“The rational is not thinkable without its other, the non-rational, and never appears in reality without it.” – Karl Jaspers, Reason and Existence (1935)
Introduction
Along with all variants of conventional war, nuclear war risks are growing steadily. These risks are many-sided and go beyond one–dimensional differences of destructive magnitude. Moreover, because a nuclear war would be without precedent, there could be no science-based way of determining specific conflict probabilities.
There will be multiple details. For the presumptively nuclear State of Israel, pertinent risks could include (1) sequential escalations from counter-terrorism actions; (2) “spill over” effects from variously distant theatres of conflict; or (3) binding alignments between regional and non-regional adversaries. These hazards need not be mutually exclusive; they could even be overlapping and force-multiplying.
In unraveling the identified risks, North Korea should be brought to mind. Though not widely recognized, there is an unambiguous history of direct military engagement between Pyongyang and Jerusalem. Active belligerency between these states was most extensive during the 1973 Yom Kippur War. In recent years, North Korea has been openly helpful to Iran and remains close to Russia and China. Supporting Vladimir Putin’s aggression against Ukraine, Kim Jung Un has displayed no evident predilection for conflict avoidance.
Even after Israel’s success in the 12-day June 2025 war, Iran remains an aspiring nuclear foe. Notwithstanding US President Donald Trump’s intuitive declaration that American forces “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear threat to Israel, that peril was not eliminated and will at some point need new rounds of preemptive attention. This could mean another series of defensive strikes against critical hard targets, actions that would be subject to authoritative standards of international law.[1] In essence, in planning such actions, Israel and/or its US ally would need to conform preemptive strikes with the well-established legal criteria[2] of “anticipatory self-defense.”[3]
Whatever its operational choices, Jerusalem’s core security concerns should center on deterrence. At some not yet foreseeable point, Jerusalem will have to communicate to certain already-nuclear or potentially nuclear adversaries that Israel’s military capacities cover the full spectrum of non-conventional war. In essence, this would mean a configuration of credible threats ranging from “limited nuclear reprisal” (“limited nuclear war”) to all-out nuclear retaliation (“Samson Option”).
For the time being, Israel remains the only regional state with nuclear weapons. Threats of a limited nuclear war would embrace a broad variety of conceivable variants. These threats would concern more than “just” another shattering wartime event or conventional military outcome. They could describe a distinctly pragmatic element of strategic deterrence.
There is more. For Israel, all threats of limited nuclear war should center on unconventional war avoidance, not actual warfighting. Even after the June 2025 12-day war with Iran, policy assessments of the Jewish State’s nuclear doctrine and strategy have remained intentionally vague and without decipherable nuance.[4] In a worrisome omission, there have been few open-literature assessments of limited nuclear war threats and their law-supporting capacity[5] to enhance strategic deterrence.
For Israel, a principal question needs to be asked: What should be done by Jerusalem to remedy Israel’s historical inattention to this plausibly gainful source of strategic deterrence? In tentative reply, Jerusalem should do whatever possible to avoidtangible nuclear conflict, but still seek the latent security advantages of credible nuclear threats. With regard to classical strategic theory, such an orientation would align promisingly with Sun-Tzu’s dictum in The Art of War, “Supreme excellence consists of breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.”
Definitions and Derivatives
These matters are all sui generis. On these unprecedented matters, philosophy and history will deserve pride of place. To be sure, merely the “idea” of a limited nuclear war would be dismissed in most professional quarters as patently unrealistic and/or morally repugnant. In fact, exactly such a dismissal greeted this concept’s initial presentation in the 1960s, when it was most prominently raised by nuclear thinkers Herman Kahn and Henry Kissinger. And yet a once-hostile reception is not proper justification for ignoring prospectively advantageous security correlates.
Our subject is arcane. On this bewildering subject, words will be more important than usual. At the start, there are substantially different ways of defining a limited nuclear war. A nuclear war could be “limited” if (in a two-party conflict dyad) only one side was already-nuclear. In the short or immediate term, any war between Israel and Iran involving nuclear weapons would be asymmetrical in favor of the former. This could be the case, however, only if there would be no witting Iranian nuclear state proxies (e.g., North Korea or Pakistan) “in the wings.”
A nuclear war could be labeled “limited” in a two-party conflict if both parties were operationally nuclear, but one or both faced restrictions of yield or range. A nuclear war could also be termed “limited” because of a presumptively short duration. In turn, this designation could follow from (1) one or the other’s (or both) nuclear ordnance constraints; or (2) judgments by one or both belligerents concerning relative force inferiority
These are all dense and complicated matters. Accordingly, the defining criteria of limited nuclear war are likely to intersect or overlap with each other, creating synergies[6] or force-multiplications. Moreover, such interpenetrations could be foreseeable or unforeseeable, and could spawn variously injurious outcomes that are greater than the sum of their parts.
There is more. Common to all notions of a limited nuclear war would be the implicit assumption that a nuclear conflict of varying magnitudes and capabilities could be managed via incrementally-controlled and/or suitably-coordinated escalations. Yet, because these nuclear conflict scenarios would be without historical precedent, there would be nothing logic-based or scientific about such an assumption. This is the case even if the correlative assumption of enemy rationality was not credible.
All these assumptions and definitions must be evaluated and configured by Jerusalem. Once these preliminaries have been scrutinized and acknowledged, capable strategic thinkers will need to re-assess the Jewish State’s core policy of “deliberate nuclear ambiguity.” Only then could designated Israeli planners proceed to increasingly-specific strategic refinements involving a limited nuclear war. Only then could these thinkers identify clarifying linkages between (1) threats of a limited nuclear war and viable nuclear deterrence; and (2) threats of a limited nuclear war and nuclear deterrence failure.
