Israel Should Selectively Reveal Its Nuclear Arsenal to the World

Louis René Beres is professor of international law at Purdue University and an expert on nuclear strategy and war.

Beleaguered by endless terrorism, and also by growing worldwide opposition to any of its indispensable forms of self-defense, including even lawful blockade, Israel now requires a complex and nuanced counter-terrorism strategy to survive. At the same time, the major threats to its physical survival lie in certain mass destruction attacks by enemy states. Israel’s existential security, therefore, must ultimately rest upon nuclear deterrence.

Israel is smaller than Lake Michigan. For this ministate, President Obama’s preferred “world free of nuclear weapons” would represent a world of radical insecurity, a literally dreadful world in which Israel’s enemies could finally inflict mortal harms without fear of unacceptable reprisals. If, moreover, this preferred world were also to embrace Mr. Obama’s oft-expressed hopes for an independent Palestinian state, the resultant synergies could enlarge the existential threats to Israel.

This does not mean that a still-nuclear Israel would necessarily be safe and secure. Nuclear deterrence, after all, depends in part upon enemy rationality. Where this requirement is not met, the nuclear retaliatory threat is immobilized.

Neither Israel nor the United States has been willing to act preemptively against Iran. Why? The answer is that they have chosen instead to rely upon hope.

It is a mistake as old as history. The ancient Greek historian, Thucydides, considering the uncertain fate of Melos during the Peloponnesian War, observed: “Hope is by nature an expensive commodity, and those who are risking their all on one cast, find out what it means only when they are already ruined.”

Soon, Iran will almost certainly become a full nuclear weapons state. Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Obama will then attempt, vainly, to achieve some form of stable deterrence with Tehran. Hoping that a new balance of terror can somehow be premised upon the earlier U.S.-U.S.S.R. model, Washington and Jerusalem will inevitably discover more-or-less catastrophic failure.

A core of Jerusalem’s nuclear strategy has always been to keep its “bomb” in the basement. After Iranian nuclearization, however, there would be unacceptable risks of continuing with its policy of nuclear ambiguity.

Until now, ambiguity has “worked.” Although it has done little to deter ordinary conventional enemy aggressions or certain acts of terror, ambiguity has succeeded in keeping Israel’s enemies from mounting existential aggressions. These particular aggressions could have been mounted without nuclear weapons. There does come a point in any war when mass counts.

Israel’s enemies have always had an obvious advantage in mass. None of Israel’s foes has the bomb, but together, collaboratively, and possibly even including nonstate proxies, they could still have acquired the capacity to carry out intolerably massive assaults.

Israel’s policy of deliberate ambiguity will not work indefinitely. To be deterred, a fully nuclear Iran would need assurance that Israel’s own nuclear weapons were both invulnerable (safe from Iranian first-strikes), and penetration-capable (able to punch through Iran’s own active and passive defenses). Such assurance would be made more likely by particular Israeli steps toward nuclear disclosure.

Ironically, perhaps, Iranian perceptions of mega-destructive Israeli nuclear weapons could undermine Israel’s nuclear deterrence. In some circumstances, Israel’s deterrent credibility could even vary inversely with the perceived destructiveness of its nuclear arms. The more destructive Israel’s nuclear weapons appear to prospective aggressors, the less likely they will actually be fired.

An Iranian nuclear threat to Israel could also be indirect, stemming from any willingness in Tehran to share some of its nuclear components and materials with Hezbollah, or another kindred terrorist group. To prevent this threat, Jerusalem would need to convince Iran that Israel possesses a range of distinctly usable nuclear options. Here, too, continued nuclear ambiguity might not remain sufficiently persuasive to sustain Israel’s nuclear deterrent.

Jerusalem will eventually need to move from nuclear ambiguity to nuclear disclosure. What will then need to be calculated by Israel Defense Forces planners and strategists is the precise extent to which Israel should communicate its relevant nuclear positions, intentions and capabilities.

Once faced with a nuclear fait accompli in Tehran, Israel would need to convince Iran’s leaders that it possesses both the will and the capacity to make any intended Iranian nuclear aggression more costly than gainful. But, again, no Israeli move from ambiguity to disclosure would help in the case of an irrational nuclear enemy.

Were a religiously-driven Iranian leadership to expect a Shiite apocalypse, Iran could readily cast aside all rational behavior. Iran would thus become a nuclear suicide-bomber in macrocosm. Such a terrifying prospect is improbable, but it is not inconceivable.

To protect itself against enemy strikes, particularly those attacks that could carry existential costs, Israel will need to exploit every aspect of its still opaque nuclear arsenal. The success of Israel’s efforts will depend not only upon its selected pattern of “counterforce” and “counter value” (counter-city) operations, but also upon the extent to which this choice is made known in advance to both enemy states and their non-state surrogates. Before these enemies can be deterred from launching first strikes against Israel, and before they can be deterred from launching retaliatory attacks following a still-possible Israeli (non-nuclear) preemption, it will not be enough to know that Israel has the bomb. These enemies would also need to recognize that Israeli nuclear weapons are sufficiently invulnerable to any such attacks, and that some are pointed directly at high-value population targets.

Removing the bomb from Israel’s “basement” could enhance Israel’s strategic deterrence by heightening enemy perceptions of 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.

For now, Israel’s bomb should remain ambiguous, if only to ward off insistent denuclearization pressures on Jerusalem from Washington. Still, no later than the moment that Iran is revealed to be finalizing its nuclear weapons capability, Israel must put an immediate end to its nuclear ambiguity. Simultaneously, of course, Israel must capably fight its protracted struggle against terrorism, with special reference to prevention of a Palestinian state. The worst-case outcome for Israel would be the coincident appearance of “Palestine” with a nuclear Iran.

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