“For by Wise Counsel, Thou Shalt Make Thy War.”
Proverbs 24,6
Israel’s nuclear posture remains closely held. On its face, this “ambiguous” stance appears perfectly reasonable. But a critically core question should now be raised: Is unmodified deliberate nuclear ambiguity (the “bomb in the basement”) still in the long-term survival interests of the beleaguered state.
A proper answer ought not to be constructed ex nihilo, “out of nothing.” Rather, it should be based on carefully calculated assessments of plausible strategic options. At a minimum, any cost-effective loosening of Israeli nuclear ambiguity would need to be subtle, nuanced and incremental. It would also need to remain tacit or uncodified in formal military doctrine.
There are, of course, variously relevant particulars. Doctrine represents the basic framework from which any specific Israeli nuclear policy of ambiguity or disclosure would be extracted or extrapolated.[1] The overriding importance of such Israeli guidance lies not only in the several ways it could animate, unify and optimize the nation’s armed forces, but in the more-or-less efficient manner it could transmit “messages” to enemy state Iran or enemy sub-state Hamas.[2]
Understood in terms of Israel’s overall strategic posture, any continuously indiscriminate, across-the-board nuclear ambiguity could undermine the country’s national security. This is because effective deterrence and defense would sometimes call for nuclear military doctrine that is at least partially recognizable by adversary states and/or surrogate insurgent militias. Today, as Israel enlarges Operation Swords of Iron against Hamas, support for diminished nuclear ambiguity should become a conspicuous example of “wise counsel.”[3]
For Israel, ultimate and comprehensive military success against war and terror (both conventional and unconventional[4]) must lie in credible layers of deterrence, not in perpetual war-fighting. Recalling ancient Chinese military thought offered by Sun-Tzu in The Art of War, “Supreme excellence consists of breaking the enemy’s creative resistance without fighting.” Paradoxically, perhaps, Israeli decision-makers should finally acknowledge that there are foreseeable occasions when too much secrecy could degrade the country’s national security. As we all ought finally to understand from world history, truth can sometimes emerge from paradox.
For Israel, there are several related understandings. Often, sound strategic thinking should be counter-intuitive. To proceed with both prudence and “daring” (a force-multiplying combination favored by Sun-Tzu in The Art of War), Israel’s nuclear weapons should be oriented not to war fighting or revenge ex post, but to deterrence ex ante. Above all, nuclear weapons – modern ordnance obviously unforeseeable by Sun Tzu – can succeed only by creative non-use.[5] By definition, once they have been used for actual battle, deterrence will have failed. And once used in any form, traditional meanings of “victory” and “success” would immediately become moot.
With regard to Israel’s current counter-terror operations against Hamas (and potentially, Hezbollah), close attention should be paid not only to Iran’s support of pertinent terrorists but also to its accelerating potential to “go nuclear.”[6] Regarding Israel’s own nuclear weapons capacity, the prospective counter-terrorism deterrence benefits of this still-ambiguous capacity would likely apply only to state adversaries, i.e., to a still non-nuclear Iran and (though only in principle ) to Syria
There is more. The original Cold War is over, but “Cold War II” is already underway between the United States, Russia, China and assorted proxies. Significantly, Israel’s deterrence relationship to a potentially nuclear Iran is not comparable to what earlier existed between the US and the USSR. Still, there are Cold War I deterrence lessons to be taken seriously in Jerusalem/Tel Aviv. Any unmodified continuance of total nuclear ambiguity could sometime cause a nuclearizing enemy state like Iran to underestimate or overestimate Israel’s retaliatory capacity. Similarly destabilizing doubts could cause Iranian leaders to misunderstand Israel’s actual willingness to retaliate, that is, its retaliatory resolve.
Similar uncertainties surrounding Israel’s nuclear arsenal could lead enemy states to reach the same erroneous conclusion. In part, this is because Israel’s willingness to make good on threatened nuclear retaliation could be seen by adversaries as inversely related to weapon system destructiveness. Ironically, if Israel’s nuclear weapons were believed to be too destructive, they might not suitably deter.
A continuing policy of ambiguity could also cause a terrorist-mentoring Iran to overestimate the first-strike vulnerability of Israel’s nuclear forces. This could be the result of a too-complete silence concerning measures of protection deployed to safeguard Israeli nuclear weapons and infrastructures. Or it could be the product of Israeli doctrinal opacity concerning the country’s defense potential, an absence of transparency that could be wrongly understood as an indication of inadequate Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD).
