“On the Evidence of Our Reason”: Why Israel Needs More Explicit Nuclear Deterrence

“Whether we are awake or asleep, we should never let ourselves be persuaded except on the evidence of our reason.” -René Descartes, Discourse on Method (1637)

It may seem a silly question, but the query is anything but foolish:Why exactly does Israel need nuclear weapons, nuclear strategy and nuclear doctrine?[i]At first glance, this constantly-beleaguered state (i.e., a country forced to contend with multiple adversaries amid worsening “Westphalian” anarchy[ii]) must benefit from its presumptive nuclear assets. Indeed, following US President Donald J. Trump’s incoherent peace with Iran,[iii] no geopolitical argument could seem more obvious.

               Nonetheless, possessing nuclear assets does not automatically bestow credible nuclear deterrence. To ensure that its pertinent military assets could actually “work,” Jerusalem’s defense policy will always need to flow from in-depth theorizing[iv] and be based on informed considerations of strategic possibility. Though it should seem evident that Israel needs nuclear weapons to deter enemy weapons of mass destruction, much remains uncertain about the country’s[v] nuclear deterrence of enemy weapons that are neither nuclear nor biological.[vi] A related lack of clarity surrounds Israel’s “bomb in the basement” nuclear posture – i.e., its traditional military stance of “deliberate nuclear ambiguity.”

                In these matters, nothing is self-evident. Multiple details will still need to be inventoried and studied. Prima facie, evaluating Israel’s deliberate ambiguity posture from the standpoint of nuclear deterrence of conventional aggressions should be an overriding obligation for Jerusalem. To be sure, it represents a core existential obligation.

               At some still indeterminable point, “deliberate nuclear ambiguity” could elicit existential harms. This problem has nothing to do with any expected intellectual deficiencies among Israeli strategists. It stems, instead, from the always-inviolable and axiomatic rules of probability in science. In  essence, because all conceivable scenarios of nuclear deterrence and nuclear war would be unprecedented, all hypothesized interactions and outcomes must remain uncertain.[vii]

                These are bewildering matters. In order to decipher them, there will be variously intersecting and occasionally synergistic details. By definition, in synergistic interactions, the “whole” outcome will be greater than the sum of all “parts.” In cases where interactions were more-or-less nuclear, the significance of synergy could be magnified to correspondingly injurious levels.

Theory and Strategic Thinking

                Until now, comprehensive theory-building on Israeli nuclear issues has remained scarce and superficial, at least in open literature sources. Though it is certainly possible that internal analyses at IDF/MOD are being generated at suitably high conceptual levels, there are no compelling reasons to expect career military strategists to be better prepared intellectually than academic strategists to solve unprecedented military problems. On the contrary, academic strategists would almost certainly be better on matters that lack relevant empirical content.[viii]

               From the start of the nuclear age in the mid-1940s, highest levels of strategic thinking have been discoverable in select universities, not traditional military institutions. One may recall, in this connection, the seminal writings of Herman Kahn, Thomas Schelling Anatol Rapaport, Albert Wohlstetter and Bernard Brodie. Moreover, as warfare becomes ever-more technology driven, only a handful of gifted mathematicians, physicists, scientists and jurists could be able to tackle the myriad intellectual challenges.[ix]

                Despite a number of informed books and articles purporting to explain Israel’s need for nuclear weapons and doctrine, little of predictive analytic substance has ever been advanced. Additionally, when scholars and strategists finally begin to make discernible progress on core survival issues, their explanations and proposals will need to be not just conceptual, but also “human.”[x] In the end, strategic matters are always reflective or “epiphenomenal.” And true causes, in this critical area of survival study, are discoverable only at primal levels of “microcosm,” i.e., the individual human being. To summarize succinctly, microcosm (the human individual) shapes macrocosm (the prevailing system of world politics).[xi]

               A derivative observation now warrants mention. To succeed in their important task, Israeli military planners should be broadly educated themselves. For them, the task should never be narrowly tactical or technical. It could never be enough for these special thinkers to be trained “experts” or “specialists.”[xii]

               With such nuanced and particularized considerations in mind, this paper encourages conceptual/humanistic progress on nuclear warfare issues and seeks to accomplish this objective within logic-based parameters of a meticulously-refined “strategic dialectic.”[xiii] Though current news on such issues is always about specific military problems and venues (e.g., Russia, Ukraine, China, Syria, Israel, Iran, etc.[xiv]), the emphasis here is on commonly-underlying dynamics of “escalation dominance,”[xv] nuclear deterrence and nuclear warfare.[xvi]

               Not just generality, but substantially-enhanced “due diligence,” is required. Going forward, key arguments will need to be presented in the full context of intersecting parts. To best summarize this purposeful plan, one that could direct capable Israeli strategists to credible postures of nuclear deterrence, the following assumptions and explanations offer a gainful starting point.

