“The existence of system in the world is at once obvious to every observer of nature….” -Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man (1955)
Israel’s deterrence doctrine seemingly identifies two distinct arenas of strategic dissuasion, conventional and nuclear. Concerning this binary doctrine, national nuclear deterrence does not come into play until all forms of conventional deterrence have first been exhausted. Precisely how many non-nuclear deterrence options would first need to fail is unanswerable.[1]
About Israel’s survival, these intersecting issues are ones of primary importance. In essence, Jerusalem’s presumptively binary view represents a narrowly linear and broadly imperiling military stance. What is needed instead is a comprehensive analytic framework for competitive risk-taking that correctly views deterrence relationships as systemic.
Today, when a country smaller than America’s Lake Michigan faces fluctuating existential threats from Iran and its variously lethal sub-state surrogates,[2] Israel requires a seamless strategic posture. Inter alia, this means a deterrent that could escalate in variously prefigured increments from all levels of pre-nuclear harms (chemical, biological and electromagnetic pulse/EMP) weapons) to both theatre and strategic nuclear warfare. Supporting this informed counsel is an unchallengeable four-part understanding:
(1) science-based determinations of probability must always be based on the determinable frequency of relevant past events; (2) there has never been a nuclear war; (3) maintaining visibly compelling conventional deterrence could make it less necessary for Israel to ever escalate to nuclear threats/nuclear conflict; and (4) measured nuclear threats could augment or enhance the persuasiveness of Israel’s conventional threats.
There are serious antecedent questions.
How might Israel actually find itself caught up in a nuclear war?[3]
What are the identifiable circumstances under which Israel could discover itself involved (wittingly or unwittingly) with belligerent nuclear weapons use?
To suitably answer these complex questions, Israeli analysts would first need to integrate critical military aspects of their investigations with authoritative jurisprudential ones.[4]
For the moment, all such concerns could appear extraneous, gratuitous or without empirical foundation. Israel, after all, remains the only nuclear weapons state in the region, and very recently (September 2024) successfully degraded Hezbollah command and control capabilities. Nonetheless, certain still malleable order-of-battle considerations could change unexpectedly, perhaps even from moment to moment.[5] In the always unpredictable Middle East, such “fluidity” remains most worrisome in regard to existential aggressions[6] from Iran.[7]
Prima facie, Iran will not easily be deflected from its long-term nuclear ambitions. But even without an already-nuclear adversary in the region,[8] Israel could find itself having to rely upon nuclear deterrence against biological and/or conventional threats.[9] Acknowledging such a prospectively existential reliance, the residual prospect of belligerent nuclear weapons firings should never be ruled out, prematurely or altogether.[10]
In late September 2024, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov openly proclaimed Russia’s right to introduce nuclear weapons into any future conflict with Ukraine-supporting NATO states.[11] Though a different theatre of warfare, the idea of threatening escalation to nuclear weapons in response to “unacceptable” sub-nuclear belligerence is still relevant and worth examining. Conceptually, the dynamics of calculated threat are the same. These dynamics are universal.
There is more. In foreseeable cases, Israel’s nuclear strategy and correlative military forces should remain oriented to successful deterrence,[12] not nuclear war-fighting.[13] Plausibly, with just such an understanding in mind, Jerusalem has already taken steps to reject tactical or “battlefield” nuclear weapons and correlatively visible plans for counter-force targeting.
For Israel, nuclear weapons could make sense only for deterrence ex ante; not revenge ex post.[14] In certain “eleventh-hour” circumstances, however, this position could still mean crossing the nuclear threshold against a dangerous and determined non-nuclear adversary. Among other things, such possible intent ought to be made known to Tehran before Jerusalem would need to actualize any pertinent nuclear threat.
There would be associated legal issues. Contrary to conventional wisdom, both nuclear deterrence and certain associated forms of nuclear strategy, including preemption,[15] can support the expectations of international law.[16] But the adequacy of international law in preventing a nuclear war in the Middle East will depend on more than formal treaties, customs and “the general principles of law recognized by civilized nations.”[17] It will also depend on the success or failure of particular country strategies in the region and the ascertainable “will”[18] of adversarial states to maintain sharedintellectual understandings. If Israel’s nuclear strategy should successfully reduce the threat of a nuclear war, whether because of nuclear deterrence or distinctive preemptive strikes,[19] this strategy could be considered a legitimate component of international law enforcement.[20]
Realistic threat scenarios should remind Israel of an always-overriding need for comprehensive nuclear theory based on coherent and systemic thought.[21] This core requirement would postulate a counter-value targeted nuclear retaliatory force that is recognizably secure from Iranian first-strikes and recognizably capable of penetrating that enemy state’s active defenses. To best meet those imperative security expectations, the IDF would be well-advised to continuously advance with evident sea-basing (submarines) of its nuclear deterrent force. Optimally, such steps would become part of a broader policy shift from “deliberate nuclear ambiguity” to “selective nuclear disclosure.”
To satisfy equally important and complex requirements of “penetration-capability,” Tel-Aviv will have to stay visibly ahead of enemy air-defense refinements. Such recommendations, duly followed, could convincingly enhance not only Israel’s national security, but also the more general prospects for nuclear war avoidance in the Middle East. “Everything is very simple in war,” says Clausewitz, in his classical discussion of “friction” (On War), “but the simplest thing is still difficult.”[22]
How might Israel actually become involved in a nuclear war with Iran? In response, four basic scenarios present themselves: Nuclear Retaliation; Nuclear Counter-Retaliation; Nuclear Preemption; and Nuclear Warfighting. All of these scenarios could be impacted by ongoing and potentially intersecting conflict situations in North Korea/South Korea; Russia, China or Ukraine; or even US/Russia.
Strategically and jurisprudentially, the world security order is a system. What happens in one place can have manifestly notable and palpable effects in other places. The investigation of all pertinent scenarios must be taken as an intellectual task, not one suitable for politicians or pundits.
(1) Nuclear Retaliation
Should Iran launch a nuclear first-strike against Israel, Jerusalem would respond legally and to whatever extent possible and cost-effective with a nuclear retaliatory strike. If enemy first-strikes were to involve other forms of unconventional weapons, including high-lethality biological mass-destruction weapons, Israel could still launch a permissible nuclear reprisal. This unprecedented response would depend, in large measure, on Israel’s calculated expectations of follow-on aggression and its associated assessments of comparative damage-limitation.
If Israel were to absorb “only” a massive conventional attack, a nuclear retaliation could still not be ruled out altogether, especially if: (a) Iran were perceived to hold nuclear, and/or other unconventional weapons in reserve; and/or (b) Israel’s leaders were to believe that exclusively non-nuclear retaliations could not prevent destruction/annihilation of the Jewish State. A nuclear retaliation by Israel could be ruled out only in those seemingly evident circumstances where Iranian aggressions were conventional, “typical” (that is, sub-existential or consistent with previous historical instances of enemy attack in both degree and intent) and hard-target oriented (that is, directed only toward Israeli weapons and military infrastructures, not to “soft” civilian populations).
(2) Nuclear Counter-Retaliation
Should Israel ever feel compelled to preempt Iranian aggression with conventional weapons,[23]the target state’s response would largely determine Jerusalem’s next moves. If this response were in any way nuclear, Israel could expectedly and legally turn to nuclear counter retaliation. If this retaliation were to involve other weapons of mass destruction, Israel might then feel pressed to take an appropriate escalatory initiative.