To deter (1) an enemy first-strike attack; or (2) a post-preemption retaliation against Israel, Jerusalem/Tel-Aviv must prevent a rational aggressor, by threat of unacceptably damaging retaliation or counter-retaliation, from deciding to strike Israel. Here, national security would be sought by convincing the rational attacker (irrational state enemies could pose an altogether different problem) that the costs of any considered attack would exceed the expected benefits. Assuming that Iran values its national self-preservation most highly and would always choose rationally between alternative options, that adversary state would refrain from any attack on an Israel believed willing and able to deliver an adequately destructive response.
Two factors must communicate such vital belief. First, in terms of capability, there are two essential components: payload and delivery system. It must always be successfully communicated to Iran that Israel’s firepower and its means of delivering that firepower are capable of inflicting unacceptable levels of destruction. This means that Israel’s retaliatory or counter-retaliatory forces must continuously appear sufficiently invulnerable to enemy first-strikes and sufficiently elusive to penetrate the prospective attacker’s active and civil defenses.
With Israel’s strategic nuclear forces and doctrine kept locked in its “basement,” Iran could conclude, rightly or wrongly, that an Iranian first-strike attack or post-preemption reprisal against Israel would be cost-effective. But, were relevant Israeli doctrine made more obvious to Tehran – that Israel’s nuclear assets meet both payload and delivery system objectives – Israel’s nuclear forces could better serve their existential security functions.
The second factor of nuclear doctrine for Israel concerns willingness. How may Israel convince Iranian decision-makers that it possesses the resolve to deliver an appropriately destructive retaliation and/or counter retaliation? The answer to this question lies largely in antecedent doctrine, in Israel’s demonstrated strength of commitment to carry out such an attack and in the tangible nuclear ordnance that would be available.
Here, too, continued ambiguity over nuclear doctrine could wrongfully create the impression of an Israel unwilling to retaliate. Conversely, any doctrinal movement toward some as-yet-undetermined level of disclosure could heighten the impression that Israel is, in fact, willing to follow-through on its now explicit nuclear threats.
There are determinedly persuasive connections between an incrementally more “open” or disclosed strategic nuclear doctrine and pertinent Iranian perceptions of Israeli nuclear deterrence. One such connection centers on the expected relation between greater openness and the perceived vulnerability of Israeli strategic nuclear forces from preemptive destruction. Another such connection concerns the relation between greater openness and the perceived capacity of Israel’s nuclear forces to reliably penetrate Iran’s active defenses.
To be deterred by Israel, a newly-nuclear Iran would need to believe that a critical number of Israel’s retaliatory forces would survive any Iranian first-strike and that these forces could not subsequently be stopped from hitting pre-designated targets in Iran. Concerning the “presumed survivability” component of Iranian belief, further sea-basing (submarines) by Israel could become a relevant case in point.
Carefully articulated, expanding doctrinal openness or partial nuclear disclosure could represent a distinctly rational option for Israel. The operational benefits of any such expanding doctrinal openness would accrue from now deliberate flows of information about more-or-less discernible policies of weapons dispersion, multiplication and/or hardening of nuclear weapon systems and about other technical features of these systems. Most importantly, doctrinally controlled and orderly flows of information could serve to remove any lingering Iranian doubts about Israel’s nuclear force capabilities and intentions. Left unchallenged, such doubts could sometime fully undermine Israeli nuclear deterrence with unprecedented lethality.