               1.            Israel needs nuclear weapons to deter large[xvii] conventional attacks by enemy states. The effectiveness of such Israeli nuclear deterrence will depend upon: (a) perceived vulnerability of Israeli nuclear forces;[xviii]   (b) perceived destructiveness of Israeli nuclear forces;  (c) perceived willingness of Israeli leadership to follow through on nuclear threats;  (d) perceived capacities of prospective attacker’s active defenses;  (e) perceptions of Israeli targeting doctrine (counter value vs. counterforce);[xix]  (f) perceptions of Israel’s probable retaliatory response when there is an expectation of non-nuclear but chemical and/or biological[xx]  counter-retaliations;[xxi]   (g) disclosure or continued nondisclosure of Israel’s nuclear arsenal;[xxii]  and (h) creation or non-creation of a Palestinian state.[xxiii]  For all of the above, “perceived” refers to enemy viewsof Israel.

               2.            Israel needs nuclear weapons to deter all levels of unconventional (chemical/biological/nuclear: CBN) attacks. The effectiveness of these forms of Israeli nuclear deterrence will also depend, inter alia, on (a) to (h) above. In this connection, Israel’s nuclear weapons are needed to deter enemy escalations of conventional warfare to unconventional warfare, and of one form of unconventional warfare to another (i.e., escalation of chemical warfare to biological warfare, biological warfare to chemical warfare, or biological/chemical warfare to nuclear warfare).

               3.            Israel needs its nuclear weapons to preempt enemy nuclear attacks.  This does not mean that Israeli preemptions of such attacks would necessarily be nuclear (more than likely, they would be non-nuclear), but only that they could be nuclear.[xxiv]  Should Israel ever need to use its nuclear forces for such a purpose, it wouldsignify failure[xxv] of these forces as a deterrent ipso facto.. Such failure is increasingly plausible, however, because of the problematic nature of nuclear deterrence in general and in particular circumstances of the Middle East.[xxvi]

               4.            Israel needs its nuclear weapons to support conventional preemptions against enemy nuclear assets. With such weapons, Israel could maintain, explicitly or implicitly, a threat of nuclear counter-retaliation.[xxvii] Without such weapons, Israel, having to rely entirely on non-nuclear forces, might not be able to deter enemy retaliations for an Israeli preemptive attack.

               5.            Israel needs nuclear weapons to support conventional preemptions against enemy non-nuclear (conventional/chemical/biological) assets.  With such weapons, Israel could maintain, explicitly or implicitly, a threat of nuclear counter-retaliation.[xxviii] Without such weapons, Israel, having to rely entirely on non-nuclear forces, might not be able to deter enemy retaliations for an Israeli preemptive attack.

               6.            In principle at least, Israel needs nuclear weapons for nuclear warfighting. Although, in Voltaire’s “best of all possible worlds,” this need would never arise, and though Israel should avoid nuclear war fighting whenever possible, it cannot be ruled out altogether. Even as the most unwelcome strategic option, nuclear warfighting should be taken seriously by Israeli planners and decision-makers. Among plausible paths to nuclear war fighting are the following: enemy nuclear first-strikes against Israel; enemy non-nuclear first-strikes against Israel that elicit Israeli nuclear reprisals, either immediately or via incremental escalation processes; Israeli nuclear preemptions against enemy states with nuclear assets; Israeli non-nuclear preemptions against enemy states with nuclear assets that elicit enemy nuclear reprisals, either immediately or via incremental escalation processes.  Other worrisome paths to nuclear warfighting could include accidental/unintentional/inadvertent nuclear attacks among Israel and regional enemy states, and escalatory consequences of nuclear terrorism against the Jewish State.[xxix]  As long as it could be assumed that Israel is determined to endure, there areconditions where Jerusalem could resort to nuclear warfighting.  This holds true if: (a) enemy first-strikes against Israel would not destroy Israel’s second-strike nuclear capability; (b) enemy retaliations for Israeli conventional preemption would not destroy Israel’s nuclear counter-retaliatory capability; (c) Israeli preemptive strikes involving nuclear weapons would not destroy enemy second-strike nuclear capabilities; and (d) Israeli retaliation for enemy conventional first-strikes would not destroy enemy nuclear counter-retaliatory capabilities. It follows, from the standpoint of Israel’s nuclear requirements, that Jerusalem should prepare to do whatever is needed to ensure the likelihood of (a) and (b) above, and the unlikelihood of (c) and (d).