For the moment, Israel’s nuclear strategy remains traditionally “opaque” or “deliberately ambiguous.” In the past, this stance appears to have been sensible, “cost-effective” and arguably unassailable. Today, however, during Israel’s re-configuring struggles against jihadi adversaries (state and sub-state), this core strategy will require fundamental reconsiderations. Comparing all decipherable costs and benefits, Israel’s traditional “bomb in the basement” posture is no longer tenable.For a state that is half the size of America’s Lake Michigan, it is high-time for Jerusalem to shift posture to “selective nuclear disclosure.”[7]
There will be numerous explanatory particulars. A prudent nuclear posture for Israel (doctrine and strategy) should always be based on calculable judgments of believable options. Any considered transformations of Israel’s nuclear ambiguity would need to be readily identifiable but not gratuitously provocative. Merely by definition, Palestinian statehood[8] would eliminate Israel’s strategic depth altogether.[9]
How should Jerusalem create a promising chain of nuclear policy prescriptions? A comprehensive Israeli strategic doctrine would represent the general framework from which any specific posture of “selective nuclear disclosure” could be extracted. The principal importance of Israeli nuclear doctrine and strategy lies not only in the ways it can animate, unify and optimize a beleaguered state’s armed forces,[10] but also in the more-or-less efficient manner in which Jerusalem could transmit cautionary messages to both enemy states and sub-state proxies.
For Israel, the shift from “deliberate nuclear ambiguity” to “selective nuclear disclosure” will need to be authoritative, unhesitating and prompt. Any continuing across-the-board ambiguity could have incremental but ultimately existential costs. Genuinely effective Israeli deterrence and defense policies call for a military doctrine that is selectively recognizable by an enemy state and its jihadi terrorist surrogates.[11] Presumptively, even after Israel’s “bomb” was taken “out of the basement,” secrecy would remain intact on virtually all associated particulars.
Understanding Nuclear Deterrence Options
For Israel, any conclusive and durable military success against Iran and surrogates must lie in credibly-layered nuclear deterrence options, not in nuclear war-fighting. In the critical survival matter of Israeli nuclear deterrence, designated decision-makers will need to acknowledge that there are occasions when too much secrecy could degrade the country’s national security. Though ironic and counter-intuitive, understanding this argument will be indispensable to Israel’s long-term security.
Always, Israel’s nuclear doctrine should be oriented to deterrence ex ante, not revenge ex post. Paradoxically, in an ultimate and originally-unimagined reaffirmation of Sun-Tzu, nuclear weapons can succeed only via thoughtful postures of strategic non-use. Once these weapons have been used in actual battle, their mission will have failed ipso facto. Once these weapons were used in operational form, whether tactical or strategic, every traditional meaning of “victory” would become moot.
Israel’s nuclear deterrence posture could have counter-terrorism benefits, but only with direct regard to Iran or another terror-sponsor state. Reciprocally, by allowing itself to be weakened by jihadi terrorists (Sunni or Shia), Israel would enlarge its incremental and potentially lethal vulnerabilities to Iran or a different enemy state. For the moment, Iran is down, but not out. China is preparing to supply the Islamic Republic with J-10 fighter jets, and simultaneously buying large quantities of Iranian oil. In the longer term, Russia will almost certainly aid Tehran in reviving and sustaining its military nuclear program.
These are not simple or “one-off” considerations. In their evaluations, Israeli planners will need to devote continuous and explicit attention to possible synergies and “force multipliers.” To remind, however, because such attention would involve historically unique calculations, it could never correctly claim to be scientific.
The Cold War is over. Still, “Cold War II” (aka a “new world order”) is underway involving the United States, Russia, China, India, Pakistan and North Korea. For assorted reasons, if Iran were eventually allowed to become nuclear, Israel’s deterrence relationship with that adversarial state would never be comparable to what had earlier obtained between the US and the USSR. In such unique and expressly multipolar circumstances, any unmodified continuance of total nuclear ambiguity could cause Iran to miscalculate (underestimate or overestimate) Israel’s nuclear retaliatory capacity. Either kind of miscalculation could lead suddenly or incrementally to catastrophic war.[12]
Understanding Systemic Underpinnings
Background will be relevant. The world is a system. Various uncertainties surrounding Israel’s nuclear strategy could lead Iran and possibly other enemy states to reach similar kinds of misunderstanding. For example, Israel’s willingness to make good on a threatened nuclear retaliation could at some point be taken as inversely related to weapon system destructiveness. Ironically, if Israel’s nuclear weapons were ever judged “too destructive,” they might not deter.
In principle, at least, any continuing Israeli posture of deliberate nuclear ambiguity could cause terrorist-mentoring Iran and other state enemies to overestimate the first-strike vulnerabilities of Israel’s nuclear forces. This could be the result of a too-rigorous silence concerning measures of protection deployed to safeguard Israel’s nuclear weapons and infrastructures. Alternatively, such an over-estimation could represent the product of Israeli doctrinal opacity on the country’s security potential, an absence of transparency that could wrongly be interpreted as a “porous” missile defense system. Though any such conclusion might seem preposterous after Israel’s multiple successes at active defense, anything less than a 100% probability of interception could be inadequate vis-à-vis enemy nuclear attacks.[13]
Foreseeably, this likelihood of interception will not be feasible.
