Maintaining Israel’s Pax Atomica in the Middle East

Israel's nuclear weapons represent a critical impediment to the actual use of nuclear weapons.

By LOUIS RENÉ BERES
Israeli flags 390 (photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem)
Israeli flags 390
(photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem)
Si vis pacem, para bellum atomicum. “If you want peace, prepare for atomic war.” However reluctantly, this current variation on a classic Roman adage should become Israel’s core strategic mantra.
Israel should not adopt this mantra because a nuclear war in the Mideast is likely, but because Israel’s nuclear deterrent is crucial for the prevention of large-scale conventional conflict.            Still, with Iran’s unopposed and growing nuclearization, an eventual nuclear war cannot be ruled out. Taking the Iranian threat into account, Israeli strategic planners will need to continually augment deterrence strategies with apt kinds of diplomacy, ballistic missile defense, and alternative forms of preemption. Preemption could include nuanced forms of certain cyber-attacks and selective regime-change interventions that would fall short of outright war.             Jurisprudentially, all of these preemption alternatives could be considered legitimate expressions of “anticipatory self-defense.” International law, after all, is never a suicide pact. No country is ever obligated to passively sit back and wait to be attacked.            There is a related issue for Israel – one that military planners would designate "synergies." This issue concerns the ongoing question of Palestinian statehood. If US President Barack Obama – or even his successor – should proceed with the "road map to peace in the Middle East," an independent state of Palestine would eventually be carved out of the still-living body of Israel. Consequently, a twenty-third Arab state could immediately become a platform for future war and terror against Israel. Such a development could create corollary security threats to the US.
President Obama seeks “a world free of nuclear weapons.” The ultimate existential threat posed by a Palestinian state would likely require prior Israeli nuclear disarmament.  Once a new enemy state and its allies believed that Israel had bent sufficiently to "nonproliferation" demands, adversarial military strategies could progress more-or-less seamlessly, from terror to war, and from attrition to annihilation.
Any ill-considered Israeli moves toward denuclearization could remove Israel’s last critical barrier to national survival.
Israel's unilateral nuclear disarmament is improbable, but not inconceivable. After all, some of Israel’s leading academic strategists continue to make this sort of argument. I have debated them myself on the pages of Harvard University’s authoritative journal, International Security.
It is difficult to imagine nuclear weapons as anything other than evil.  Nonetheless, there are identifiable circumstances wherein a particular state's possession of such weapons may be its only protection from catastrophic war or genocide.  Because such weapons may deter international aggression – at least in those cases where the prospective aggressor remains rational – their possession could also protect neighboring states from nuclear-related harm.
Not all members of the global nuclear club need be a security menace. Some may offer a distinct and indispensable benefit to world peace and security. This point should already be clear to everyone who can remember the Cold War.
Should Israel be deprived of its nuclear forces for any reason, the Jewish State could become vulnerable to overwhelming attacks from enemy states.
Although such existential vulnerabilities might be prevented, in principle, by instituting parallel forms of weapon disarmament amongst these foes, such steps would never actually be taken. Verification of compliance in these matters is exceedingly difficult, and such verification would become even more problematic when several enemy states are involved.           President Obama simply does not understand. Nuclear weapons are not the problem per se. In the Middle East, the core problem remains a widespread and relentless jihadist commitment to "excise the Jewish cancer."             Jerusalem should understand that the road map is little more than a pragmatic enemy expedient. In essence, the road map represents a nicely-phrased, cartographic stratagem designed to gradually weaken Israel and jeopardize its survival.           With its nuclear weapons, even if held ambiguously in the "basement," Israel could still deter enemy attacks. Israel could also launch certain non-nuclear preemptive strikes against enemy state hard targets. 
Without nuclear weapons, Israel would no longer pose a persuasive, counter-retaliation threat to its enemies, therefore, any acts of anticipatory self-defense would likely lead to a much wider war.
Although widely unacknowledged, Israel's nuclear weapons represent a critical impediment to the actual use of nuclear weapons and a regional nuclear war.
These weapons must remain at the very center of Israel's security policy and be continuously updated and refined by a national strategic doctrine. Essential elements of such doctrine should include a carefully calibrated end to "deliberate ambiguity," more recognizable emphasis on "counter value,” and sufficiently compelling evidence of secure "triad" nuclear forces that are capable of penetrating any foreseeable aggressor's active defenses.            Israel's latest efforts at diversified sea-basing of nuclear retaliatory forces are costly, but prudent. Israel must also meet certain operational requirements for the Israel Air Force. In order to prepare for anticipated strikes at distances of approximately 1,000 kilometers, whether preemptive, retaliatory, or counter-retaliatory, the IAF now needs the "full envelope" of air refueling capabilities, upgraded satellite communications,  state-of-the-art electronic warfare technologies, armaments fully appropriate to inflicting maximum target damage, and the latest-generation UAVs to accompany selected missions.           
Si vis pacem, para bellum atomicum.
The author has written many books and articles dealing with nuclear strategy and nuclear war. He has also served as professor of political science and international law at Purdue University for forty-one years.