Any such initiative would reflect the presumed need for what is more formally described in orthodox strategic parlance as “escalation dominance.”[24]
All authoritative decisions would depend on Jerusalem’s early judgments of Iranian intent and on its accompanying calculations of essential damage-limitation. Should the enemy state response to Israel’s preemption be limited to hard-target conventional strikes, it is unlikely that the Jewish State would move on to consider nuclear counter retaliations. If, however, the Iranian conventional retaliation was plainly “all-out” and directed toward Israeli civilian populations – not just to Israeli military targets – an Israeli nuclear counter retaliation could not be excluded and could still be permissible.
Such a unique counter retaliation could be ruled out only if Iran’s conventional retaliation were entirely proportionate to Israel’s preemption, confined exclusively to Israeli military targets, circumscribed by the legal limits of “military necessity” (a limit routinely codified in the law of armed conflict[25]), and accompanied by variously explicit and verifiable assurances of non-escalatory intent.
(3) Nuclear Preemption
It is implausible that Israel would ever decide to launch a preemptive nuclear strike.[26] Although circumstances could arise wherein such a strike would still be technically rational and ascertainably legal,[27] it is unlikely that Israel would ever allow itself to reach such “all or nothing” vulnerabilities vis-à-vis Iran. Unless nuclear weapons were employed in a fashion still consistent with the laws of war – aka the law of armed conflict – this form of preemption would represent a flagrant violation of binding international rules.[28]
Expectedly, even if such consistency were possible, the psychological/political impact on the world community would be negative and far-reaching. This means, among other things, that an Israeli nuclear preemption could be expected only where (a) Iran had acquired nuclear and/or other weapons of mass destruction judged capable of annihilating the Jewish State; (b) this enemy state had made it clear that its military intentions paralleled its capabilities; (c) this enemy was believed ready to begin an operational “countdown to launch;” and (d) Jerusalem believed that Israeli non-nuclear preemptions could not possibly achieve the needed minimum levels of damage-limitation – that is, levels consistent with physical preservation of the state and nation.[29]
(4) Nuclear War fighting
Should nuclear weapons be introduced into actual conflict between Israel and Iran, nuclear war fighting at one level or another would ensue. This would be true so long as: (a) enemy first-strikes against Israel would not destroy Jerusalem’s second-strike nuclear capability; (b) enemy retaliations for an Israeli conventional preemption would not destroy Jerusalem’s nuclear counter retaliatory capability; (c) Israeli preemptive strikes involving nuclear weapons would not destroy adversarial second-strike nuclear capabilities; and (d) Israeli retaliation for enemy conventional first-strikes would not destroy enemy nuclear counter-retaliatory capability.
It follows that in order to satisfy its most essential survival requirements, Israel should take immediate and reliable steps to ensure the likelihood of (a) and (b) above, and the unlikelihood of (c) and (d).
Though it is most important for Israel to stay-focused on discernibly measurable and scientific assessments of nuclear war fighting, it is also clear that less tangible consequences should be similarly noted. Illustratively, at the onset of their once-unimaginable sufferings, the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki found themselves, in Bruno Bettelheim’s words, an “anonymous mass,” or in the expressly Japanese term, muga-muchu, “without self, without a center.” Such total disruptions of individual and social order produced various unforeseeable outcomes that extended far beyond any immediate physical and emotional losses.
There is more. The effects of the two atomic bombs dropped on Japan were not confined to the immediate or even long term experiences of those who directly bore witness, but also to their rescuers, their progeny and even to the progeny of the rescuers. It would not be unreasonable to expand the survivor category of hibakusha to include certain children of Japanese mothers who did not themselves experience the atomic explosions.[30]
Soon, Jerusalem will need to consider a prompt end to “deliberate nuclear ambiguity.”[31] By selectively beginning to remove the “bomb” from its metaphoric “basement,” Israel’s national strategic planners would be better positioned to enhance the credibility of their country’s nuclear deterrence posture. Any enhancements of Israel’s deterrent would effectively enhance the wider objectives of applicable international law.
In Israel’s strategic nuclear planning, would-be Iranian aggressors, whether nuclear or non-nuclear, must be systematically encouraged to believe that Jerusalem maintains the required willingness to launch measured nuclear forces in retaliation and that these nuclear forces are sufficiently invulnerable to any-contemplated first-strike attacks. Additionally, these enemies should be made to expect that Israel’s designated nuclear forces could reliably penetrate all of their already-deployed ballistic-missile and related air defenses.
Though perhaps counter-intuitive, Israel and also parts of the wider region would benefit from Jerusalem’s release of selectively broad outlines of the country’s continuously evolving strategic orientations. Without a prior and well-fashioned strategic doctrine, no such release could make sufficiently persuasive deterrent sense. At the same time, a too-firm release could be interpreted as a too-explicit rejection of NPT (Nonproliferation Treaty) objectives. This is an agreement to which Israel is not a party, but still generally regarded as an authoritative nuclear “benchmark.”
Selectively released Israeli nuclear information could support the perceived utility and security of Israel’s nuclear retaliatory forces. Once disclosed, it should center purposefully upon the targeting, hardening, dispersion, multiplication, basing, and yield of national ordnance. Under certain easily-imagined conditions, the credibility of Israeli nuclear deterrence could vary inversely with the perceived destructiveness of its relevant weapons.
Unsurprisingly, there will be many interrelated policy concerns, all with some measure or other of prospective legal significance. One such concern underscores that Israel will need to prepare differently yet subtly for military engagements with an expectedly rational nuclear adversary than with an expectedly irrational foe. In such nuanced and unprecedented circumstances, national decision-makers in Jerusalem would need to distinguish meaningfully between genuine enemy irrationality and feigned enemy irrationality.
This could be a “tough call.” How should Israeli decision-makers be expected to make such highly imprecise distinctions? Is this even a reasonable strategic expectation?[32]
In studies of world politics, rationality and irrationality have taken on specific meanings. An actor (state or sub-state) is determinedly rational to the extent that its leadership always values national survival more highly than any other preference or combination of preferences. Conversely, an irrational actor might not always display such a determinable preference ordering. Apropos of the scientific limitations already discussed, ascertaining whether such an adversary (here, Iran) was rational or irrational could prove to be a distressingly inexact “science.”[33]
In actual practice, operationalizing these potentially indecipherable distinctions would present complex intellectual challenges; they would need to take account, inter alia, of whether the scrutinized adversaries were (1) fully or partially sovereign states; (2) sub-national terrorist groups;[34] or (3) “hybrid” enemies comprised of assorted state and sub-state foes.[35] A subsidiary but still daunting task would be to ascertain the de facto ratio of decision-making responsibilities among hybridized foes.
How exactly should this multi-layered assessment be carried out? In principle, at least, such a task might prove not merely daunting, but impossible. At a minimum, this would not represent a task for the intellectually faint-hearted. To successfully preserve a nuclear “lid” in this volatile region, an “outsider,” the US president, will need to become attuned to variously subtle points of deterrence. Here, the White House will need to better clarify its position on a Palestinian state,[36] Iranian nuclearization and, reciprocally, on any prospective Sunni nuclear weapons preparations oriented toward deterring Shiite Iran. This last point could mean closely monitoring and eventually supporting or opposing certain increasingly likely nuclearizing steps by Saudi Arabia and/or Egypt.