A final thought dawns. As Israel continues with its obligatory counter-terrorist war against Hamas in Gaza, Iran could sometime calculate that its own direct involvement in the conflict would be cost-effective or gainful. If such thinking were ever to prevail, Israel could find itself driven to expand Operation Swords of Iron to include the Hamas-mentoring Iranian state as a primary enemy belligerent. Ironically, as long as such an Iranian calculation were made before Tehran actually crossed the nuclear weapons threshold, it could offer Israel a prospectively unique security opportunity: that is, to launch non-nuclear preemptive strikes at a pre-nuclear Iran.[7]
Under international law, such purely protective military strikes[8] by Israel could express acts of permissible “anticipatory self-defense”[9] and prevent future nuclear war with Iran. In Tehran, this clarifying information should be taken as fair warning to stay out of any direct military engagements with Israel. In Jerusalem, though any direct war with Iran would likely involve heavy losses even if Israel were the only nuclear-capable belligerent, a decision to engage the Islamic Republic before it becomes nuclear could demonstrate commendably “wise counsel.”[10]
References
[1] “Doctrine” is not the same as “strategy.” Doctrine “sets the stage” for strategy. Inter alia, it identifies various central beliefs that would animate any actual “order of battle.” In essence, doctrine describes underlying general principles on how a particular war ought to be waged. The reciprocal task for strategy is to adapt as required to best support previously-fashioned doctrine.
[2] One crisis issue here is that both Iran and Hamas (and potentially Shiite Hezbollah in Lebanon) could be motivated by non-rational considerations of “immortality” or “power over death.” With “God on our Side,” these jihadist adversaries would assert that life everlasting can be achieved at the sacrificial expense of specifically-despised “others,” of “heathen,” of “blasphemers,” or of “apostates.” See recently, by this author, Louis René Beres: https://jewishbusinessnews.com/2023/10/12/israel-terrorism-and-immortality-hamas-attractions-to-power-over-death/
[3] Though Israel has “declared war” on Hamas, the correctness of such a declaration against a non-state adversary is jurisprudentially problematic. Traditionally, it was held that a formal declaration of war was a necessary condition before any “formal” war could exist, but the object of any such declaration would also have to be “sovereign.” Additionally, there are questions regarding whether a true legal condition of war obtains between particular states. Hugo Grotius divided wars into declared wars, which were legal, and undeclared wars, which were not. (See Grotius, THE LAW OF WAR AND PEACE, Bk. III, Ch. iii, V and XI). By the beginning of the twentieth century, the position that war exists only after a conclusive declaration of war by one of the parties, was codified at Hague Convention III. More precisely, this convention stipulated that hostilities must not commence without “previous and explicit warning” in the form of a declaration of war or an ultimatum. (See Hague Convention III Relative to the Opening of Hostilities, 1907, 3 NRGT, 3 series, 437, article 1.) Currently, of course, declarations of war may be tantamount to declarations of international criminality (because of the criminalization of aggression by authoritative international law) and it could represent a jurisprudential absurdity to tie a state of war to formal declarations of belligerency. It follows that a state of war may exist without formal declarations, but only if there is an armed conflict between two or more states and/or at least one of these states considers itself at war. On the argument that war need not be formally recognized, see J. Pictet, IV Commentary, Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War 20-1 (1958) (“no need for formal declaration of war, or for recognition of the existence of a state of war”); U.S. Dept. of Army FM 27-10, The Law of Land Warfare 7-8, paras. 8-9 (1956) (instances of armed conflict without declaration of war; law of war applies); The Prize Cases, 67 U.S. (2 Black) at 668 (“war may exist without a declaration on either side”); see also M. McDougal & F. Feliciano, LAW AND MINIMUM WORLD PUBLIC ORDER (1961), pp. 97-113 (legal status of war may be brought about by use of armed force).
[4] See by this author at BESA (Israel): Louis René Beres, https://besacenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/814-Israeli-Deterrence-Beres-final.pdf
[5] In Sun Tzu’s lexicon, “creative” could embrace the ancient strategist’s famous distinctions between “orthodox” and “unorthodox” thinking. See also, by this author: Louis René Beres, at Harvard National Security Journal, Harvard Law School: https://harvardnsj.org/2013/10/24/lessons-for-israel-from-ancient-chinese-military-thought-facing-iranian-nuclearization-with-sun-tzu/
[6] These factors could be intersectional or even synergistic. Regarding synergies, see by this author, Louis René Beres, at Harvard National Security Journal, Harvard Law School: https://harvardnsj.org/2015/06/core-synergies-in-israels-strategic-planning-when-the-adversarial-whole-is-greater-than-the-sum-of-its-parts/ See also, by Professor Beres, at Modern War Institute, West Point, Pentagon: https://mwi.usma.edu/threat-convergence-adversarial-whole-greater-sum-parts/
[7] On deterring an already-nuclear Iran, see: Louis René Beres and General John T. Chain, “Could Israel Safely deter a Nuclear Iran? The Atlantic, August 2012; and Professor Louis René Beres and General John T. Chain, “Israel; and Iran at the Eleventh Hour,” Oxford University Press (OUP), February 23, 2012. See also: Louis René Beres and General John T. Chain, “Could Israel Safely deter a Nuclear Iran? The Atlantic, August 2012 General Chain was Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Strategic Air Command (CINCSAC).