               7.            Israel needs nuclear weapons for a “Samson Option.”[xxx] Though any such use of nuclear weapons would be catastrophic by definition, “Samson” is still needed to represent a particular threat level to Israel’s nuclear deterrent. The true point of Israel’s Samson Option should never be a last-resort spasm of revenge (always a strategically purposeless goal), but credible deterrence of “high-end” enemy threats. Moreover, any explicit resort to the Samson threats by Israel would imply prior failure of all lower-end nuclear threat options.[xxxi]

Deterrence Options Clarified

                Israel needs its presumptive nuclear weapons to deter large conventional attacks and all levels of unconventional attack.[xxxii] The effectiveness of nuclear weapons in meeting these needs could be limited and problematic.[xxxiii] Even if Jerusalem were to move toward partial disclosure of its nuclear weapons and doctrine,[xxxiv]  Israel could still not reasonably rely on nuclear deterrence for long-term survival.[xxxv]

               Nonetheless, more fully aware of prospective limitations, Israel should plan to strengthen its nuclear deterrence posture such that an enemy state would always calculate a first-strike against Israel to be irrational. This means taking steps to convince that adversary that the costs of such a strike would necessarily exceed the benefits. To accomplish this objective, Israel would have to convince all prospective attackers that it maintains both the willingness and the capacity to retaliate with nuclear weapons for certain high-intensity aggressions.

               To fulfill such an existential obligation there exist no “ready-to-use” templates. At some point, where an enemy state considering an attack upon Israel would be unconvinced about one or both of these components of Israeli nuclear deterrence, it could choose to strike first. This would depend, in part, on the particular value or utility it assigned to the expected consequences of such an attack.

               Regarding willingness,[xxxvi] even if Jerusalem were prepared to respond to certain high-value attacks with nuclear reprisals, enemy failure to recognize such preparedness could provoke an attack upon Israel. Here, misperception and/or errors in information could immobilize nuclear deterrence. It is also conceivable that Jerusalem would lack the willingness to retaliate, and that this lack would be correctly perceived by authoritative enemy decision-makers. Ironically, in this particular scenario, Israeli nuclear deterrence would be immobilized not on account of “confused signals,” but because of signals that had not been intentionally confused.

               Regarding capacity, even if Jerusalem were to maintain a substantial arsenal of nuclear weapons, it would be essential for enemy states to believe these weapons to be usable. This means, inter alia, that if a first-strike attack were believed capable of destroying Israel’s nuclear arsenal, Jerusalem’s nuclear deterrent could be immobilized.  Even if Israel’s nuclear weapons were configured such that they could not be destroyed by enemy first-strikes, adversarial misperceptions or misjudgments about Israeli vulnerability could still occasion catastrophic failures of Jerusalem’s nuclear dissuasion effort. 

               A further complication could concern enemy state deployment of ballistic missile defenses, variously generalized deployments that could contribute to attack decisions against Israel by lowering the prospective attacker’s expected costs.[xxxvii]

               There is more. The importance of “usable” nuclear weapons will also need to be examined from the standpoint of probable harms.  Should Israel’s nuclear weapons be perceived by a would-be attacker as high yield, indiscriminate, “city busting” (counter-value) weapons, rather than minimal-yield, warfighting (counterforce) weapons, they might not meaningfully deter.

               In certain circumstances, and contrary to prevailing conventional wisdom on the subject, successful nuclear deterrence could vary inversely with perceived destructiveness. It follows that Israeli nuclear deterrence will require not only seemingly secure second-strike forces, but also nuclear forces that could be used productively in war.