To deter an enemy state attack or post-preemption retaliation against Israel, Jerusalem should always aim to prevent a rational state aggressor, via threats of unacceptably damaging retaliation or counter-retaliation, from deciding to strike first. Understood in such a “classic” context, Israel’s national security will have to be sought by convincing a presumptively rational enemy-state (irrational state enemies would pose a different calculation problem[14]) that the costs of any considered attack would exceed its expected benefits. Assuming that Iran or other state foe would value its national self-preservation more highly than any other preference or combination of preferences and would always choose rationally among alternative options, that adversary would refrain from launching any attack on an Israel that was believed willing and able to deliver unacceptably damaging reprisals.[15] Regarding Iran, this is the case whether it has remained a pre-nuclear enemy or had become a nuclear foe.
Eventually, whether Israel’s overlapping deterrent processes were geared primarily toward conventional or to nuclear threats, their success would depend on the expected rationality of pertinent state enemies. In residual cases where rationality appeared implausible, Jerusalem could find itself under heavy pressures to launch a preemptive first strike. If Jerusalem’s own expected responses were judged to be rational, they might then need to include a reliable option for “anticipatory self-defense.”[16] For Israel, regional conflict prospects should always be curtailed at the lowest possible levels of controlled engagement. Under no circumstances should Israel ever have to find itself needing to preempt an already-nuclear state adversary.
Assessing Enemy State Capability and Willingness
There are additional details. Several factors could communicate such vital belief. In terms of capability, two essential components would require continuous assessment and refinement:(1) payload and (2) delivery system. It should always be communicated to Iran or other state enemy that Israel’s firepower and its means of delivering that firepower are capable of inflicting unacceptable levels of cumulative harm. Israel’s retaliatory or counter-retaliatory forces should appear continuously invulnerable to enemy first-strikes and sufficiently elusive to penetrate that aggressor’s[17]active defenses.
In Jerusalem, the “bottom line” should soon become clear. Israel’s security posture of “deliberate nuclear ambiguity” is outdated and dangerous. With Israel’s operational nuclear forces and doctrine kept locked away in a metaphoric “basement,” Iran or other enemy state could conclude, rightly or wrongly, that a first-strike attack or post-preemption reprisal against Israel would be rational. But if relevant Israeli doctrine were made more conspicuous to a determined state adversary – that is, if it was rendered more consistently plain that Israel’s nuclear assets met payload and delivery system objectives – Jerusalem’s nuclear forces could more reliably serve their existential security function.
Another critical success factor of Israeli nuclear doctrine is “presumed willingness.” How can Israel convince Iranian or other state-enemy decision-makers that it possesses the resolve to deliver a credibly destructive retaliation or counter-retaliation?The answer to this main question lies in antecedent strategic doctrine, in Israel’s estimated strength of commitment to carry out such an attack and in the specific nuclear ordnance that would likely be available to Jerusalem.
Any continued ambiguity over Israel’s nuclear posture could create the erroneous impression of a state unwilling to retaliate. Conversely, any doctrinal movement toward some as-yet-undetermined level of nuclear disclosure could heighten the impression that Israel would be willing to follow-through on its calibrated nuclear threats.
In the final analysis, all conceivable prospects should be examined by Jerusalem. What if Iran succeeds in becoming nuclear in the next several years? To be deterred by Israel, a newly-nuclear Iran would need to believe that a critical number of Israel’s retaliatory forces could survive any Iranian first-strike and that these forces could not be prevented from hitting high-value targets in Iran or elsewhere. Concerning the “presumed survivability” of Israeli nuclear forces, continued submarine-basing by Israel would be markedly gainful.
If carefully articulated, expanding doctrinal openness or “selective nuclear disclosure” would represent a rational policy option for Israel. The operational benefits of such expanded doctrinal openness would accrue from certain deliberate flows of information on Israeli weapons dispersion, multiplication and hardening of nuclear weapon systems or other technical weapon features. Most importantly, perhaps, doctrinally-controlled and orderly flows of information could serve to remove any intermittent or lingering enemy state doubts about Israel’s nuclear force capabilities and intentions. If left unchallenged, such doubts could at some point undermine Israeli nuclear deterrence with a dissembling suddenness. This is the case whether Iran or other enemy state was pre-nuclear or already-nuclear.
Operationalizing Deterrent Threats of a Limited Nuclear War
It is at this point that our discussion narrows to more specifically-focused threat considerations regarding Israel and limited nuclear war. This under-examined category of inter-state belligerency contains two principal variants: (1) asymmetrical nuclear warfare, a variant wherein only Israel is nuclear; and (2) symmetrical nuclear warfare, a variant in which both Israel and Iran or other state enemy are nuclear but where (a) one side is presumptively more powerful than the other, and (b) one or both sides opt for determinable nuclear war limitations. Presently, the “more powerful” nuclear state would likely be Israel.
Regarding asymmetrical nuclear warfare, questions for Israel should center on the applicability of nuclear weapons and strategy to enemy non-nuclear threats. A good place for working strategists to operationalize their refined strategic dialectic would be adversarial threats that are non-nuclear but still unconventional. Most obvious, in this connection, would be ascertainably credible threats of biological warfare, biological terrorism[18] and/or electromagnet pulse (EMP) attack. Also included in the category of adversarial non-nuclear threats would be massive conventional missile attacks launched by assorted jihadi proxies.
Though non-nuclear, biological attacks could produce grievously injurious or near-existential event outcomes for Israel. An EMP attack, even if severely disruptive for Israel, would not likely qualify per se as valid rationale for an “ordinary” nuclear reprisal. On the other hand, it is not inherently unreasonable that Israel would threaten limited nuclear war ordnance and strategy to render such a reprisal believable.