Whatever calculable nuances would be encountered in Jerusalem, the only rational way for Israel to successfully meet these growing and overlapping challenges will be to stay ahead of its adversaries through the inestimable powers of strategic erudition. Already, in classical Greece and Macedonia, the linked arts of war and deterrence were being described by military planners as theoretic challenges of “mind over mind,” not merely crude ad hoc contests of “mind over matter.” For Israel and the wider Middle East, such ancient descriptions remain entirely valid today.[37]
There is one further observation concerning Israel’s nuclear strategy and American national security. Though analysts generally examine the foreseeable impact of US nuclear guidance upon Israel, it would be equally important to consider the impact of Israel’s nuclear strategy upon US national security. Though largely unrecognized, there exists an ongoing and reciprocal connection between these two factors, a sort of continuous policy feedback-loop. Going forward, this “loop” should more routinely be examined as a mutual and dynamic relationship than as a static and one-directional connection.
One evident conclusion here must be that the suitability and durability of Israel’s nuclear strategy will impact not only the Middle East, legally as well as strategically, but also American security risks and benefits. To the extent that Israel’s nuclear strategic policies could have “spillover” effects for the United States, America could become the unintentional beneficiary of Israel’s own strategic scholarship and planning. It also follows that if Israel’s nuclear posture should somehow fail to meet that country’s most urgent or existential security expectations, the derivative effect on the United States could be correspondingly negative.[38]
Virtually any Israeli scholarship focused on nuclear war avoidance will be offeredinat least partial responseto world security configurations shaped by the United States. In this connection, Jerusalem will need to pay special attention to the growing importance of “Cold War II,[39] an ongoing adversarial expansion between Washington, Moscow and Beijing, one with more-or-less conspicuous manifestations across the wider world. If, for example, geopolitical competition between the superpowers should become more tangibly war-oriented in Asia[40] – notably in regard to ongoing North Korean nuclear enhancements – this could have determinative effects on Israel’s nuclear posture and (derivatively) a Middle Eastern nuclear war.
Earlier, North Korea helped Syria build a nuclear reactor, the same facility that was later destroyed by Israel in its Operation Orchard on September 6, 2007. Unlike Israel’s earlier Operation Opera, this preemptive attack, in the Deir ez-Zor region of Syria, was a second expression of the so-called “Begin Doctrine.” It also portended, because of its express North Korea connection, a much wider globalthreat to Israel.
Deleterious effects would likely be most dramatic if there were to take place any nuclear exchange between the United States and North Korea. Similar connections could obtain in the aftermath of an India-Pakistan nuclear exchange,[41] and would depend largely on specific and still-ascertainable Russian/American alignments with Delhi or Islamabad. In both of these prospective conflict dyads – US-North Korea and India-Pakistan – any expression of nuclear belligerence, however indirect, could immediately and gravely impact Israel’s nuclear strategy and Middle Eastern regional security.
For Israel, greater familiarity with jurisprudential principles could advance the nation’s legal as well as strategic obligations, most plainly those that jurist William Blackstone most famously expressed in his Commentaries on the Law of England (Book 4 “Of Public Wrongs”): “Each state is expected, perpetually,” noted Blackstone, “to aid and enforce the law of nations, as part of the common law, by inflicting an adequate punishment upon the offenses against that universal law.”[42]
Such ideas don’t just “pop up” ex nihilo, within a theoretic vacuum. Blackstone is ultimately indebted to Cicero’s antecedent description of natural law in The Republic: “True law is right reason, harmonious with nature, diffused among all, constant, eternal; a law which calls to duty by its commands and restrains from evil by its prohibitions….”
“Just wars,” wrote Hugo Grotius, the unrivaled founder of modern international law, “arise from our love of the innocent.”[43] Now, however, it is plain by definition that a nuclear war could never be “just,” and that certain earlier legal distinctions (e.g., just war vs. unjust war) should continuously be conformed to ever-changing technologies of military destruction. The only sensible adaptation in this regard must be to acknowledge the persisting connections between international law and natural law, and then to oppose any retrograde movements by powerful states to undermine such acknowledgments.
In the final analysis, to successfully prevent a nuclear war in the Middle East, it will be necessary to resist mightily any world system declensions toward further belligerent nationalism. Nuclear deterrence and conventional deterrence are never best contemplated as separate security postures. Always, these seemingly discrete protective strategies are structurally interrelated and mutually reinforcing. To wit, even while Israel remains the only regional nuclear power, its nuclear weapons and doctrine could be used to deter certain massive conventional aggressions from Iran. This means among many other things that even where only one state party to a conflict is nuclear, an asymmetrical nuclear war still remains possible.
A nuclear attack or nuclear war in the Middle East is never altogether out of the question. It is never a casually dismissible prospect, even if Israel should remain the only nuclear weapons state in the region. But how is this possible? The correct answer lies in the irremediably complex and deeply nuanced structure of nuclear warfare possibilities, in the Middle East especially, but also anywhere else that such a conflict is at least logically possible.[44]
A bellum atomicum could arrive in Israel not only as a “bolt-from-the-blue” enemy nuclear missile attack, but also as a result, intended or unwitting, of dynamic escalations. If, for example, Iran were to begin hostilities by launching “only” conventional attacks upon Israel, Jerusalem could then decide to respond, sooner or later, foolishly or wisely, with precisely calculated and correspondingly graduated nuclear reprisals. Alternatively, if these enemy states were to commence conflict by releasing certain larger-scale conventional attacks upon Israel, Jerusalem’s own conventional reprisals could then be met, at least in the future, with assorted enemy nuclear counterstrikes.
In the past, Israeli conventional preemptions have figured importantly in presumptive resolution of nuclear threat possibilities. If it hadn’t been for Israel’s earlier defensive first-strike operations against Iraq and Syria (Operations Opera and Orchard,respectively), the Middle East would likely already have suffered certain critically destabilizing impacts of Arab/Islamist nuclear forces. Looking back upon these literally unprecedented examples of anticipatory self-defense, Israel effectively ensured that assorted jihadist terror groups would not already have become nuclear. The generally unrecognized benefits of these operations have impacted not only Israel, but also the United States and perhaps some of its allies.[45]
Still, the regional future is apt to become substantially less secure. With a continuously aspirational nuclear Iran, certain derivative risks of nuclear terrorism could sometime become intolerable.[46] Moreover, some of these newer risks might not stay reassuringly confined to the Middle East. In one form or other, they could “carry over” to scarcely well-protected American and/or European homelands.
By maintaining a credible conventional deterrent, Israel could most reasonably expect to reduce its exposure to eventual nuclear warfighting.[47] A fully persuasive Israeli non-nuclear deterrent, at least to the extent that it could reliably prevent enemy conventional attacks, could lower the country’s overall risk of exposure to vulnerabilities of nuclear escalation.. In the exquisitely arcane lexicon of dialectical nuclear strategy, Israel could reap meaningful security gains by staying in conspicuously firm control of “escalation dominance.”[48]Referencing such intra-crisis calculations, being “conspicuous” would always be important. Security gains could sometime turn out to have genuinely existential benefits.
There is more.Certain noteworthy strategic possibilities warrant special mention. Any rational Iranian state enemy considering attacks against Israel using chemical and/or biological weapons would take much more seriously Israel’s nuclear deterrent. This argument suggests that a strong conventional capability will still be needed by Israel to deter or preempt any anticipated conventional attacks, more-or-less plausible strikes that could quickly lead (perhaps via starkly unpredictable escalations) to some form or other of unconventional war.