               No examination of Israeli nuclear deterrence options could be adequate without more systematic considerations of the “disclosure” issue.[xxxviii] From the beginning, Israel’s bomb has been in the “basement.”  For the future, however, it would be problematic to assume that an undeclared nuclear deterrent could be continuously capable of meeting Jerusalem’s security goals or that it could be equal in effectiveness to an openly-declared nuclear deterrent.[xxxix]

               At first glance, this issue may appear extraneous or contrived.  Everyone, after all, knowsthat Israel has “The Bomb.”  What, then, could be the purpose of belaboring the obvious?  Further, might not the impression of nuclear saber-rattling be gratuitously provocative, occasioning enemy first-strikes that might not otherwise even have been contemplated?[xl]

               To answer these questions, one must first understand that disclosure ought never be intended to reveal the obvious, i.e., that Israel has the bomb. Rather, the point of “selective nuclear disclosure” would be to heighten enemy perceptions of Israel’s capable nuclear forces and/or Jerusalem’s willingness to use these forces in reprisal for specific first-strike attacks. But what, exactly, are credible connections between a more openly-declared nuclear weapons capacity and enemy perceptions of Israeli nuclear deterrence?

                One such connection concerns the relationship between disclosure and perceived vulnerability of Israel’s nuclear forces to preemptive destruction.[xli] Another focuses on relationships between disclosure and the perceived capacity of Israeli nuclear forces to penetrate an attacking state’s active defenses.[xlii]

               To the extent that removing the bomb from the basement or disclosure would encourage enemy views of an Israeli nuclear force that is sufficiently invulnerable to first-strike attacks and/or is capable of piercing enemy active defense systems,[xliii]  disclosure would represent a rational and prudent option. The operational benefits of such disclosure would derive from certain deliberate flows of information concerning dispersion, multiplication, hardening, speed, and evasiveness of nuclear weapons systems and certain other technical features of nuclear ordnance.  Most importantly, these flows, which could also refer to C3I invulnerability and pre-delegations of launch authority, would serve to remove enemy doubts about Israel’s nuclear force capabilities. If left unchallenged, such doubts could undermine Israeli nuclear deterrence.[xliv]  

               Removing the bomb from Israel’s basement could also heighten enemy perceptions of the country’s willingness to make good on retaliatory threats. By releasing information about its nuclear forces that identifies distinctly usable weapons, Israel might remove any doubts about Jerusalem’s nuclear resolve.  Here, a prospective attacker, newly aware that Israel could conceivably retaliate without generating intolerably high levels of civilian harms (possibly because of enhanced radiation and/or sub-kiloton weapons) would be more likely, because of Jerusalem’s disclosure, to believe Israel’s nuclear threats.

               All this brings to mind the connections between disclosure, doctrine and deterrence.  To the extent that Israel’s strategic doctrine actually identifies nuanced and graduated forms of reprisal – forms calibrating Israeli retaliations to particular levels of provocation – disclosure of such doctrine (at least in its broadest and most unspecific contours) could contribute to Israel’s nuclear deterrence. Without such disclosure, Israel’s enemies could be kept guessing about Jerusalem’s probable responses, a condition of protracted uncertainty thatmight serve Israel’s security for a while longer, but, at one time or another could fail altogether.

               The importance of a “graduated deterrent” was recognized early on in the nuclear age by Raymond Aron. Commenting in his classic text, On War, Aron remarks:

                              The thermonuclear weapon, especially now that both sides have it, is destined to prevent war.  But can one prevent a minor aggression by threatening excessive reprisals?  Should one not adjust the threat to the aggression, in other words, graduate the threat?[xlv]

               Though Aron was referring to a condition of mutual nuclear deterrence, a condition that does not yet obtain in the fragmenting Middle East, his awareness of the need for graduation – what American doctrine later came to be called “flexible response”[xlvi]  – was prescient and astute. Should Israel continue to keep its bomb in the “basement,” any deterrent benefits that might accrue from a doctrine of graduated nuclear reprisals would likely be lost.  It follows that disclosure could enhance these benefits of Israeli doctrine and should be considered as enemy unconventional threats become increasingly ominous.[xlvii] 

               In looking over nuclear weapons and nuclear deterrence, Israeli planners should pay close attention to the assumption of rationality. Assessments of Israeli nuclear deterrence always assume a rational state enemy. But this assumption of rationality is inherently problematic for many reasons.[xlviii]             

               There are no compelling reasons to assume that prospective attackers of Israel would always choose deliberately among possible options and decide according to assiduously-fashioned comparisons of expected costs and expected benefits.  As long as such enemies are capable of WMD missile attacks upon Israel and so long as Jerusalem is unable to intercept these attacks with near-perfect or possibly even perfect reliability,[xlix]  this means that Israeli dependence on nuclear deterrence could at some point have catastrophic consequences.