There is more. Israeli policies of “limited” nuclear reprisal for biological terror attacks could exhibit compelling deterrent effectiveness against Iran or other state enemy. Still, such policies could be inapplicable to threats issuing from proxy terror groups that would function without determinable state-sponsorship.
In such expectedly residual cases, Israel – lacking suitable targets for calibrated nuclear targeting – would need to “fall back” on more usual arsenals of counter-terrorist operations. These tactical retrogressions could be required even if the particular terror group involved held autonomous nuclear capabilities. As to threats issuing from terror groups with tangible state support, Israel could direct nuclear deterrent threats directly at Iran or any other significant state foe.
Because jihadi terrorists could embrace personal death in “holy war” as an expression of religious martyrdom, Israeli planners would have to draw upon continuously challenging psychological investigations. For Jerusalem, an absolutely worst-case scenario would link “martyrdom thinking” to enemy-state foreign policies.[19] What about enemy conventional threats that would involve neither nuclear nor biological hazards, but were still massive enough to produce existential or near-existential harms for Israel? In these all-too-credible cases, ones which would likely include EMP ordnance, a prospective conventional state aggressor in Tehran or elsewhere could reasonably calculate that Jerusalem would make good on some of its limited nuclear war threats. Here, Israel’s nuclear deterrent threat credibility would be dependent on previously-referenced doctrinal shifts from a “bomb in the basement” posture to one of “selective nuclear disclosure.”
Why such dependence? A correct answer would hinge on Israel’s operational flexibility. In the absence of any prior shift from “deliberate nuclear ambiguity,” Iran might not understand or accept that the State of Israel maintains a sufficiently broad array of measured and graduated nuclear retaliatory responses. In extremis and with the absence of such a confirmable array, Israeli nuclear deterrence could be sorely diminished or fatally degraded.[20]
Additional nuances would surface. As a direct consequence of any seemingly diminished nuclear ambiguity, Jerusalem could signal its Iranian or other state adversary that Israel would willingly cross the nuclear retaliatory threshold to punishacts of existential or near-existential aggressions. Using more explicitly military parlance, Israel’s recommended shift to certain forms of “selective nuclear disclosure” would intend to bolster Jerusalem’s success in “escalation dominance.”[21]
Assessing Limited Nuclear War Threats as Lawful Strategic Option
International law is not a suicide pact.[22] No state, including Israel, is under any automatic legal obligation to renounce access to nuclear weapons.[23] In certain distinctly residual or last-resort circumstances, even the actual use of nuclear weapons could be lawful, but only to the extent that such use was consistent with codified and customary expectations of distinction, proportionality, and military necessity.[24]
On July 8, 1996, the International Court of Justice at The Hague handed down its Advisory Opinion on “The Legality of the Threat or Use of Force of Nuclear Weapons.” The final paragraph of this Opinion concludes: “The threat or use of nuclear weapons would generally be contrary to the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict, and in particular the principles and rules of humanitarian law. However, in view of the current state of international law, and of the elements of fact at its disposal, the Court cannot conclude definitively whether the threat or use of nuclear weapons would be lawful or unlawful in an extreme circumstance of self-defense, in which the very survival of the state would be at stake.”[25]
Symmetries and Asymmetries of a Limited Nuclear War
For the immediate future, any onset of a limited nuclear war between Israel and Iran or other enemy state would be “asymmetrical.” At that relatively favorable point, Jerusalem would have no occasion to concern itself with any Iranian achievement of “escalation dominance,”[26] but only with its own use of limited nuclear war threats designed to keep Iran/etc. non-nuclear. Because such use could be applied gainfully to assorted non-nuclear threats, Jerusalem will need to continuously assess potential nuclear deterrence advantages regarding enemy perils of biological war or terror, EMP attacks on major Israeli cities and massive conventional attacks.
In a manifestly worst case of “asymmetrical nuclear war,” Iran’s already-nuclear North Korean ally would engage the Jewish State in direct nuclear warfare. Though “asymmetrical” in war origin (i.e., nuclear Israel versus non-nuclear Iran), such a scenario could quickly represent de facto equivalence between the nuclear fighting forces of Israel and North Korea. On these matters, for Israel’s military intelligence directorates, there could be no science-based assessment of probabilities. Always, in science, authentic statements of probability must be drawn from the determinable frequency of relevant past events.[27]
Finally, at some point and for diverse reasons, a nuclear war involving Israel and Iran or other enemy state could be “symmetrical.” Though it is certainly in Jerusalem’s best interest to prevent such a unique threat at almost any bearable cost, there is no logically irrefutable way to ensure such prevention. It follows that Israel will need to plan systematically for maintaining “escalation dominance” with an already-nuclear state adversary, a process that should include limited nuclear war options.
With informed reliability, though well in advance, Israeli planners will need to establish Iran’s or other foe’s expected nuclear “firebreaks.” As helpful analogue, these planners should study differences between the United States and Russia regarding “triggers” for crossing from one military threshold to another. Extrapolating from Vladimir Putin’s recent and unambiguous declarations concerning Russian nuclear warfighting, Moscow still sees tactical or theater nuclear weapons as incrementally continuous with conventional, chemical and biological ordnance, not as the critical firebreak between weapon classes. For Russia, the critical firebreak is still strategic nuclear weaponry.
