Upgrading Israeli nuclear deterrence; Core consequences of P5+1 agreement with Iran

Current instabilities in the Middle East will generate compelling reasons for Israel to re-examine its traditional posture of nuclear ambiguity.

By PROFESSOR LOUIS RENÉ BERES, ADMIRAL LEON "BUD" EDNEY
Officials wait for a meeting with officials from P5+1, the European Union and Iran at the Beau Rivage Palace Hotel in Lausanne March 31, 2015. (photo credit: REUTERS)
Officials wait for a meeting with officials from P5+1, the European Union and Iran at the Beau Rivage Palace Hotel in Lausanne March 31, 2015.
(photo credit: REUTERS)
As a result of the P5+1 agreement with Iran, badly brokered by the president of the United States, Israel could be forced to substantially upgrade its nuclear deterrence posture. Simultaneously, if the pact actually enters into force, Jerusalem will have to fend off increasing calls for Israel to join the 1968 Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) -  calls from varied national sources, stemming from predictably propagandistic claims that now "even Iran has renounced a nuclear weapons option."      
 
In law, war and genocide are not mutually exclusive. On several occasions, Iran's supreme leaders have called openly for Israel's eradication. Israel, in response, is entitled to do whatever is needed to survive, including pertinent refinements to its policies on preemption, deterrence, and active defense. One key element of these needed refinements will have to involve the country's security posture of "deliberate nuclear ambiguity."
Till today, this posture has seemingly made sense.  Both friends and enemies of the Jewish State already recognize that Israel possesses military nuclear capabilities that are  (1) survivable; and (2) capable of penetrating all enemy air defense and ballistic missile defense systems.
So, why rock the boat?
The answer lies, at least in part, in now emerging risks. In essence, newly nuclear adversaries might not readily recognize that Israel's own nuclear forces are sufficiently invulnerable and penetration capable. Most immediately, these risks would come from Iran, but, over time, they could also include  a reciprocally nuclear Saudi Arabia.
The strategic issues facing Israel are not at all simple. Current instabilities in the Middle East will generate compelling reasons for Israel to re-examine its traditional posture of  nuclear ambiguity. In this connection, Israel’s nuclear doctrine and weapons will be plainly relevant to various scenarios that could sometime require conventional preemptive action, or even a nuclear retaliation.
An integral part of Israel's multi-layered security system lies in maintaining effective ballistic missile defenses, primarily, the Arrow or "Hetz." Yet, even the highly-regarded  Arrow systems could never achieve sufficiently high capacity for intercept, a probabilistic condition needed  to protect Israeli civilians from the threat of nuclear attack. Indeed, for the foreseeable future, absolutely no system of ballistic missile defense could be expectedly "leak-proof."
Israel's core nuclear deterrence objectives are straightforward. To best safeguard Israel's survival, a newly-nuclear Iran would need to believe that Israel’s atomic weapons were (1) invulnerable; (2) penetration-capable; and (3) operationally usable, as a last resort response to any existential attack upon Israel. Steps to adequately ensure such adversarial belief should also be applied to any state that might provide WMDs for prospective use by Islamist militants/terrorists, such as Hezbollah, ISIS, or Hamas.
What about the prospect of an irrational Iranian adversary? Any Israeli move from ambiguity to disclosure, however selective, might still not help in the improbable but still-imaginable case of an irrational nuclear enemy. It remains possible, or even plausible, that elements of Iranian leadership will continue to subscribe to certain end-times visions of a Shiite apocalypse. 
 We have argued that removing the bomb from Israel's basement could enhance Israel's strategic deterrence, to the extent that it would heighten enemy perceptions of the unambiguously severe and likely risks involved in striking first. This argument should also bring to mind the so-called Samson Option response (a residual variant of Mutually Assured Destruction), which could allow various enemy decision-makers to note and emphasize that Israel is prepared to do whatever is needed to survive.  In terms of apt Samson imagery, borrowed from the biblical Book of Judges, many Israelis would have to die, but this time, at least, they would not die alone.
Going forward, the primary purpose of Israel's nuclear doctrine must be deterrence ex ante, not revenge ex post. Irrespective of its preferred level of ambiguity, Israel’s nuclear strategy must remain purposefully oriented toward survival, with deterrence, not war fighting, as its preferred option. Actually exercising a Samson Option could make strategic sense only in authentically “last-resort,” or “near last-resort,” circumstances. In any event, if the Samson Option were to become part of a credible national nuclear deterrent, some prior changes to Israel's deliberate ambiguity policy would be necessary.
   
The really tough part of any such transformational process would lie in determining the proper timing for any relevant action.  This would be a nuanced judgment, closely informed by Israel’s indisputably complex security requirements. The reaction/opposition of the international community to such a policy change could be alarming. Israel, therefore, would need to take careful note of multiple overlapping factors, including even the potential prospect of U.S. non-support.
When it is finally time for Israel to selectively ease away from nuclear ambiguity, a fully-survivable, hardened, and dispersed strategic second-strike force should be made recognizable, by friend and foe alike. Such a determinedly robust strategic force must be designed to make any rational foe understand that actual costs of any planned nuclear aggressions against Israel would result in "assured  destruction" of its own cities. On this point, moreover, there can be no good reason to argue that the P5+1 agreement with Iran ought in any way limit Israel's sea-basing of nuclear forces.
Anticipating just such an argument, Jerusalem should already be moving to prepare five submarines for carrying a credible portion of its pertinent retaliatory nuclear weapons. In the fashion of America's own SSBNs (armed with Trident submarine launched ballistic missiles, or SLBMs), at least one of these boats should be deployed 24/7, and at least two during certain aptly identifiable periods of increased tension and palpable instability.
Even an irrational leadership would not necessarily be “crazy,” or “mad." Rather, an irrational Iranian leadership could still maintain assorted preference orderings and values that remain consistent and transitive. These ranked preferences might still be constrained by suitably credible Israeli threats, deterrent threats that could hazard the survival of certain enemy-held religious values or structures. Here, the main difficulty for Israel, among other things, would be to ascertain the precise nature and impact of these particular enemy values.
In the explosive Middle East, growing regional instability heightens the potential for expansive wars, either by deliberateness, or by miscalculation. From the standpoint of maintaining credible nuclear deterrence against a still-nuclearizing Iran, Israel will need to reexamine its de facto policy of the bomb in the "basement."  Further, any such reexamination should become part of a far wider effort to resist post-P5+1 agreement calls for Israeli membership in the NPT, and/or in a so-called "nuclear weapons-free zone."    
 "The safety of the people," said Cicero, "shall be the highest law." Under international law, no state is ever required to become complicit in its own disappearance. This includes Israel.
Louis René Beres (Ph.D., Princeton, 1971) was Chair of Project Daniel (2003) in 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. Professor Beres is also the author of several research monographs prepared for IDC Herzliya, the BESA Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University, and the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel-Aviv. His tenth book, Israel's Nuclear Strategy: Surviving Amid Chaos, will be published later this year.
Leon "Bud" Edney, Admiral (U.S. Navy/ret.), served as Vice Chief of Naval Operations; NATO Supreme Allied Commander, Atlantic; and Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Atlantic Command. Admiral Edney, who holds an advanced degree from Harvard, was also Distinguished Professor of Leadership at the U.S. Naval Academy.