Inevitably, in seeking to continually reassess their own power positions, Israel’s enemies in Iran will strive to determine how Jerusalem views its own conventional weapon opportunities and limitations. If these enemies did not perceive any Israeli sense of an expanding conventional force weakness, Iran, animated by expectations of an Israeli unwillingness to escalate to nonconventional weapons, could then opt rationally to attack. The net result could include: (1) defeat of Israel in a conventional war; (2) defeat of Israel in an unconventional (chemical/biological/nuclear) war; (3) defeat of Israel in a combined conventional/unconventional war; or (4) defeat of Iran by Israel in an unconventional war.
Ironically for Israel, even the presumptively “successful” fourth possibility could prove very costly. This counter-intuitive conclusion should once again bring to mind Israel’s now-outdated “bomb in the basement.”The credibility of Israel’s nuclear deterrent must always depend on the perceived “usability” of its nuclear arsenal. Should Israel’s own nuclear weapons be regarded by prospective attackers in Tehran as high-yield, indiscriminate, “city-busting” (counter-value) weapons, rather than minimal-yield, “war fighting” (counterforce) ordnance, they might not reliably deter.[49]
Conceivably, and contrary to virtually all prevailing conventional wisdom on this esoteric subject, successful Israeli nuclear deterrence could sometime vary inversely with perceived destructiveness. Going forward, this means that Israel’s indispensable nuclear deterrent will require not only recognizably secure second-strike forces, but also weapons that could be used effectively in “real war.” It also suggests that any continued Israeli policies of “deliberate nuclear ambiguity” could encourage variously erroneous calculations by prospective attackers.
On one occasion or another, such an out-of-date and unsystematic policy could significantly undermine Israel’s indispensable nuclear deterrent. The supposedly valid counter-argument that an Israeli end to “deliberate nuclear ambiguity” would actually encourage enemy state nuclearization is based neither on historical evidence nor on logical inference. From time immemorial, states have done what is in their presumed best survival interests, not in the interests of collective well-being.
In complex matters of Israeli nuclear deterrence, it ought never to be minimized that Iranian perceptions will be determinative. Unintentionally, by insistently keeping its nuclear doctrine and capacity in the “basement,” Israel could contribute to an impression among regional enemies that its nuclear weapons are not operationally usable. In such security-undermining circumstances, recalcitrant Iranian enemies, now not quite convinced of Israel’s alleged willingness to employ its nuclear weapons, could calculate the cost-effectiveness of striking first themselves. Depending on the particular circumstances, any such adversarial acceptance could be reluctant or enthusiastic, but would yield the same or similar outcomes for Israel. For Israel, any such adversarial presumptions would prove “unacceptable.”
There is more. A nuclear war would not respect political boundaries. Because of the particular manner in which nuclear explosions behave in the atmosphere, the altitude reached by a distinctive mushroom-shaped cloud would depend primarily upon forces of the explosion. For yields in the low-kiloton range, this cloud would stay situated in the lower atmosphere. Its effects, therefore, would be almost entirely “local.” For those yields exceeding thirty kilotons, parts of the cloud of radioactive debris could “punch” into the stratosphere, thereby afflicting the launching state and certain noncombatant states together.[50]
To best prevent a regional nuclear war, especially as Iran will likely continue to seek full operational membership in the “club,” Israel will need to field a dependable nuclear deterrent. At the same time, it cannot properly rely exclusively upon this one necessary basis of national security doctrine any more than it can depend solely on conventional deterrence. It must depend, instead, upon increasingly complementary nuclear/conventional forces and doctrine, appropriately intersecting systems of anti-missile defenses and the residual availability of specific eleventh-hour preemption options.
Even now, when the expected costs of any preemption against Iran would already be unacceptably high, Israel should not disavow last-resort options for anticipatory self-defense. By definition, there could still be some eventually recognizable consequences of not-preempting that are expectedly greater than the foreseeable costs of a focused preemption.[51]
In the volatile Middle East, strategic deterrence is a “game” that sane national leaders may sometime have to play, but for Israel it ought always to be a game of strategy, not one of chance. In Jerusalem, this means, among other things, a continuing willingness to respect the full range of relevant doctrinal complexity – both its own military doctrines and those of pertinent enemies – and a willingness to forge ahead with appropriate and reciprocally complex security policies. Inevitably, to successfully influence the choices that prospectively fearsome Iranian adversaries could make vis-à-vis Israel, Jerusalem will first need to clarify that its conventional and nuclear deterrence are seamlessly intersecting and that Israel stands ready to counter enemy attacks at every level of possible confrontation.
There remain two final but important and inter-related points:
First, whether Israel’s intersecting and overlapping deterrent processes are geared primarily toward conventional or nuclear threats, their success will ultimately depend on the expected rationality of the nation’s relevant enemies.[52] In those residual cases where such rationality appears implausible, Jerusalem could find itself under considerable pressures to strike first preemptively. If Jerusalem’s own expected responses were to be judged rational, they might then also need to include a conclusive and operationally-reliable option for anticipatory self-defense. For Israel, regional conflict prospects should always be curtailed at the very lowest possible levels of controlled engagement; under no circumstances should Israel ever need to find itself having to preempt against an already-nuclear Iranian adversary.[53]
To prevent such unacceptable but still imaginable circumstances represents Jerusalem’s overriding security obligation.[54]
Second, even the most meticulous plans for preventing a deliberately-inflicted nuclear conflict would not automatically remove the attendant dangers of an inadvertent or accidental nuclear war. While an accidental nuclear war would necessarily be inadvertent, there are forms of inadvertent nuclear war that would not be caused by mechanical, electrical or computer accident. These still-consequential forms of unintentional nuclear conflict could represent the unexpected result of sheer misjudgment or simple miscalculation, whether created by (1) singular error by one or both sides to a particular two-party nuclear crisis escalation, or (2) still unforeseen “synergies” between such miscalculations.
The only predictable aspect of any nuclear crisis involving Israel and Iran would be its vast unpredictability. More than anything else, this conclusion implies an insistent obligation, in Jerusalem, not only to remain vigilant about comprehensive enemy capabilities and intentions, but to be relentlessly cautious about Israel’s own capacities to control refractory nuclear events.
Even after its recent September 2024 operational successes against Hezbollah, Israel is entering into a period of protracted uncertainty. Before it can credibly fulfill its most primary legal, security and survival obligations, the Jewish State’s capable scholars should assume increasing responsibility for managing strategic challenges of “mind.” Among other problems will be determining the best course of action on nuclear matters when the calculable benefits of any common action or cooperation would be contingent on the expectation that (1) all relevant parties would reliably cooperate; and (2) the level of anticipated cooperation would exceed a certain previously-defined threshold. The Florentine political philosopher Niccolo Machiavelli[55] had something potentially helpful to offer in his classic essay On Fortune:
The world is a stupendous machine, composed of innumerable parts, each of which being a free agent, has a volition and action of its own: and on this ground arises the difficulty of assuring success in any enterprise depending on the volition of numerous agents. We may set the machine in motion, and dispose every wheel to one certain end; but when it depends on the volition of any one wheel, and the correspondent action of every wheel, the result is uncertain.