In historical terms, President Putin’s nuclear posture closely resembles that of the former Soviet Union. From this standpoint, any Israeli or Iranian resort to nuclear warfighting would be “limited” as long as it remained non-strategic. Conceptually, the United States has always taken a contrary position that the critical military firebreak exists between conventional weapons in any form and any level of nuclear ordnance, tactical as well as strategic. Today, however, after US President Trump’s (1) renaming of the Department of Defense to the Department of War; and (2) continuous submission to Putin’s war of aggression and genocide against Ukraine, estimations of Washington’s nuclear policies in extremis have become almost entirely unpredictable.[28]
Summing up, Israel’s calculations concerning a prospective nuclear war with Iran or other enemy state will be inherently complex and historically unsupportable. At the same time, such calculations will be indispensable to Israel’s survival, and will need to be undertaken with conscientious note of all available nuclear war-related options. Ultimately, this is not a task for politicians of any stripe or even the traditional professional class of military planners. In essence, it could be grasped only by a tiny number of “high thinkers” (a term that goes back to the non–military and pre-nuclear genre of American Transcendentalist philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson), uniquely gifted scholars of “Manhattan Project” stature.
Still, there is a key difference. This time, the objective would not be to build an extraordinary weapon of war, but to figure out how a perpetually threatened mini-state (one with no meaningful strategic depth) could best fashion deterrence-based strategies of self-preservation. Recalling Proverbs, “wise counsel”[29] will be needed by Israel not to “make thy war” (an always “second-choice” or fallback option), but to prevent or limit a nuclear war.
Could threats of limited nuclear war enhance Israel’s overall strategic deterrence? Conceptually, it would seemingly make sense that (1) Israeli threats of a limited nuclear war would link seamlessly to threats of a “Samson Option;”[30] and (2) all such threats would benefit from a prior shift to “selective nuclear disclosure.” If designated analysts were to range Israel’s nuclear deterrence threats along a continuum of destructive magnitude, Jerusalem’s threats of limited nuclear war would be situated toward the low end and “Samson” somewhere at the high end. To be any more precise at this point would require much clearer definitions of “limited nuclear war” and a “Samson Option.”
Estimating probabilities of unique events is a non-scientific enterpriseand neither a limited nuclear war nor a “Samson Option” would have an historical precedent. As a “bottom line” conclusion, no frequencies of “LNW”or “Samson” are presently knowable. No related systems of nuclear deterrence could currently be “tested.”
A derivative problem for Israeli thinkers and planners has to do with accepted notions of “victory.” Though it is certainly correct that such notions assume great importance in the political sphere, they become far more problematic in the worlds of intellect and reason. Histories of warfare confirm that war-winning is not usually well-defined or readily discernible. Without doubt, Israel’s Iranian enemy or other state enemy would have plural strategic goals. At any point, these several objectives could be mutually exclusive or subject to unanticipated intra-conflict transformations.
Tangible deterrence benefits of limited nuclear war threats by Israel are not logically or mathematically calculable. Nonetheless, in a strategic context of expanding uncertainty, such threats could prove cost-effective. This means that however incalculable, they could still be “net-gainful.”
What are the culminating specifics? Following an imperative shift from “deliberate nuclear ambiguity” to “selective nuclear disclosure,” Jerusalem should (1) clarify its “Samson Option” as an element of strategic deterrence (not as a last-resort spasm of visceral revenge); and (2) explain Israel’s “Samson”-linked preparations to the expected utility of limited nuclear warthreats. For the moment, at least, any such conflict would be “asymmetrical,” with Israel as the sole nuclear combatant.
There is more. Jerusalem’s threats of a limited nuclear war should never intend to produce “victory” through nuclear war fighting, but to ensure an Israeli intra-war advantage via “escalation dominance.” In all foreseeable cases, keeping Iran and other prospective enemy states verifiably non-nuclear should be the nation’s continuously primary security goal.
For Israel, the most critical “battlefield” ought always to be intellectual, not geographic. This statement is even truer today than in the country’s challenging past. Among related obligations, decision-makers in Jerusalem will need to explore the potential deterrence benefits of limited nuclear warthreats at critical moments of decisional urgency.
Such moments are well-within the parameters of current geopolitics and could certainly arise without direct Israeli involvements. Key examples would be nuclear risks stemming from intentional or unintentional wars[31] underway elsewhere.[32] As these risks could reflect rational and non-rational belligerents, Israel’s capable planners will need to unravel intersectional conflict scenarios and strategies of unparalleled complexity.[33]
In the final analysis, this imperative represents a manageable obligation, but only if Jerusalem could first acknowledge the unchanging primacy of nuclear war avoidance. Among other things, this may mean leaving some jihadi terrorist-criminals unpunished in order to avoid the much greater harms of certain new wars.[34] Next time around, a terrorist-protecting state could prove much more worrisome than was Qatar, whether by becoming a direct belligerent (rational or non-rational) of Israel or because of Doha’s increasingly aggressive alignments.
Whatever the precise scenario, Israel’s success will require a disciplined cadre of exceptional scholars,[35] a rare body of thinkers who could appreciate the perpetual risks of delegating national security assessments to political leaders. By definition, in matters concerning nuclear conflict, these risks could quickly become existential. Even if all belligerents were presumptively rational, this expectation could change anytime during a particular crisis. Remembering the pertinent insight of 20th-century German philosopher Karl Jaspers in Reason and Existence (1935), “The rational is not thinkable without the other, the non-rational, and never appears in reality without it.”
