Intuitively, it would appear that Israel’s nuclear policy of deliberate ambiguity makes evident sense. After all, everyone already knows that Israel has nuclear weapons. So, why needlessly “rock the boat” by being more precise?
There is a good answer, one that needs to be heard: No automatic correlation exists between enemy perceptions of Israel’s nuclear capacity, and credible Israeli nuclear deterrence. In fact, in certain circumstances, such adversarial perceptions could fully undermine credible Israeli deterrence. An example would be those particular cases in which the prospective Israeli deterrer were believed to hold only very high-yield nuclear forces, a belief that could then produce genuinely serious doubts about any (still undeclared) Israeli willingness to actually employ such forces in some implicitly-threatened retaliations.
Yet, “opacity” remains at the core of Israel’s unstated nuclear doctrine. Ignoring the potentially-lethal shortcomings of “deliberate ambiguity,” Jerusalem seemingly remains convinced that removing “the bomb” from Israel’s “basement” would promptly elicit widespread and potentially insufferable global condemnation. Such Israeli political and public relations concerns are doubtlessly serious and entirely valid, especially because they would inevitably include some very sharp and consequential disapprovals from Washington. Nonetheless, they utterly pale in significance vis-à-vis the probable costs of any failed nuclear deterrence.
In the Middle East, the critical geo-strategic issues are not at all plain or straightforward. Rather, in the always densely-arcane world of Israeli nuclear thinking, it can never be sufficient that enemy states are simply able to acknowledge the Jewish State’s overall nuclear status. Among other things, it is important that these states will also believe that Israel has distinctly usable nuclear weapons, and, correspondingly, that Israel would be expressly willing to employ these nuclear weapons in certain very specific and readily identifiable situations.
It follows that there are some very sound reasons to doubt the conventional wisdom that Israel would necessarily benefit from any rigidly determined continuance of its nuclear ambiguity.
Israel needs its nuclear weapons. This basic fact is incontestable. Without these weapons, as I have written widely, Israel could not survive.
For Israel, the principal existential risks are substantially more than merely generic or general. This is because its regional adversaries will sometime be joined by:
(1) a new enemy Arab state of “Palestine ;” and/or
(2) a newly-nuclear enemy Iran. If this “joining” were to include both enemy possibilities, there would then be an even more corrosive outcome. Synergistically, this interactive outcome would be more harmful to Israel than the mere sum of its two separate parts.
Deprived of its own nuclear weapons, Israel would become unable to deter major enemy aggressions. Without these weapons, Israel could not respond convincingly to existential hazards with any plausible threats of retaliation, and/or threats of counter-retaliation.
At the same time, just possessing nuclear weapons, even when they are unhesitatingly acknowledged and recognized by enemy states, will not ensure successful deterrence. Although starkly counterintuitive, an appropriately selective and nuanced end to deliberate ambiguity could 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 available certain additional and limited information concerning Israel’s nuclear weapons, and also its relevant strategic postures. To achieve Israel’s deterrent objective, this crucial information would center on decidedly major issues of
(1) nuclear capability, and
(2) decisional willingness.
Skeptics will disagree. It is, after all, reasonable to assert that Israel’s nuclear opacity has “worked” thus far. Israel’s nuclear ambiguity has done little to deter “ordinary” enemy aggressions, or multiple acts of terror, but it has succeeded in keeping the country’s enemies from mounting any authentically existential aggressions.
These larger aggressions could have been mounted 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 “masscounts.”
Israel is half the size of Lake Michigan. Its enemies have always had an undeniable advantage in “mass.” Excluding non-Arab Pakistan, none of Israel’s Jihadist foes has “The Bomb.” But together, in a determined collaboration, they could still have acquired the threshold capacity to carry out intolerably lethal assaults. Acting collectively, these states and their insurgent proxies, even without nuclear weapons, could already have inflicted unacceptable harms upon the Jewish State.
An integral part of Israel’s multi-layered security system lies in “active” or ballistic missile defenses – essentially, the Arrow or “Hetz.” Yet, even the well-regarded and successfully-tested Arrow could never achieve a sufficiently high probability of intercept to adequately protect Israeli civilians. No system of ballistic missile defense can ever be entirely “leak proof,” and even a single incoming nuclear missile that managed to penetrate Arrow defenses could kill tens or hundreds of thousands of Israelis. These inherent “leakage” limitations of Arrow would likely be far less consequential if Israel’s continuing reliance on deliberate ambiguity were suitably and subtly diminished.
In brief, the current Israeli policy of an undeclared nuclear capacity will not work indefinitely. Left unrevised, this policy will fail. The most obvious and fatal locus of failure would be Iran.
