Iran continues to taunt Israel with threats of annihilation. But such threats have no tangible strategic foundation. They are erected on a flimsy structure of vacant bombast and shallow witticisms.
This appraisal is fully supported by logic-based investigations. What else should a capable observer conclude about an impending Israel-Iran war in which only Israel could expectedly achieve “escalation dominance?” How should a non-nuclear Iran plan to prevail in competitive risk-taking with an already-nuclear Israel?
Why should Iran, the foreseeably losing side, pretend war-fighting capacities that it clearly does not have? Is this crudely visceral behavior an example of “pretended irrationality” or is Tehran genuinely irrational? If the latter, does Jerusalem have any rational alternative to launching apt pre-war or intra-war preemptions?
There exists a thickening layer of irony behind Iran’s determinably unpersuasive threats. It clarifies that any soon-to-be fought war against Iran could allow the Jewish State to prevent the Islamic Republic from “becoming nuclear.” Significantly, continuous spasms of incoherent bluster from Tehran could serve only Israel’s strategic interests. Reciprocally, they would portend authentically existential harms for Iran.
What should be expected? For the moment, the most plausible path to an Israel-Iran war (a war in which Iran would still be non-nuclear) would involve variously unpredictable escalations from Israeli military engagements with Hezbollah or other jihadist proxies. In such an unprecedented war, even a not-yet-nuclear Iran could elicit “limited” Israeli nuclear responses. Though these responses could be entirely consistent with authoritative international law,[1] their cumulative effects on friend and foe alike could be radically destabilizing.
A notably worrisome escalation danger would lie in Iranian use of radiation dispersal weapons or an Iranian conventional rocket attack on Israel’s Dimona nuclear reactor. In a markedly worst-case scenario, a nuclear North Korea would engage Israeli military forces on behalf of Iran. In such an under-examined but increasingly credible scenario, North Korea would act as the equalizing surrogate for Iran. On a historical reminder note, North Korea engaged militarily with Israeli forces in the past, most conspicuously during the 1973 Yom Kippur War.
For Jerusalem, there are immediately important specifics to identify, decipher and monitor. By definition, all pertinent scenarios would be unprecedented or sui generis. This means, among other things, that all related and derivative predictions could never express anything more than “quasi-scientific” exercises.
In logic, true assessments of probability must always stem from the determinable frequency of relevant past events. But because there has never been a nuclear war (Hiroshima and Nagasaki don’t “count”), nothing science-based could presently be estimated about an Israel-Iran nuclear war. Even if Iran were to remain pre-nuclear, Jerusalem could sometime calculate that it would be gainful for Israel to cross the nuclear combat “firebreak.” This would be the case in those circumstances wherein any non-introduction of Israeli nuclear weapons could allow Iran to gain an upper hand during crisis bargaining. In extremis, Israel could “go nuclear” (although at intentionally limited or tactical levels) in order to maintain “escalation dominance.”
These are weighty analytic matters. Above all, they are not matters of “common sense.” In all these matters, common sense is simply the beguiling enemy of strategic truth. Looking ahead, arcane matters of nuclear peace and nuclear war could never be reliably understood by posturing politicians or clever pundits.
For Israel, a country smaller than America’s Lake Michigan, nuclear weapons and deterrence remain essential to national survival. Israel’s traditional policy of deliberate nuclear ambiguity or “the bomb in the basement” goes back to early days of the state. During the 1950s, David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, understood the need for a dramatic “equalizer” vis-a-vis larger and more populous regional enemies. For “BG,” those original enemies were Arab states, primarily Egypt, Jordan and Syria. Today, in yet another irony, some of these same Sunni states share Israel’s grievous apprehensions of Iran, and could even “sign on” as a surreptitious Israeli ally.
What next for Jerusalem? Immediately, facing an intransigent and soon-to-be nuclear Iran, Israel needs to update and refine its traditional posture of “deliberate nuclear ambiguity.” The key objective of such urgently needed changes would be ascertainably credible nuclear deterrence, a goal requiring prompt policy shifts to “selective nuclear disclosure.” Though counter-intuitive, Iran will need to be convinced that Israel’s nuclear arms are not too destructive for actual operational use.