[1] The most fundamental of these standards are “peremptory” expectations. Regarding Art. 53 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties: “…a peremptory norm of general international law is a norm accepted and recognized by the international community of states as a whole as a norm from which no derogation is permitted and which can be modified only by a subsequent norm of general international law having the same character.” See: Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, Done at Vienna, May 23, 1969. Entered into force, Jan. 27, 1980. U.N. Doc. A/CONF. 39/27 at 289 (1969), 1155 U.N.T.S. 331, reprinted in 8 I.L.M. 679 (1969).
[2] According to international law, every use of force must be judged twice: once with regard to the right to wage war (jus ad bellum), and once with regard to the means used in conducting a war (jus in bello). In the aftermath of the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928 and the United Nations Charter (1945), all rights to aggressive war have been abolished. Nonetheless, the long-standing customary right of self-defense remains, codified at Article 51 of the Charter. Similarly, subject to conformance, inter alia, with jus in bello criteria, certain instances of humanitarian intervention and collective security operations may also be consistent with jus ad bellum. The laws of war, the rules of jus in bello, comprise (1) laws on weapons; (2) laws on warfare; and (3) humanitarian rules. Codified primarily at The Hague and Geneva Conventions (and known thereby as the law of The Hague and the law of Geneva), these rules attempt to bring distinction, proportionality and military necessity into belligerent calculations.
[3]The most precise origins of anticipatory self-defense in such authoritative 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).
[4] Military doctrine is not the same as military strategy. Doctrine “sets the stage” for strategy. It identifies various central beliefs that must subsequently animate any actual “order of battle.” Among other things, military doctrine describes underlying general principles on how a particular war ought to be waged. The reciprocal task for military strategy, always more specific than doctrine, is to adapt as required in support of previously-fashioned military doctrine.
[5] This capacity is potentially lawful because a continuously strengthened Israeli nuclear deterrent represents a sine qua non for regional war avoidance, both nuclear and conventional.
[6] On this concept, by present author, see Louis René Beres, Harvard Law School(Harvard National Security Journal): https://harvardnsj.org/2015/06/02/core-synergies-in-israels-strategic-planning-when-the-adversarial-whole-is-greater-than-the-sum-of-its-parts/
[7] See by this writer, Louis René Beres, at The Strategy Bridge: https://thestrategybridge.org/the-bridge/2018/11/15/israels-nuclear-ambiguity-would-a-shift-to-selective-nuclear-disclosure-enhance-strategic-deterrence
[8]The argument that a Palestinian state would be more benign because it could be “demilitarized” is unsupportable in strategic, political or jurisprudential terms. See, by this writer, Louis René Beres, “Why the Allen Plan and Palestinian Demilitarization Could Never Protect Israel,” Israel Defense, 16 July, 2017. Earlier law journal articles on this limitation, co-authored with former Israeli Ambassador to the United States Zalman Shoval, include: Louis René Beres and 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 Zalman Shoval, “On Demilitarizing a Palestinian `Entity’ and the Golan Heights: An International Law Perspective,” Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law, Vol. 28, No.5., 1995m pp. 959-972.
[9]Foreseeable Palestinian infringements would have roots in the Palestinian National Covenant. Calling officially for sustained Arab violence against Israel, this document was adopted in 1964, three years before the 1967 Six Day War. The Palestinians’ core guidance on terror was first published – together with its explicit references to the annihilation of Israel – three years before there were any “occupied territories,” For the Palestinian Authority, which until October, 2015, had still agreed to accept a “Two-State Solution,” and for Hamas, the underlying position of protracted war was part of a broader strategy of incorporating Israel into “Palestine.” This irredentist incorporation was already codified on all PA and Hamas maps. The most unambiguous Palestinian call for the removal of Israel remains the PLO’s “Phased Plan” of June 9, 1974. Under the authoritative laws of war, this Plan represents an unhidden commitment to carry out various crimes of war and against humanity.
[10] The obligation to use armed force in a world of international anarchy forms the central argument of Realpolitik, from the Melian Dialogues of Thucydides to Cicero, Machiavelli, Locke, Spykman, and Kissinger: “For what can be done against force without force?” asks Cicero in one of his Letters. Later, in the 20th century, Nicholas Spykman replied: “In a world of international anarchy, foreign policy must aim above all at the improvement or at least the preservation of the relative power position of the state.”
[11]Under international law, terrorists 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. (Supp. 1935) 435, 566 (quoting King V. Marsh (1615), 3 Bulstr. 27, 81 Eng. Rep 23 (1615) (“a pirate est Hostes humani generis”)).
[12] Under international law, the question of whether or not a true “state of war” exists is generally ambiguous. Traditionally, it was held that such a true condition could obtain only between states, and that a formal declaration of belligerency was necessary before this state of war could exist. Hugo Grotius divided wars into declared wars, which were legal, and undeclared wars, which were not. (See Hugo Grotius, The Law of War and Peace, Bk. III, Ch. III, IV, and XI.) By the start of the twentieth century, the position that war obtains only after a conclusive declaration of war by one of the parties was codified by Hague Convention III. This treaty stipulated that hostilities must never commence without a “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.) Certain declarations of war may be tantamount to admissions of international criminality because of the express criminalization of aggression by authoritative international law, and it could therefore represent a clear jurisprudential absurdity to tie any true state of war to formal and prior declarations of belligerency. It follows, inter alia, that a state of war may now exist without any formal declarations, but only if there exists an actual armed conflict between two or more states, and/or at least one of these affected states considers itself “at war.” Nonetheless, as a more practical matter in Israel’s ongoing struggle against sub-state terror proxies of Iran, current fighting against Hamas in Gaza and various jihadists in Lebanon/Syria represent derivative wars against a declared enemy state.