To be deterred, a newly-nuclear Iran would need convincing assurance that Israel’s nuclear weapons were both invulnerable and penetration-capable. Any Iranian judgments about Israel’s capability and willingness to retaliate with nuclear weapons would depend largely upon some prior Iranian knowledge of these weapons, including their presumed degree of protection from surprise attack, and their presumed capacity to “punch-through” Iranian active and passive defenses.
However counterintuitive, the uniform appearance of Israeli nuclear weapons as “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, ironically perhaps, Israel’s deterrent credibility would vary inversely with the perceived destructiveness of its nuclear arms.
Some essential truths are counterintuitive. Coexisting with an already-nuclear Iran, Israel would not benefit from any increase in nuclear secrecy (the orthodox and ordinary expectation), but rather from certain limited and residual forms of expanded nuclear disclosure. In essence, this would mean a purposefully incremental end to Israel’s bomb in the basement.
Although inexcusable, a fully nuclear Iran now appears to be a fait accompli. Neither the “international community” in general, nor Israel in particular, had displayed sufficient willingness to support needed preemptions when such expressions of “anticipatory self-defense” were still operationally plausible.
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. Counter intuitively, a policy of continued nuclear ambiguity, on the other hand, might not be sufficiently persuasive.
In Jerusalem (prime minister) and Tel-Aviv (ministry of defense), the following will need to be calculated vis-à-vis a soon-to-be nuclear Iran: the exact extent to which Israel should communicate key aspects and portions of its nuclear positions, intentions and capabilities. To fully ensure that its nuclear forces appear sufficiently usable, invulnerable, and penetration-capable to all prospective attackers, Israel will 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 Israeli nuclear forces.
Once it is faced with a recognizably 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. Significantly, no Israeli move from ambiguity to disclosure would help in the case of an irrational nuclear enemy. For dealing with irrational enemies, those particular adversaries who would not value their own continued national survival more highly than any 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 cast aside all rational behavior. Were this to happen, Iran could effectively become a nuclear suicide-bomber in macrocosm. Such a destabilizing prospect is improbable, but it is not inconceivable. A similarly serious prospect exists in already-nuclear, and 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 preemptions, it will not be enough for them to know that Israel has The Bomb. These enemies would also need to detect 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.
Israel has likely (and correctly) embraced a counter-city or “counter-value” nuclear targeting policy. That policy must be made known in advance to all its pertinent enemies. Without such advance disclosures, the Israeli deterrent policy would more likely fail.
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 could allow various enemy decision-makers to both note and underscore that Israel is prepared to do whatever is needed to survive.
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 strategic sense only in presumably “last-resort,” or “near last-resort,” circumstances.
Where Samson is involved, an end to deliberate ambiguity could help Israel by emphasizing that portion of its nuclear arsenal that is less usable. This ironic fact is not a contradiction of my prior argument that Israel will need to take The Bomb out of the “basement” in order to enhance its deterrent credibility. Rather, it indicates that the cumulative 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 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 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 also o certain preemption options, but not as a core national nuclear strategy.
The Samson Option should never be confused with Israel’s overriding security objective: that is, to seek stable nuclear deterrence at the lowest conceivable levels of possible military conflict.
In broad outline, “Samson” could support Israel’s nuclear deterrent by best demonstrating an Israeli willingness to take strategic risks, including even existential risks. Earlier, Moshe Dayan had understood and embraced this particular and potentially counterintuitive logic: “Israel must be like a mad dog, said Dayan, too dangerous to bother.”
In our often counterintuitive 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 an intentionally 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 precisely verifiable moment that Iran should cross the nuclear threshold, Israel should begin to remove The Bomb from its “basement.” Importantly, when this particularly critical moment arrives, Israel should already have configured (1) its planned reallocation of nuclear assets; and (2) the measurable extent to which this configuration should now be disclosed. This would enhance the credibility of its nuclear deterrence posture.
A final word about preemption. As now seems apparent from the probable but still time-limited benefit of the Stuxnet virus, Iran’s nuclearization efforts have recently been set back by unique and non-explosive forms of anticipatory self-defense. It follows that Israel’s nuclear strategy will likely benefit not only from certain counterintuitive policies of expanding nuclear disclosure, but also by an increasing and simultaneous reliance upon apt forms of cyber-defense and cyber-warfare. Known in purely military parlance as “force multipliers,” these developing new forms of self-defense and self-preservation could provide Israel with some still operationally-viable means to survive.
“By wise counsel,” we learn from Proverbs, “thou shalt make thy war.”
Louis René Beres (Ph.D., Princeton, 1971) was Chair of Project Daniel (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; Washington Post; Washington Times; Boston Globe; Los Angeles Times; USA Today; The Jerusalem Post; Ha’aretz (Israel); The Jewish Press; Neue Zuricher Zeitung (Switzerland); and U.S. News & World Report.
Dr. Louis René Beres was born in Zürich, Switzerland, on August 31, 1945.