Going forward, the only way for Israeli strategists and decision-makers to make suitable sense of protracted uncertainties will be to approach their task as one requiring high-quality theory-construction. Under no circumstances should this unique task be allowed to become the province of any narrowly political or commercial elites. Should that sort of allowance ever take place, Israel’s policies could quickly be torn into irremediable tatters.[56] In certain specific circumstances, such harms could become irreversible.[57]
To ward off existential military harms, including surprise attack,[58] Jerusalem needs a holistic strategic deterrent, one that incorporates all conceivable threats within a seamless system of calibrated reactions. In this connection, certain nuclear threats could serve Israel’s overall deterrence obligations before Iran becomes operationally nuclear, and not “merely” because its conventional deterrent had already failed. Reciprocally, Israel’s conventional deterrent could make it unnecessary for the Jewish State to make any belligerent use of its nuclear ordnance.
Key “lessons” can be summarized as follows: Under no circumstances should Israeli planners embrace a concept of deterrence that regards conventional and nuclear deterrence as necessarily sequential or mutually exclusive. For Israeli planning in the arcane but still-decipherable world of strategic deterrence, the primacy of system should become resoundingly “obvious.”
[1] This is because the pertinent scenario is without empirical precedent; it is sui generis.
[2] Israel’s recent and extraordinary operational successes against Hezbollah (late September 2024) suggest at least a temporary reduction of threat from Hezbollah, the Shiite terrorist militia.
[3] This question, in turn, is drawn from the basic and incontestable premise that every state’s first responsibility is to assure national protection and that reciprocal citizen allegiance is contingent on such assurances. Most famously, in political theory, is the classic statement of seventeenth-century Englishman Thomas Hobbes at Chapter XXI of his Leviathan: “The obligation of subjects to the sovereign is understood to last so long, and no longer, then the power lasts by which he is able to protect them.” Parenthetically, one of Israel’s deployed Dolphin-class submarines (acquired from Germany) is the INS (Israeli Navy Submarine) Leviathan.
[4] For a useful example of such expected overlap, Israel will continuously need to consider various conceivable forms of preemption or defensive first-strike. When permissible under authoritative international law, any such preemption could be termed “anticipatory self-defense.” Significantly, both nuclear and non-nuclear preemptions by Israel of enemy unconventional attacks could lead to nuclear exchanges. This grievous outcome would depend, in large part, on the effectiveness and breadth of Israeli targeting, the surviving number of enemy nuclear weapons and the willingness of enemy leaders to risk Israeli nuclear counter-retaliations.
[5] Considerations impacting Israel’s security may form an intricately interconnected network. Capable assessments of such considerations must include a patient search for synergies and for potential cascades of synergies that could represent one especially serious iteration of security failure. Other risk properties that will warrant careful assessment within this analytic framework include contagion potential and persistence.
[6] Punishment of aggression is a firm and longstanding expectation of international criminal law. The peremptory principle of Nullum Crimen sine poena, “No crime without a punishment,” has its origins in the Code of Hammurabi (c. 1728 – 1686 B.C.E.); the Laws of Eshnunna (c. 2000 B.C.E.); the even earlier Code of Ur-Nammu (c. 2100 B.C.E.) and the law of exact retaliation, or Lex Talionis, presented in three separate passages of the Torah.
[7] This author, Professor Louis René Beres, was Chair of Project Daniel for PM Sharon (2003).
http://www.acpr.org.il/ENGLISH-NATIV/03-ISSUE/daniel-3.htm See also: https://ssi.armywarcollege.edu/pubs/Parameters/articles/07spring/beres.pdf See further, regarding Iran in particular, with US General (USAF/ret.) John T. Chain: Louis René Beres and John T. Chain: “Could Israel Safely Deter a Nuclear Iran”? The Atlantic, August, 2012; and Professor Louis René Beres and General Chain, “Israel and Iran at the Eleventh Hour,” Oxford University Press (OUP Blog), February 23, 2012. General Chain was Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Strategic Air Command (CINCSAC).
[8] At some point, a major Sunni Arab state in the region (most plausibly Egypt and/or Saudi Arabia) could also choose to “go nuclear.” This would be more on account of Shiite Iran than Jewish Israel.
[9]These would be massive conventional threats. See by this author: https://www.israeldefense.co.il/en/node/30198 See also by Professor Beres: https://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/israel-nuclear-deterrence/
[10] For generic assessments of the probable consequences of nuclear war fighting by this author, see: Louis René Beres, Surviving Amid Chaos: Israel’s Nuclear Strategy (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016; 2nd. ed., 2018); Louis René Beres, Apocalypse: Nuclear Catastrophe in World Politics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980); Louis René Beres, Mimicking Sisyphus: America’s Countervailing Nuclear Strategy (Lexington MA: Lexington Books, 1983); Louis René Beres, Reason and Realpolitik: US Foreign Policy and World Order (Lexington MA; Lexington Books, 1984); and Louis René Beres, ed., Security or Armageddon: Israel’s Nuclear Strategy (Lexington MA: Lexington Books, 1986).
[11] https://www.newsweek.com/russia-issues-new-nuclear-warning-us-united-nations-europe-1960814
[12]From the standpoint of stable nuclear deterrence, the likelihood of an actual nuclear conflict between states could be inversely related to the plausibly expected magnitude of catastrophic harms. This is only an “informal presumption” because we are considering a unique or unprecedented event, one that is sui generis for purposes of determining true mathematical probabilities.
[13] Even before the nuclear age, ancient Chinese military theorist, Sun-Tzu, counseled, inThe Art of War:“Subjugating the enemy’s army without fighting is the true pinnacle of excellence.” (See: Chapter 3, “Planning Offensives”).
[14] This assumption was a dominant premise of this writer’s Project Daniel Report to former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon: See, Louis René Beres, Chair, Project Daniel: Israel’s Strategic Future (Tel Aviv, 2003-2004).
[15] For early scholarly examinations of anticipatory self-defense, by this author, and with particular reference to Israel, see: Louis René Beres, “Preserving the Third Temple: Israel’s Right of Anticipatory Self-Defense Under International Law,” Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law, Vol. 26, No. 1, April 1993, pp. 111- 148; Louis René Beres, “After the Gulf War: Israel, Preemption and Anticipatory Self-Defense,” Houston Journal of International Law, Vol. 13, No. 2, Spring 1991, pp. 259 – 280; and Louis René Beres, “Striking `First’: Israel’s Post-Gulf War Options Under International Law,” Loyola of Los Angeles International and Comparative Law Journal Vol. 14, Nov. 1991, pp. 1 – 24.
[16] The precise origins of anticipatory self-defense in customary 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).
[17] See art. 38 of the UN’s Statute of the International Court of Justice.
[18] Modern origins of “will” are discoverable in the writings of Arthur Schopenhauer, especially The World as Will and Idea (1818). For his own inspiration, Schopenhauer drew freely upon Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Later, Nietzsche drew just as freely and perhaps more importantly upon Schopenhauer. Goethe was a core intellectual source for Spanish existentialist Jose Ortega y’Gasset, author of the singularly prophetic twentieth-century work, The Revolt of the Masses (Le Rebelion de las Masas;1930). See, accordingly, Ortega’s very grand essay, “In Search of Goethe from Within” (1932), written for Die Neue Rundschau of Berlin on the centenary of Goethe’s death. It is reprinted in Ortega’s anthology, The Dehumanization of Art (1948) and is available from Princeton University Press (1968).