There will be variously perplexing nuances. For Israel to fashion reason-based nuclear policies, Iran’s leaders should be considered rational. But it is conceivable that Iran would sometime act irrationally, perhaps in alliance with other more-or-less rational states like North Korea or kindred terror groups such as Hezbollah. In the case of North Korea, any actual and direct war against Israel would be much more challenging than Iran’s contrived and baseless bravado.
Leaving aside North Korea, unless Jerusalem were to consider Pakistan an authentic enemy, Israel has no present nuclear enemies. Still, as an unstable Islamic state, Pakistan is potentially subject to coup d’état by assorted Jihadist elements and is closely aligned with Saudi Arabia and Iran. At some still-indeterminable point, the Sunni Saudi kingdom could decide to “go nuclear” itself, not because of Israel, but because of a reasonable fear of Shiite Iran’s nuclear progress. This significant decision could be reinforced by parallel or coinciding nuclear decisions in Egypt and/or non-Arab Turkey.
Israel needs less faith in “common sense.” It needs more faith in disciplined and refined strategic reasoning. Such reasoning will have to be both literate and dialectical.
To wit, for Israel’s nuclear deterrence to work longer-term, Iran will need to be selectively told more rather than less about “the Zionist enemy’s” nuclear targeting doctrine and the invulnerability of Israel’s nuclear forces. In concert with such changes, Jerusalem will need to clarify its still-opaque “Samson Option.” The point of any such clarification would not be to “die with the Philistines” (per the biblical Book of Judges), but to enhance “high destruction” options of its strategic deterrence posture.
Though the only purposeful rationale of Israel’s nuclear weapons could be viable deterrence at variable levels of military destructiveness, there will assuredly remain circumstances under which Israel’s nuclear deterrent could fail. How might such prospectively intolerable circumstances arise? A comprehensive answer could be extrapolated from the following four scenarios. All of these delineated narratives could result as a “by-product” of Israel’s expanding war with Hezbollah or other Iranian proxies, or of a direct belligerency between Israel and Iran.
(1) Nuclear Retaliation
If Iran were to launch a massive conventional attack on Israel, Jerusalem could ultimately escalate to a limited nuclear retaliation. If Iranian first-strikes were to involve chemical or biological weapons, electromagnetic weapons (EMP) or radiation dispersal weapons, Israelmight immediately or incrementally decide to launch a calibrated nuclear reprisal. This decision would depend, in large measure, on Jerusalem’s expectations concerning follow-on Iranian aggression and estimations of comparative damage-limitation. A nuclear retaliation by Israel could be ruled out conclusively only in certain circumstances where the Iranian aggressions were conventional and “hard-target” oriented; that is, verifiably oriented toward Israeli weapons and military infrastructures, and not involving Israel’s civilian populations. Nonetheless, there are several foreseeably residual circumstances wherein Israel could judge limited nuclear weapons use to be both rational and cost-effective.
(2) Nuclear Counter retaliation
If Israel should feel compelled to preempt Iranian aggression with conventional weapons, that enemy state’s response would largely determine Israel’s next escalatory moves. If this response were in any way nuclear, including “only” radiological weapons, Israel would likely turn to certain tangibly correlative forms of nuclear counter-retaliation. If this enemy retaliation were to involve other non-nuclear weapons of mass destruction or mass disruption (e.g., EMP weapons), Israel could still feel compelled to take enhanced escalatory initiatives. This vital decision would depend upon Jerusalem’s considered judgments of Iranian intent and on its corollary calculations of needed damage-limitation.
If the Iranian response to Israel’s preemption were limited to hard-target conventional strikes, it is unlikely that Israel’s decision-makers would move to nuclear counter retaliations. If, however, the Iranian conventional retaliation was “all-out” and directed in whole or in part toward Israeli civilian populations, an Israeli nuclear counter- retaliation could not be excluded ipso facto. Such counter-retaliation couldbe ruled decisively out only if Iran’s conventional retaliation were presumptively proportionate to Israel’s preemption; confined to Israeli military targets; circumscribed by codified legal limits of “proportionality” and “military necessity,” and accompanied by persuasive assurances of non-escalatory intent.