[13]Even if a perfect interception capability were possible, it would not be enough to ensure Israel’s overall success. Says Carl on Clausewitz: “Defensive warfare does not consist of waiting idly for things to happen. We must wait only if it brings us visible and decisive advantages. That calm before the storm, when the aggressor is gathering new forces for a great blow, is most dangerous for the defender.” (See Principles of War, 1812). A similarly timeless argument was made much earlier by ancient Chinese military thinker Sun-Tzu in The Art of War: “Those who excel at defense bury themselves away below the lowest depths of Earth. Those who excel at offense move from above the greatest heights of Heaven. Thus they are able to preserve themselves and attain completer victory.” See also by this writer, Louis René Beres, at Harvard Law School, Harvard National Security Journal: https://harvardnsj.org/2013/10/24/lessons-for-israel-from-ancient-chinese-military-thought-facing-iranian-nuclearization-with-sun-tzu/
[14] Expressions of enemy irrationality could take different or 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).
[15] Rationality and irrationality have very specific meanings. More precisely, an actor (state or sub-state) is presumed determinedly rational to the extent that its leadership always values national survival more highly than any other conceivable preference or combination of conceivable preferences. Conversely, an irrational actor might not always display such a determinable preference ordering.
[16]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; 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; Louis René Beres, “Israel and Anticipatory Self-Defense,” ARIZONA JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL AND COMPARATIVE LAW, Vol. 8, 1991, pp. 89 – 99; Louis René Beres, “After the Scud Attacks: Israel, `Palestine,’ and Anticipatory Self-Defense,” EMORY INTERNATIONAL LAW REVIEW, Vol. 6, No. 1., Spring 1992, pp. 71 – 104; and Louis René Beres, “Israel, Force and International Law: Assessing Anticipatory Self-Defense,” THE JERUSALEM JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, Vol. 13, No. 2, 1991, pp. 1 – 14. For an early examination of assassination, as a permissible form of anticipatory self-defense, by Israel, see Louis René Beres, “On Assassination as Anticipatory Self-Defense: The Case of Israel,” HOFSTRA LAW REVIEW, Vol. 20, No. 2, winter 1991, pp. 321 – 340.
[17] 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.
[18] Biological weapons may be of less immediate concern for Israel than chemical weapons. Although a growing number of countries have or are currently developing capabilities to employ living organisms (such as anthrax, Lassa fever, or typhus, as opposed to inert toxins), such capabilities have limited military value. This is because their dispersal mechanisms are difficult to manage; a change of wind can make them as lethal to the attacker as to the intended victim; and because it is difficult to sustain the living organism in biological weapons in hot climates for long periods. At the same time, precisely because biological weapons are better suited for mass destruction than for use as dedicated military instruments, they could hold out greater appeal to Israel’s more-or-less discernibly irrational enemies.
[19] See by this author: Louis René Beres, “Martyrdom and International Law,” Jurist, September 10, 2018; and Louis René Beres, “Religious Extremism and International Legal Norms: Perfidy, Preemption and Irrationality,” Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law, Vol. 39, No.3., 2007-2008, pp. 709-730. There are pertinent explanations for such thinking that would bring Israeli analysts back to the “microcosm,” to the individual human being who seeks through violence a sanctified path to personal immortality. In his posthumously published lecture on Politics (1896), German historian Heinrich von Treitschke observed: “Individual man sees in his own country the realization of his earthly immortality.” Earlier, German philosopher Georg Friedrich Hegel opined, in his Philosophy of Right (1820), that the state represents “the march of God in the world.” The “deification” of Realpolitik, a transformation from mere principle of action to a sacred end in itself, drew its originating strength from the doctrine of sovereignty advanced in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Initially conceived as a principle of internal order, this doctrine underwent a specific metamorphosis, whence it became the formal or justifying rationale for international anarchy – that is, for the global “state of nature.” First established by Jean Bodin as a juristic concept in De Republica (1576), sovereignty came to be regarded as a power absolute and above the law. Understood in terms of modern international relations, this doctrine encouraged the notion that states lie above and beyond any form of legal regulation in their interactions with each other.
[20]To enhance nuclear deterrence at the high-end of the conflict continuum, Israel should also consider “going public” with helpful details about its plausible “Samson Option.” The goal of any such option would not be to “die with the Philistines,” per the biblical Book of Judges, but to underscore that any enemy attempt to annihilate the Jewish State, whatever the particular moment of conflict, would result in the state or sub-state aggressor’s own destruction.
[21] Embedded in attempts to achieve this success would be variously credible threats of “assured destruction.” This term references ability to inflict “unacceptable damage” after absorbing an attacker’s first strike. In the traditional nuclear lexicon, mutual assured destruction (MAD) describes a stand-off condition in which an assured destruction capacity is possessed by both (or all) opposing sides. Counterforce strategies would be those which target only an adversary’s strategic military facilities and supporting infrastructure. Such strategies could be dangerous not only because of the “collateral damage” they might produce, but also because they could heighten the likelihood of first-strike attacks. Collateral damage would refer to harms done to human and non-human resources as a consequence of strategic strikes directed at enemy forces or military facilities. Even such “unintended” damage could quickly involve large numbers of casualties/fatalities.
