Earlier, Minister of Defense Moshe Dayan had understood and openly embraced this particular form of logic: “Israel must be like a mad dog," said Dayan, "too dangerous to bother.”
Dayan was correct. In our often counter-intuitive strategic world, it can sometimes be rational to pretend irrationality. Always, the nuclear deterrence benefits of pretended irrationality would depend in part upon an enemy state’s awareness of Israel’s disclosed counter-value targeting posture. In the final analysis, there are specific and valuable critical security benefits that would likely accrue to Israel as the result of a purposefully selective and incremental end to its policy of deliberate nuclear ambiguity.
The time to begin such an “end” has not yet arrived. But at the precise moment that Iran verifiably crosses the nuclear threshold, Israel should begin immediately to remove The Bomb from its “basement.” When this critical moment arrives, Israel should already have configured (1) its optimal allocation of nuclear assets; and (2) the extent to which this particular configuration should now be disclosed. This could importantly enhance the credibility of its indispensable nuclear deterrence posture.
To optimize Israel's selective easing of nuclear ambiguity, Jerusalem/Tel-Aviv would need to deploy, among other things, a fully-recognizable second-strike nuclear force. Such a robust strategic force - hardened, multiplied and dispersed - would necessarily be fashioned to inflict a decisive retaliatory blow against major enemy cities. Iran, it follows, so long as it is led by rational decision-makers, should be made to understand that the actual costs of any planned aggressions against Israel would always exceed any conceivable gains.
The deterrence benefits of any Israeli modifications of deliberate ambiguity would be altogether limited to rational adversaries. If, after all, enemy decision-makers might sometime value certain national or religious preferences more highly than their own country's physical survival, they would not be deterred by any enhanced forms of Israeli nuclear deterrence. This would include even a properly nuanced removal of Israel's bomb from the "basement."
To comprehensively protect itself against potentially irrational nuclear adversaries, Israel could now have no logical alternative to implementing an overwhelmingly problematic conventional preemption option. Operationally, especially at this very late date, there could be no reasonable assurances of success. On the contrary, now, any such defensive first-strike would almost certainly fail.
Regarding deterrence, however, it is also noteworthy that “irrational” is not the same as “crazy,” or “mad,” and that even an irrational Iranian leadership could still have preference orderings that are both consistent and transitive. This means that even such an irrational leadership could be subject to threats of deterrence that credibly threaten certain deeply-held religious values. The “trick,” here, for Israel, must be to ascertain, quickly and correctly, the precise nature of these core enemy values. Of course, where it would be determined that an Iranian leadership were genuinely “crazy” or “mad,” that is, without any decipherable or predictable ordering of preferences, all deterrence bets would be off the table.
These considerations are strategic, rather than jurisprudential. From the discrete standpoint of international law, especially in view of Iran’s expressly genocidal threats against Israel, a preemption option could still represent a permissible expression of anticipatory self-defense under international law. Again, this purely legal judgment would be entirely separate from any parallel or coincident assessments of operational success.
The "Arab Spring,” Iranian nuclearization, and Palestinian statehood, singly, and in synergy with each other, augur badly for Israel's long-term survival. To counter this still-evolving hazard, Israel must do many things, simultaneously, on the political, diplomatic and military fronts. From the strategic perspective, in particular, it must, among other refinements, prepare immediately to modify or abandon its longstanding policy of deliberate nuclear ambiguity.
To be sure, new and expansive wars are still on the horizon in the Middle East. For Israel, the uniquely perilous conjunction of impending Palestinian statehood with impending Iranian nuclearization represents a distinctly worst-case scenario. To best meet this (literally) unprecedented existential threat, Israel must finally acknowledge the timeless warning of Karl von Clausewitz that, in certain more-or-less residual strategic circumstances, "mass counts." In such dire but wholly realistic circumstances, even a more technologically capable and expertly led Israel Defense Force (IDF) could ultimately fall victim to the relentless demographics of asymmetrical warfare, with multiple enemy states.
By itself, removing Israel's bomb from the basement will not ensure the success of its indispensable nuclear deterrent. But, in the not-too-distant future, it would still present a preferred security option to any continued posture of nuclear ambiguity.
Louis René Beres (Ph.D., Princeton, 1971) was Chair of Project Daniel in Israel. Professor of Political Science and International Law at Purdue, he is the author of many major books and articles on nuclear strategy and nuclear war, including publications in International Security (Harvard); World Politics (Princeton); The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists; Nativ (Israel); The Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs; Parameters: The Professional Journal of the US Army War College; Special Warfare (DoD); Studies in Conflict and Terrorism; Strategic Review; Contemporary Security Policy; Armed Forces and Society; Israel Affairs; Comparative Strategy; and The International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence. Professor Beres’ monographs on nuclear strategy and nuclear war have been published by The Ariel Center for Policy Research (Israel); The Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies (University of Notre Dame); The Graduate Institute of International Studies (Geneva); and the Monograph Series on World Affairs (University of Denver). His frequent opinion columns have appeared in The New York Times; Christian Science Monitor; Chicago Tribune; Los Angeles Times; Washington Post; Washington Times; Boston Globe; USA Today; The Jerusalem Post; Ha'aretz (Israel); The Jewish Press; Neue Zuricher Zeitung (Switzerland); and U.S. News & World Report. Professor Beres is also a regular columnist for Oxford University Press.
Dr. Louis René Beres was born in Zürich, Switzerland, on August 31, 1945.
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