[19]Regarding such strikes, Israeli precedents for any such defensive moves would be 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. In this writer’s judgment, both preemptions were lawful assertions of Israel’s “Begin Doctrine.”
[20] Nuclear war and genocide need not be considered as mutually exclusive. War might well be the preferred means whereby genocide is undertaken. According to Articles II and III of the Genocide Convention, which entered into force on January 12, 1951, genocide includes any of several listed acts “committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group as such….” See Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide Done at New York, Dec. 9, 1948. Entered into force, Jan. 12, 1951. 78 U.N.T.S. 277.
[21]In the 17th century, French philosopher Blaise Pascal remarked prophetically (Pensées): “All our dignity consists in thought…. It is upon this that we must depend…Let us labor then to think well: this is the foundation of morality.” Similar reasoning characterizes the writings of Baruch Spinoza, Pascal’s 17th-century contemporary. In Book II of his Ethics Spinoza considers the human mind, or the intellectual attributes, and – drawing further from Descartes – strives to define an essential theory of learning and knowledge.
[22] Here, this concept refers to the unpredictable effects of errors in knowledge and information concerning intra-Israel (IDF/MOD) strategic uncertainties; on Israeli and Iranian under-estimations or over-estimations of relative power position; and on the unalterably vast and largely irremediable differences between theories of deterrence, and enemy intent “as it actually is.” See: Carl von Clausewitz, “Uber das Leben und den Charakter von Scharnhorst,” Historisch-politische Zeitschrift, 1 (1832); cited in Barry D. Watts, Clausewitzian Friction and Future War, McNair Paper No. 52, October, 1996, Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University Washington, D.C. p. 9.
[23]In principle, at least, such a preemptive strike could be permissible under international law as “anticipatory self-defense.”
[24]On this strategic concept by Professor Beres in Israel Defense (Tel Aviv), see: https://www.israeldefense.co.il/en/node/28931
[25] The principle of “military necessity” has been defined authoritatively as follows: “Only that degree and kind of force, not otherwise prohibited by the law of armed conflict, required for the partial or complete submission of the enemy with a minimum expenditure of time, life, and physical resources may be applied.” See: United States, Department of the Navy, jointly with Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps; and Department of Transportation, U.S. Coast Guard, The Commander’s Handbook on the Law of Naval Operations, NWP 1-14M, Norfolk, Virginia, October 1995, p. 5-1.
[26]Because any such strike would be unprecedented, there obtains no acceptable scientific way to assign meaningful probabilities.
[27] See Summary of the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons (Advisory Opinion), 1996 I.C.J. 226 (Opinion of July 1996).
[28] This is not necessarily the case, however, with respect to conventional forms of preemption. To wit, preemption has figured importantly in previous Israeli strategic calculations. This was most glaringly apparent in the wars of 1956 and 1967, and also in the destruction of the Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981. It was essentially the failure to preempt in October 1973 that contributed to heavy Israeli losses on the Egyptian and Syrian fronts during the Yom Kippur war, and almost brought about an Israeli defeat. During January, May, and October 2013, Israel, apprehensive about Damascus’ supply of military materials to Syria’s Hezbollah surrogates in Lebanon, preemptively struck pertinent hard targets within Syria. In part, Israel’s September 2024 strikes against Hezbollah assets in Lebanon and Syria (including the targeted killing of terrorist leader Nasrallah) represent the latest expression of such preemptive thinking.
[29] On non-nuclear or conventional preemptions by Israel, see Menachem Begin Heritage Center, Israel’s Strike Against the Iraqi Nuclear Reactor 7 June 1981, a collection of original articles and lectures by Yitzhak Shamir, Rafael Eitan, David Ivri, Yaakov Amidror, Yuval Ne’eman, Yoash Tsiddon-Chatto, and Louis René Beres. See also: Louis René Beres and COL. (IDF/ret.) Yoash Tsiddon-Chatto, “Reconsidering Israel’s Destruction of Iraq’s Osiraq Nuclear Reactor,” 9 Temple International and Comparative Law Journal, 437 (1995). COL. Tsiddon-Chatto was a Chief of Planning for the Israel Air Force, and a member of Professor Louis René Beres’ Project Daniel (PM Sharon/2003).
[30] For more exhaustively specific and detailed assessments of nuclear war outcomes, see an early book by this author: Louis René Beres, Apocalypse: Nuclear Catastrophe in World Politics (The University of Chicago Press, 1980).
[31] See, for example, by this author: https://thestrategybridge.org/the-bridge/2018/11/15/israels-nuclear-ambiguity-would-a-shift-to-selective-nuclear-disclosure-enhance-strategic-deterrence
[32] At the microcosmic level of Israeli counter-terrorism, a related question should come to mind: How does killing in world politics hold out a promise of immortality for the perpetrator? An answer is offered by playwright Eugene Ionesco, “I must kill my visible enemy, the one who is determined to take my life, to prevent him from killing me. Killing gives me a feeling of relief, because I am dimly aware that in killing him, I have killed death. Killing is a way of relieving one’s feelings, of warding off one’s own death.” This comment from Ionesco’s JOURNAL appeared in the British magazine, ENCOUNTER, May 1966. See also: Eugene Ionesco, FRAGMENTS OF A JOURNAL (Grove Press, 1968). In an important sense, the jihadist terror-state (e.g. Iran) resembles the individual human terrorist seeking “power over death.”
[33]Expressions of decisional irrationality could take various different and overlapping forms. These include a disorderly or inconsistent value system; computational errors in calculation; an incapacity to communicate efficiently; random or haphazard influences in the making or transmittal of particular decisions; and the internal dissonance generated by any structure of collective decision-making (i.e., assemblies of pertinent individuals who lack identical value systems and/or whose organizational arrangements impact their willing capacity to act as a single or unitary national decision maker).
[34] Some current Israeli supporters of a Palestinian state argue that its prospective harms to Israel could be reduced or even eliminated by ensuring that state’s immediate “demilitarization.” For informed reasoning against this naive argument, see: Louis René Beres and (Ambassador) Zalman Shoval, “Why a Demilitarized Palestinian State Would Not Remain Demilitarized: A View Under International Law,” Temple International and Comparative Law Journal, Winter 1998, pp. 347-363; and Louis René Beres and Ambassador Shoval, “On Demilitarizing a Palestinian `Entity’ and the Golan Heights: An International Law Perspective,” Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law, Vo. 28., No.5., November 1995, pp. 959-972.
[35] Under international law, sub-state movements are always Hostes humani generis, or “Common enemies of mankind.” See: Research in International Law: Draft Convention on Jurisdiction with Respect to Crime, 29 AM J. INT’L L. (Sup 1935) 435, 566 (quoting King v. Marsh (1615), 3 Bulstr. 27, 81 Eng. Rep 23 (1615) (“a pirate est Hostes humani generis”)).