(3) Nuclear Preemption
It is highly unlikely (perhaps even inconceivable) that Israel would ever decide to launch a preemptive nuclear strike against Iran. Though circumstances could arise wherein such a strike would be rational in strategy and permissible in law, it is also improbable that Israel would allow itself to reach such “end-of-the-line” circumstances. In principle, at least, an Israeli nuclear preemption could reasonably be expected only where Iran (a) had already acquired authentic (chain-reaction) nuclear and/or other weapons of mass destruction; (b) had already clarified that its intentions paralleled its capabilities; (c) was believed ready to begin a “countdown to launch;” and (d) where Jerusalem believed that exclusively conventional preemptions could no longer be consistent with self-preservation of the Jewish State.
(4) Nuclear War fighting
If nuclear weapons should ever be introduced into a conflict between Israel and Iran, some form of nuclear war fighting could ensue. This would hold true so long as: (a) Iranian first-strikes would not destroy Israel’s second-strike nuclear capability; (b) Iranian retaliations for an Israeli conventional preemption would not destroy Israel’s nuclear counter-retaliatory capability; (c) Israeli preemptive strikes involving nuclear weapons would not destroy Iran’s second-strike nuclear capabilities; and (d) Israeli retaliation for conventional first-strikes would not destroy Iran’s nuclear counter-retaliatory capability. For the time being, at least, any Iranian nuclear capacity would be limited to radiation dispersal weapons and conventional rocket attacks against Israel’s Dimona nuclear reactor.
Israel is already at its eleventh hour of nuclear war preparedness. Prima facie, the overriding focus in Jerusalem ought to remain fixed on Iranian capabilities and intentions, but should also include coinciding intersections with surrogate objectives and operations. In the final analysis, the Iran/Hezbollah/Houthi/Hamas/Fatah threat to Israel is not “just” an isolable terror threat or strategic threat, but a manifestly unique peril that could suddenly or incrementally trigger nuclear warfare with Iran.[2] As for the incendiary warnings of “annihilation” now blaring incessantly from Tehran, seeking to fulfil such genocidal threats would inevitably prove more injurious to Iran than to Israel.
As this sobering conclusion is already well-understood by leadership elements in Tehran, Israel still has the upper hand in any plausibly impending struggles for “escalation dominance.” To best ensure that this Israeli advantage remains continuous and undiminished, Jerusalem should promptly declare appropriately supported shifts from “deliberate nuclear ambiguity” to “selective nuclear disclosure” and simultaneously reveal a nuclear deterrence-enhancing “Samson Option.” Both intersecting remedies should be conspicuously oriented not to nuclear war-fighting strategies, but to strategies of nuclear war avoidance.
[1] No state on earth, including Israel, is under legal obligation to renounce “militarily necessary” uses of nuclear force in extremis. More precisely, on July 8, 1996, the International Court of Justice at The Hague (ICJ) handed down its Advisory Opinion on “The Legality of the Threat or Use of Force of Nuclear Weapons.” The final paragraph of this Opinion, concludes, inter alia: “The threat or use of nuclear weapons would generally be contrary to the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict, and in particular the principles and rules of humanitarian law. However, in view of the current state of international law, and of the elements of fact at its disposal, the Court cannot conclude definitively whether the threat or use of nuclear weapons would be lawful or unlawful in an extreme circumstance of self-defense, in which the very survival of a State would be at stake.”
[2] For specialized accounts by this author of nuclear war effects, see: Louis René Beres, Apocalypse: Nuclear Catastrophe in World Politics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980); Louis René Beres, Mimicking Sisyphus: America’s Countervailing Nuclear Strategy (Lexington, Mass., Lexington Books, 1983); Louis René Beres, Reason and Realpolitik: U.S. Foreign Policy and World Order (Lexington, Mass., Lexington Books, 1984); and Louis René Beres, Security or Armageddon: Israel’s Nuclear Strategy (Lexington, Mass., Lexington Books, 1986). Most recently, by Professor Beres, see: Surviving Amid Chaos: Israel’s Nuclear Strategy (New York, Rowman & Littlefield, 2016; 2nd ed. 2018).