               Quo Vadis? Where does Israel go from here?  Barring the residual prospect of any successful “Peace Process,” that is, one that does not produce a Palestinian State and a corollary dismembering of Israel, Accordingly, Jerusalem must still seek security beyond the protections afforded by nuclear deterrence.  Israel –  without in any way diminishing its essential effort to confront enemy states with nuclear weapons capacity and resolve  –  will also have to prepare appropriately to undertake certain preemptive[l]  attacks against multiple hard targets.[li]   Most important among these prospective targets would be unconventional missile capabilities and variously associated infrastructures.

Preemption Options Clarified

                 Israel needs its nuclear weapons to support various forms of preemption.  In making its preemption decisions,[lii] Israel must determine whether such essential defensive strikes, known jurisprudentially as “anticipatory self-defense,”[liii]  would be tactically cost-effective.  This answers will depend on a number of critical variables, including:  (a) expected probability of enemy first-strikes;  (b) expected disutility of enemy first-strikes (itself dependent upon the nature of enemy weaponry, projected enemy targeting doctrine and multiplication/dispersion/hardening of Israeli nuclear forces);  (c) expected schedule of enemy unconventional weapons deployment;  (d) expected efficiency of enemy active defenses over time;  (e) expected efficiency of Israeli active defenses over time;[liv]   (f) expected efficiency of Israeli hard-target counterforce operations over time;  (g) expected reactions of unaffected regional enemies;  and  (h) expected U.S./world community reactions to Israeli preemptions.

               Regarding preemption options, Israel’s overall question should be presented as follows:  Because Jerusalem must always plan for anticipatory self-defense, against which particular configurations of hard targets should these plans be directed and when should they be mounted? If it is assumed that enemy states will add to their chemical/biological/nuclear arsenals and that these additions will make effective Israeli preemptions more and more difficult, rational Israeli strategy could compel Jerusalem to strike defensively as soon as possible. If, however, it was assumed that there will be no significant enlargement/deployment of enemy unconventional weapons over time, this could suggest a diminishing rationale for Israel to strike first. 

               Critical considerations here would include Israeli assumptions about enemy rationality, expectations about costs to Israel of enemy aggression in the near term,  comparison of costs to Israel of enemy near-term aggression with those of enemy reprisals to Israeli preemptive attacks and projected efficacy over time of Israeli and enemy active defense operations.[lv]

               In principle, at least, Israel’s inclinations to strike preemptively could be affected by steps taken by prospective target states to guard against an Israeli preemption. Should Israel refrain too long from striking first against certain threatening weapon systems, enemy states might then implement comprehensive protective measures that would pose additional hazards to Israel. Among other things, these measures could include the attachment of “hair trigger” launch mechanisms to nuclear weapon systems and/or the adoption of “launch-on-warning” policies,[lvi]  possibly coupled with  pre-delegations of launch authority.

               Optimally, Israel would do everything possible to prevent such measures from being installed in the first place, especially because of expanded risks of accidental or unauthorized attacks against its armaments and population centers.[lvii]   But if such measures should become a fait accompli, Jerusalem could still calculate that a preemptive strike would be rational and cost-effective. This is because an expected enemy retaliation, however damaging, might still appear “less unacceptable” than the expected consequences of enemy first-strikes, strikes likely occasioned by the failure of “anti-preemption” measures.

               Perhaps the single most important factor in future Israeli judgments concerning a preemption option will be the expected rationality of enemy decision-makers.  If these leaders could be expected to strike at Israel with unconventional forces, irrespective of anticipated Israeli counterstrikes, deterrence would not work.  This means that enemy strikes could be expected even if (1) pertinent enemy leaders understood that Israel had already deployed its own nuclear weapons in survivable modes; (2) Israel’s weapons were entirely capable of penetrating enemy active defenses; and (3) Israel’s leaders were determinably willing to retaliate.

               If faced with an irrational enemy bent upon unconventional aggression, Israel could then have no effective choice but to abandon reliance on traditional modes of nuclear deterrence.  Here, preemption could become obligatory; the only real policy questions would then center on specific matters of timing, targeting, and ordnance. The initial judgments concerning enemy definitions of “unacceptable damage” would have to be made with great care. In essence, there would be noroom for Israeli error on this critical judgment.               