[22] The origins of modern international law lie in the Peace of Westphalia (1648). See Treaty of Peace of Munster, Oct. 1648, 1 Consol. T.S. 271; and Treaty of Peace of Osnabruck, Oct 1648, 1, Consol. T.S. 119. This “Westphalian” anarchy stands in stark contrast to the legal assumption of solidarity between all states in the presumably common struggle against aggression and terrorism. Such a peremptory expectation (known formally in international law as a jus cogens assumption), is already mentioned in Justinian, Corpus Juris Civilis (533 C.E.); Hugo Grotius, 2 De Jure Belli Ac Pacis Libri Tres, Ch. 20 (Francis W. Kesey, tr., Clarendon Press, 1925) (1690); and Emmerich De Vattel, 1 Le Droit des Gens, Ch. 19 (1758).
[23]We may recall here Thomas Aquinas’ oft-cited commentary on Augustine: “St. Augustine says: `There is no law unless it be just.’ So the validity of law depends upon its justice. But in human affairs, a thing is said to be just when it accords aright with the rule of reason; and as we have already seen, the first rule of reason is the Natural Law. Thus, all humanly enacted laws are in accord with reason to the extent that they derive from the Natural Law. And if a human law is at variance in any particular with the Natural Law, it is no longer legal, but rather a corruption of law.” See: SUMMA THEOLOGICA, 1a, 2ae, 95, 2; cited by A.P. d’Entreves, NATURAL LAW: AN INTRODUCTION TO LEGAL PHILOSOPPHY (1951), pp. 42-43.
[24] These coinciding legal expectations, central to the law of armed conflict (humanitarian international law) have early jurisprudential and philosophic origins in the Biblical Lex Talionis, the law of exact retaliation. The “eye for eye, tooth for tooth” injunction (not the same as the principle of “proportionality” in current international law) can be found in three separate passages of the Jewish Torah or Biblical Pentateuch. These Torah rules are likely related to the Code of Hammurabi (c. 1728- expression 1686 BCE) – the first written evidence of penalizing wrongdoing with exact retaliation. In matters concerning personal injury, the code prescribes an eye for an eye (# 196), breaking bone for bone (#197), and extracting tooth for tooth (#199). Among the ancient Hebrews, we must speak not of the Lex Talionis, but of several. The Lex Talionis appears in only three passages of the Torah. In their sequence of probable antiquity, they are as follows: Exodus 21: 22-25; Deuteronomy 19: 19-21; and Leviticus 24: 17-21.
[25] Iran, unlike Israel, is a party to the 1968 Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), and has thereby lawfully bound itself never to threaten, build or use nuclear weapons.
[26] On “escalation dominance,” see article by Professor Louis René Beres at The War Room, US Army War College, Pentagon: https://warroom.armywarcollege.edu/articles/nuclear-decision-making-and-nuclear-war-an-urgent-american-problem/ See also, by this author, Louis René Beres: https://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/united-states-nuclear-strategy-deterrence-escalation-and-war
[27] Still, see: Anatol Rapoport, Strategy and Conscience (1964). Says Rapoport, in an early observation that now applies usefully to Israel: “Formal decision-theory does not depend on data…. The task of theory is confined to the construction of a deductive apparatus, to be used in deriving logically necessary conclusions from given assumptions.”
[28] See by this writer at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (2016): https://thebulletin.org/2016/08/what-if-you-dont-trust-the-judgment-of-the-president-whose-finger-is-over-the-nuclear-button/ In this connection, because of US President Trump’s continual obeisance to Russian President Putin, it is entirely plausible that in a future crisis between NATO and Russia, Trump would effectively stand with the aggressor. In late August 2025, Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa warned that Donald Trump “operates as a Russian asset.”
[29] “By wise counsel, thou shalt make thy war.”
[30] See by this author, Louis René Beres, at BESA (Israel): https://besacenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/2268-Beres-Navigating-Chaos-Samson-Option.pdf
[31]Says strategic theorist Herman Kahn in his On Escalation (1965): “All accidental wars are inadvertent and unintended, but not vice-versa.” Kahn introduced a novel distinction between a surprise attack that is more-or-less unexpected and a surprise attack that arrives ex nihilo or “out of nothing.” 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 any tangible national security policy benefit. See: Herman Kahn, Thinking About the Unthinkable in the 1980s (Simon & Schuster, 1984).
[32]On 9 September 2025, Russian drones invaded Polish airspace, enlarging threats of Russia-NATO military confrontations. In Washington, US President Trump quickly excused the Russian incursion as a “mistake.” See: https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/poland-shoots-down-russian-drones-091429817.html?fr=sycsrp_catchall
[33]Israel’s success in meeting this obligation could have meaningful implications for U.S. national security. On these generally ignored implications, see Louis René Beres (with special postscript by retired General/USA Barry McCaffrey), ISRAEL’S NUCLEAR STRATEGY AND AMERICA’S NATIONAL SECURITY, Tel-Aviv University and Israel Institute for Strategic Studies, Tel-Aviv, December 2016: https://sectech.tau.ac.il/sites/sectech.tau.ac.il/files/PalmBeachBook.pdf
[34]In his analysis at Israel Defense, Ami Rojkes Dombe suggests that Israel’s Qatar attack could trigger a nuclear arms race in the region. Argues the writer: “The attack in Doha is no longer a successful military operation; it could mark the opening shot of a dangerous nuclear arms race in the Middle East and the Persian Gulf.” In essence, Dombe concludes, the operation in Qatar “made clear to regional states that the only real deterrent against Israel is a nuclear bomb.” See “The Doha Attack Could Trigger a Nuclear Arms Race,” Israel Defense, September 14, 2025.
[35] 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.