[8] Legal precedent could be drawn here from Israel’s Operation Opera directed against the Osiraq (Iraqi) nuclear reactor on June 7, 1981, and, later (though lesser known) Operation Orchard against Syria on September 6, 2007. In April 2011, the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirmed that he bombed Syrian site in the Deir ez-Zoe region of Syria had indeed been a developing nuclear reactor. Both preemptions were fully lawful assertions of Israel’s “Begin Doctrine,” itself a corollary of “anticipatory self-defense” under international law. A permissible Israeli expression of “anticipatory self-defense” would not necessarily target an enemy state’s nuclear reactor sites.
[9] Modern origins of anticipatory self-defense in customary international law lie in the Caroline, a case that concerned the unsuccessful rebellion of 1837 in Upper Canada against British rule. Following this case, the serious threat of armed attack has generally justified certain militarily defensive actions. In an exchange of diplomatic notes between the governments of the United States and Great Britain, then U.S. Secretary of State Daniel Webster outlined a framework for self-defense that did not require an antecedent attack. Here, the jurisprudential framework permitted a military response to a threat so long as the danger posed was “instant, overwhelming, leaving no choice of means, and no moment for deliberation.” See: Beth M. Polebaum, “National Self-defense in International Law: An Emerging Standard for a Nuclear Age,” 59 N.Y.U.L. Rev. 187, 190-91 (1984) (noting that the Caroline case had transformed the right of self-defense from an excuse for armed intervention into a legal doctrine). Still earlier, see: Hugo Grotius, Of the Causes of War, and First of Self-Defense, and Defense of Our Property, reprinted in 2 Classics of International Law, 168-75 (Carnegie Endowment Trust, 1925) (1625); and Emmerich de Vattel, The Right of Self-Protection and the Effects of the Sovereignty and Independence of Nations, reprinted in 3 Classics of International Law, 130 (Carnegie Endowment Trust, 1916) (1758). Also, Samuel Pufendorf, The Two Books on the Duty of Man and Citizen According to Natural Law, 32 (Frank Gardner Moore., tr., 1927 (1682).
[10] Regarding such counsel, intelligent preparations for war can always be a necessary foundation for peace. In this connection, Rabbi Eleazar quoted Rabbi Hanina, who said: “Scholars build the structure of peace in the world.” See: The Babylonian Talmud, Order Zera’im, Tractate Berakoth, IX.
Louis René Beres was educated at Princeton (Ph.D., 1971). He is the author of many major books and monographs dealing with nuclear strategy and nuclear war, including Surviving Amid Chaos: Israel’s Nuclear Strategy (Rowman and Littlefield, 2016/2018); Terrorism and Global Security: The Nuclear Threat (Westview, 1979); Apocalypse: Nuclear Catastrophe in World Politics (The University of Chicago Press,1980); Mimicking Sisyphus: America’s Countervailing Nuclear Strategy (D.C. Heath/Lexington, 1983); and Security or Armageddon: Israel’s Nuclear Strategy (D.C. Heath/Lexington, 1986). His articles have appeared in The New York Times; The Atlantic; The Jerusalem Post; Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists; World Politics (Princeton ); Harvard National Security Journal (Harvard Law School); International Security (Harvard University); Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs; Parameters: Journal of the US Army War College (Pentagon); Air-Space Operations Review (USAF); The War Room (Pentagon); Modern War Institute (West Point); and International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence. Professor Beres was born in Zürich, Switzerland on August 31, 1945. He has lectured widely on law and strategy issues at United States and Israeli military/intelligence institutions. In Israel, his specially-prepared monographs have been published at BESA; INSS; Tel-Aviv University and Working Papers of the annual strategy conference at Herzliya. Professor Beres is a regular contributor to the annual Oxford Yearbook on Jurisprudence and International Law (Oxford University Press). In Israel, he was Chair of “Project Daniel” (PM Sharon, Iranian nuclearization) 2003-2004.