[36] For much earlier original writings by this author on the prospective impact of a Palestinian state on Israeli nuclear diplomacy and Israeli nuclear deterrence, see: Louis René Beres, “Security Threats and Effective Remedies: Israel’s Strategic, Tactical and Legal Options,” Ariel Center for Policy Research (Israel), ACPR Policy Paper No. 102, April 2000, 110 pp; Louis René Beres, “After the `Peace Process:’ Israel, Palestine, and Regional Nuclear War,” DICKINSON JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL LAW, Vol. 15, No. 2., Winter 1997, pp. 301-335; Louis René Beres, “Limits of Nuclear Deterrence: The Strategic Risks and Dangers to Israel of False Hope,” ARMED FORCES AND SOCIETY, Vol. 23., No. 4., Summer 1997, pp. 539-568; Louis René Beres, “Getting Beyond Nuclear Deterrence: Israel, Intelligence and False Hope,” INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INTELLIGENCE AND COUNTERINTELLIGENCE, Vol. 10., No. 1., Spring 1997, pp. 75-90; Louis René Beres, “On Living in a Bad Neighborhood: The Informed Argument for Israeli Nuclear Weapons,” POLITICAL CROSSROADS, Vol. 5., Nos. 1/2, 1997, pp. 143-157; Louis René Beres, “Facing the Apocalypse: Israel and the `Peace Process,'” BTZEDEK: THE JOURNAL OF RESPONSIBLE JEWISH COMMENTARY (Israel), Vol. 1., No. 3., Fall/Winter 1997, pp. 32-35; Louis René Beres and (Ambassador) Zalman Shoval, “Why Golan Demilitarization Would Not Work,” STRATEGIC REVIEW, Vol. XXIV, No. 1., Winter 1996, pp. 75-76; Louis René Beres, “Implications of a Palestinian State for Israeli Security and Nuclear War: A Jurisprudential Assessment,” DICKINSON JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL LAW, Vol. 17., No. 2., 1999, pp. 229-286; Louis René Beres, “A Palestinian State and Israel’s Nuclear Strategy,” CROSSROADS: AN INTERNATIONAL SOCIO-POLITICAL JOURNAL, No. 31, 1991, pp. 97-104; Louis René Beres, “The Question of Palestine and Israel’s Nuclear Strategy,” THE POLITICAL QUARTERLY, Vol. 62, No. 4., October-December 1991, pp. 451-460; Louis René Beres, “Israel, Palestine and Regional Nuclear War,” BULLETIN OF PEACE PROPOSALS, Vol. 22., No. 2., June 1991, pp. 227-234; Louis René Beres, “A Palestinian State: Implications for Israel’s Security and the Possibility of Nuclear War,” BULLETIN OF THE JERUSALEM INSTITUTE FOR WESTERN DEFENCE (Israel), Vol. 4., Bulletin No, 3., October 1991, pp. 3-10; Louis René Beres, ISRAELI SECURITY AND NUCLEAR WEAPONS, PSIS Occasional Papers, No. 1/1990, Graduate Institute of International Studies, Geneva, Switzerland, 40 pp; and Louis René Beres, “After the Gulf War: Israel, Palestine and the Risk of Nuclear War in the Middle East,” STRATEGIC REVIEW, Vol. XIX, No. 4., Fall 1991, pp. 48-55.
[37]This calls to mind the obligations of formal doctrine. Such doctrine defines the framework from which any state’s strategic goals should be suitably extrapolated. Generically, in “standard” or orthodox military thinking, such doctrine describes the tactical manner in which national forces “ought to fight” in various combat situations, the prescribed “order of battle,” and variously assorted corollary operations. The literal definition of “doctrine” derives from Middle English, from the Latin doctrina, meaning teaching, learning, and instruction. Always, a central importance of codified military doctrine lies not only in the way it can animate, unify and optimize pertinent military forces, but also in the way it can transmit certain desired “messages” to an enemy.
[38] See by Louis René Beres https://sectech.tau.ac.il/sites/sectech.tau.ac.il/files/PalmBeachBook.pdf
.
[39] Before the great-power emergence of China (tripolarity), hypothesizing the emergence of “Cold War II” meant a world system that was becoming increasingly bipolar. For early writings, by this author, on the global security implications of any such expanding bipolarity, see: Louis René Beres, “Bipolarity, Multipolarity, and the Reliability of Alliance Commitments,” Western Political Quarterly, Vol. 25, No.4., December 1972, pp. 702-710; Louis René Beres, “Bipolarity, Multipolarity, and the Tragedy of the Commons,” Western Political Quarterly, Vol. 26, No.4., December 1973, pp, 649-658; and Louis René Beres, “Guerillas, Terrorists, and Polarity: New Structural Models of World Politics,” Western Political Quarterly, Vol. 27, No.4., December 1974, pp. 624-636.
[40]On the growing dangers of further North Korean nuclearization, by this author, at West Point (Pentagon): See: Louis René Beres, https://mwi.usma.edu/theres-no-historical-guide-assessing-risks-us-north-korea-nuclear-war/
[41]https://digitalcommons.wcl.american.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://search.yahoo.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1318&context=auilr
[42] Such offenses could also be directed against various authoritative forms of customary international law. See, accordingly, Article 38 (1)(b) of the UN Statute of the International Court of Justice, which defines international custom as “evidence of a general practice accepted as law.” (June 29, 1945, 59 Stat. 1031, T.S. 993. The essential significance of a norm’s customary character is that the norms bind even those states that are not parties to a pertinent codification. Even where a customary norm and a norm restated in treaty form are apparently identical, these norms are treated as jurisprudentially discrete (See Military and Paramilitary Activities (Nicaragua vs. US), 1986, I.C.J., 14, 85 (June 27) (Merits).
[43] See Hugo Grotius, The Law of War and Peace 70 (William Whewell, tr.), London: John W. Parker, 1853(1625).
[44] The North Korea-United States rivalry should come immediately to mind. In this Asian theatre of possible nuclear conflict, a context which bears marked differences from the Middle East, US forces could never function as a compelling conventional deterrent. Here, their only true role could be as “trip wire” for generating more-or-less rapid American escalations to nuclear levels.
[45] On vital interconnections between US and Israeli nuclear security, see previously referenced 2016 monograph (published at Tel Aviv University) authored by Professor Beres (with special postscript by USA General, ret., Barry R. McCaffrey:
https://sectech.tau.ac.il/sites/sectech.tau.ac.il/files/PalmBeachBook.pdf
See also: http://ssi.armywarcollege.edu/pubs/parameters/Articles/07spring/beres.pdf
[46] See, by Professor Beres: http://digitalcommons.law.uga.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1410&context=gjicl
[47] The avoidance of nuclear war fighting in any form was a major conclusion of the Project Daniel Group in its 2003 report to Prime Minister Arik Sharon:
http://www.herzliyaconference.org/_Uploads/2905LouisReneBeres.pdf
[48] See, for example: http://www.israeldefense.co.il/en/node/28836
[49] On such issues, see by Professor Beres, Surviving Amid Chaos: Israel’s Nuclear Strategy (New York and London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016); 2nd ed. 2018. See also, by Professor Beres: http://www.inss.org.il/uploadImages/systemFiles/adkan17_3ENG%20(3)_Beres.pdf and, from Harvard National Security Journal, Harvard Law School: http://harvardnsj.org/?s=louis+rene+beres
[50] For an early book by Professor Beres dealing with the expected effects of a nuclear war, see: Louis René Beres, Apocalypse: Nuclear Catastrophe in World Politics (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1980). https://www.amazon.com/Apocalypse-Nuclear-Catastrophe-World-Politics/dp/0226043606/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8 See also, by Professor Beres: http://digitalcommons.wcl.american.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1318&context=auilr
[51] From the standpoint of international law, it is always necessary to distinguish preemptive attacks from “preventive ones.” Preemption is a military strategy of striking an enemy first in the expectation that the only alternative is to be struck first oneself. A preemptive attack is launched by a state that believes enemy forces are about to attack. A preventive attack, however, is launched not out of genuine concern about “imminent” hostilities, but for fear of a longer-term deterioration in a pertinent military balance. Hence, in a preemptive attack, the length of time by which the enemy’s action is anticipated is very short, while in a preventive strike the interval is considerably longer. A problem for Israel, in this regard, is not only the practical difficulty of determining imminence, but also that delaying a defensive strike until appropriately ascertained imminence is acknowledged could be fatal.
