ISRAEL WILL BE FOREVER CONDEMNED IF IT WERE TO USE THE BOMB

End Israel’s nuclear ambiguity

Removing the bomb from the “basement” could enhance Israel’s strategic deterrence. 

 

By Louis Rene Beres

 

JNS

Aug 7, 2024

 

 

 

 

Israel’s leaders should plan for an immediate end to “deliberate nuclear ambiguity” because Iran continues to speak openly of Israel’s extermination and to dominate upcoming crisis escalations. Though non-nuclear Iran would suffer the greater harm if Israel were left with no intra-war choice but to launch nuclear weapons, the more powerful Jewish state could still suffer the grievous consequences of Iranian errors or miscalculations.

In any direct and protracted war with Iran, nuclear Israel would be in a reassuring position of “escalation dominance.” But there could also be a distressing “fly in the ointment.” The sole foreseeable factor that could impair Israel’s escalation advantage would be North Korean military support for Iran. This is because Iran’s belligerent ally in Pyongyang is already nuclear and Israel is a “50 target state”—a state with no meaningful strategic depth.

The apt remedy for Israel should be an immediate policy shift from “deliberate nuclear ambiguity” (amimut in Hebrew) to “selective nuclear disclosure.” Until now, nuclear ambiguity has managed to work. Though this success has seemingly done little to deter conventional aggression or acts of terror, it has kept the country’s enemies from launching any potentially existential aggressions.

To be suitably deterred, Iran would require verifiable assurances that Israel’s nuclear weapons were effectively invulnerable and also “penetration-capable.” This second expectation means that Israel’s nuclear weapons would not only be adequately protected from adversarial first strikes but could also “punch through” Iran’s active defenses. In essence, an immediate end to “deliberate nuclear ambiguity” could prove indispensable to Israel’s security from Iran and perhaps North Korea.

Iran’s judgments concerning Israel’s ultimate willingness to engage with nuclear weapons would depend on acquiring useable foreknowledge of these weapons as well as their operational capabilities. Ironically, Iranian perceptions of solely mega-destructive, high-yield Israeli nuclear weapons could undermine the credibility of Israel’s nuclear deterrent. Bringing an immediate end to “deliberate nuclear ambiguity” would represent the most promising Israeli corrective. Moreover, if Iran should ever decide to share some of its offensive nuclear assets with a surrogate jihadist terrorist group, Jerusalem would need to have prepared for the nuclear deterrence of determined sub-state adversaries.

The main point of any shift from deliberate nuclear ambiguity to selective nuclear disclosure would be to signal that Israel’s “bomb” lies safely beyond any preemptive enemy reach and is adjustable to all possible levels of enemy aggression. Removing the bomb from the “basement” could enhance Israel’s strategic deterrence to the extent that it would heighten enemy perceptions of secure and capable Israeli nuclear forces. Any properly calculated end to deliberate nuclear ambiguity could underscore Israel’s willingness to use nuclear forces in reprisal for first-strike or retaliatory attacks. For now, among other things, any purposeful shift from deliberate nuclear ambiguity to selective nuclear disclosure would need to convince Iran of Israel’s willingness to use nuclear forces against a determined non–nuclear aggressor.

Though generally misunderstood, a “Samson Option” could gainfully support Israel’s task of strategic dissuasion. For Jerusalem, the reinforcing benefits of “Samson” would lie not in any supposed eagerness to “die with the Philistines,” but in the Option’s conspicuous deterrent advantages at the high-end of competition for “escalation dominance.” An explicitly-revealed Samson Option could multiply and magnify the survival benefits of selective nuclear disclosure not by pointlessly threatening Israeli spasms of revenge, but by expressly reminding Iran that Israel’s nuclear force calibrations would remain functional at the eleventh hour.

In assessing its optimal levels of deliberate nuclear disclosure, Israel should continuously bear in mind the country’s overriding strategic nuclear objective: deterrence ex ante, not revenge ex post. If, however, nuclear weapons should be introduced into a conflict with Iran (most plausibly via military participation by Iran’s ally North Korea), one form or another of nuclear war-fighting could ensue.

For Israel, the correct time to end its traditional and outdated policy of “deliberate nuclear ambiguity” is the present. The intellectually barren argument that it has worked thus far and would therefore continue to work in the future is dangerously misleading. Left unrevised by a more carefully calculated and prudent Israeli nuclear policy, such an unscientific argument could propel the people of Israel into Dante’s eternity of “fire and ice.”  From this dreadful eternity, there could be neither escape nor sanctuary.