[52]Expressions of decisional irrationality could take different and overlapping forms. These forms include a disorderly or inconsistent value system; computational errors in calculation; an incapacity to communicate efficiently; random or haphazard influences in the making or transmittal of particular decisions; and the internal dissonance generated by any structure of collective decision-making (i.e., assemblies of pertinent individuals who lack identical value systems and/or whose organizational arrangements impact their willing capacity to act as a single or unitary national decision maker).
[53] Among other more obvious dangers, if Israel should refrain from striking first until an enemy state or states had actually acquired nuclear weapons, these new nuclear powers could implement protective measures that would then pose additional hazards to the Jewish State. Designed to guard against preemption, either by Israel or by other regional enemies, these measures could involve the attachment of “hair trigger” launch mechanisms to nuclear weapon systems, and/or the adoption of “launch on warning” policies, possibly coupled with certain pre-delegations of launch authority. This means, in essence, that Israel would be increasingly endangered by steps taken by its nuclear enemies to prevent a preemption. Optimally, Israel would do everything possible to prevent such steps, especially because of the expanded risks of accidental or unauthorized attacks against its own armaments and populations. Yet, if such steps were to become a fait accompli, Jerusalem could still calculate, correctly, that a preemptive strike would be legal and cost-effective. This is because the expected enemy retaliation, however damaging, might still appear more tolerable than the expected consequences of enemy first-strikes – strikes likely occasioned by the failure of “anti-preemption” protocols.
[54] Although it cannot be ruled out that an Israeli non-nuclear preemption would lead to nuclear exchanges (this would depend on the effectiveness and breadth of Israeli targeting, the surviving number of enemy nuclear weapons, and the willingness of some enemy leaders to risk Israeli nuclear counter-retaliations), such exchanges appear more likely if Iran were ultimately allowed to deploy nuclear weapons without any meaningful interference. Should such deployment ever take place, Israel could conceivably confront a rationally-compelling incentive to launch a nuclearpreemption. In the plainly worst-case scenario for Jerusalem, one where even properly intersecting levels of conventional and nuclear deterrence had failed to protect Israel and where Israel had undertaken a nuclear preemption without any confirmable success (i.e., without destroying an essential number of enemy missiles and warheads), literal survival of the State would then essentially rest upon the country’s multiple and closely-interlinkedactive defenses.
[55] See, also: Niccolo Machiavelli, Book Two, of The Discourses, where the oft-cited Florentine advises the Council of Florence on “How the Romans proceeded in the Waging of War.” This Roman way, he counsels, was “to make wars short and crushing.” But, for Israel, the task may increasingly be to avoid major warfare altogether and to enlist international law in best meeting this goal.
[56] This fate should bring to mind the closing query of Agamemnon in The Oresteia by Aeschylus: “Where will it end? When will it all be lulled back into sleep, and cease, the bloody hatreds, the destruction”?
[57] These harms could sometime include genocide, See Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, opened for signature, December 9, 1948, entered into force, January 12, 1951, 78 U.N.T.S. 277. Although the criminalizing aspect of international law that proscribes genocide-like conduct may derive from a source other than the Genocide Convention (i.e., it may emerge from customary international law and be included in different international conventions), such conduct is clearly a crime under international law. Even where the conduct in question does not affect the interests of more than one state, it becomes an international crime whenever it constitutes an offense against the world community delicto jus gentium. See especially UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS, Dec. 10, 1948, U.N.G.A. Res. 217 A (III), U.N. Doc. A/810, at 71 (1948); EUROPEAN CONVENTION FOR THE PROTECTION OF HUMAN RIGHTS AND FUNDAMENTAL FREEDOMS, Done at Rome, Nov. 4., 1950. Entered into force, Sept. 3, 1953, Europe T.S. No. 5., CONVENTION RELATING TO THE STATUS OF REFUGEES. Done at Geneva, July 28, 1951. Entered into force, April 22, 1954. 189 U.N.T.S. 137 (This Convention should be read in conjunction with the Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees, adopted by the General Assembly on December 16, 1966, and entered into force, October 4, 1967); CONVENTION ON THE POLITICAL RIGHTS OF WOMEN. Done at New York, March 31, 1953. Entered into force for the United States, July 7, 1976. 27 U.S.T. 1909, T.I.A.S. No. 8289, 193 U.N.T.S. 135; DECLARATION ON THE GRANTING OF INDEPENDENCE TO COLONIAL COUNTRIES AND PEOPLES, Dec. 14, 1960, U.N.G.A. Res. 1514 (XV), 15 U.N. GAOR, Supp. (No. 16) 66, U.N. Doc. A/4684 (1961); INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION ON THE ELIMINATION OF ALL FORMS OF RACIAL DISCRIMINATION, Opened for signature, March 7, 1966. Entered into force, Jan. 4, 1969. 660 U.N.T.S. 195, reprinted in 5 I.L.M. 352 (1966); INTERNATIONAL COVENANT ON ECONOMIC, SOCIAL AND CULTURAL RIGHTS, opened for signature, Dec. 19, 1966. Entered into force, Jan. 3, 1976. U.N.G.A. Res. 2200 (XXI), 21 U.N. GAOR, Supp. (No. 16) 49, U.N. Doc. A/6316 (1967), reprinted in 6 I.L.M. 360 (1967), INTERNATIONAL COVENANT ON CIVIL AND POLITICAL RIGHTS. Opened for signature, Dec. 19, 1966. Entered into force, March 23, 1976. U.N.G.A. Res. 2200 (XXI), 21 U.N. GAOR, Supp. (No. 16) 52, U.N.Doc. A/6316 (1967), reprinted in I.L.M. 368 (1967); AMERICAN CONVENTION ON HUMAN RIGHTS. Done at San Jose, Nov. 22, 1969. Entered into force, July 18, 1978. O.A.S. Treaty Series No. 36 at 1, O.A.S. Off. Rec. OEA/Ser. L/V/II. 23 doc. 21 rev. 6 (1979), reprinted in 9 I.L.M. 673 (1970). The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (together with its Optional Protocol of 1976), and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights–known collectively as the International Bill of Rights–serve as the touchstone for the normative protection of human rights.
[58]In his seminal writings, strategic theorist Herman Kahn introduced a further distinction between a surprise attack that is more-or-less unexpected and a surprise attack that arrives entirely “out of the blue.” The former, he counseled, “…is likely to take place during a period of tension that is not so intense that the offender is essentially prepared for nuclear war….” A total surprise attack, however, would be one without any immediately recognizable tension or warning signal. This particular subset of a surprise attack scenario could be difficult to operationalize for national security policy benefit. See: Herman Kahn, Thinking About the Unthinkable in the 1980s (Simon & Schuster, 1984).