               Even if it is not faced with an irrational enemy, Israel will have to plan carefully for future preemption options, planning that would take into account Jerusalem’s nuclear weapons, strategy and doctrine.  In the course of such planning, it will be important to recognize that enemy capabilities and intentions are not separate or discrete, but interpenetrating, interdependent, and interactive.  This means: (4) capabilities affect intentions and vice-versa; and (5) the combined effects of capabilities and intentions could be synergistic,producing policy outcomes that are greatly accelerated and express more than the sum of these effects. Whether correct or incorrect in its future calculations, an Iranian leadership that believed it can strike Israel with impunity or near-impunity could at some point choose to launch such a strike.

               Iran’s intentions toward the Jewish State, strongly hostile and perhaps genocidal,[lviii] could continuously animate Teheran’s development of unconventional military capabilities. Now representing far-reaching hatreds rather than visceral bluster, Iranian orientations to Israel could advance the production and deployment of forces, weapons, and postures that would threaten the Jewish State existentially. These are circumstances wherein Iranian intentions could incrementally determine Iranian capabilities.[lix]

               Ipso facto, such circumstances now warrant careful attention in Jerusalem.[lx]

               But what if Iran’s intention toward Israel turns out not to be irremediably hostile or genocidal? What if its public bombast is not an expression of genuinely belligerent motivations, but merely a contrived position, designed entirely for intranational, and/or international political consumption? The short and most obvious answer to these questions is that such shallow intentions would not meaningfully impact Iranian capabilities vis-à-vis Israel. 

               Nonetheless, upon reflection, it is plausible that even inauthentic expressions of intent could, over time, become authentic, that repeated again and again over many years, somewhat in the manner of a religious incantation, such expressions could become self-fulfilling.

               All things considered, it would be premature for Israel to draw comfort from the argument that Iran’s belligerent intentions are harmless.  Among other things, such intentions could impact capabilities decisively over time. Backed by appropriate nuclear weapons, various residual preemption options should remain available to Israel.

               The most complex relationships between enemy capabilities and intentions concern synergy.  The issue is not whether, or to what extent, one threat component affects the other, but how various combinations might: (a) produce an ongoing series of interactions, that moves relentlessly, through its own unstoppable, dialectical momentum, toward war; or (b) produce a wholly new effect, an effect of which either capability or intention is individually incapable. An example of (a) would be an enemy “bolt from the blue” attack against Israel that is launched only because of the particularly interactive way in which capabilities and intentions “feed” upon each other.  An example of (b) would be any enemy attack against Israel – whether a “bolt from the blue” or product of escalation, conventional or unconventional –  that would not otherwise have taken place. Looking ahead, such an enemy could be Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan or even North Korea acting as Iran’s nuclear proxy.

                Plausibly, following the Oslo Agreement,[lxi] Israel’s inclination to preempt enemy Iranian aggression had been diminished. At that time, virtually the entire global community would have frowned upon an Israeli preemption launched in the midst of an ongoing “search for peace” in the region. If assorted remnants of this former “Peace Process” should ever produce a Palestinian State,[lxii] the effects on Iranian capabilities and intentions and Israeli derivative options would become tangible and significant. To wit, Israel’s substantial loss of strategic depth would be recognized by Iran and perhaps other prospective enemy states as a military liability for Jerusalem.[lxiii]  In turn, such recognition could heat up enemy intentions against Israel, thereby occasioning an accelerated search for new capabilities and a heightened risk of catastrophic war.

               If Israel could foresee such enemy calculations, it could seek to compensate for its loss of territories in different ways. For one, Jerusalem could decide that it was high time to take its bomb out of the “basement” as a deterrence-enhancing measure, though this still might not be enough of a productive strategy. It could, at least in principle, then accept a greater willingness to launch preemptive strikes against enemy hard targets, strikes ultimately backed up by Israeli nuclear weapons and posture. 

               The calculated strategic dialectic would proceed. Made aware of such Israeli intentions, intentions that would derive from Israel’s newly-generated territorial vulnerabilities, Iran and/or other enemy states could respond in a more or less parallel fashion, preparing more openly and more quickly for nuclearization and possible first-strike attacks against Israel.

               There is more. In this scenario, relevant relationships between capabilities, intentions, and preemption options would be made manifest not only within Israel and its adversaries, but also between Israel and these states. Such relationships, too, could become authentically synergistic, thereby generating ominously continuous cycles of escalation, some with unintended but still catastrophic consequences.

               Even if considered by itself, in isolation, a Palestinian state would affect the capabilities and intentions of both Israel and its enemies. But if such a state were created at the same time that Israel had reduced or abandoned its nuclear weapons capabilities, the impact could become far more substantial. In Jerusalem, this particular scenario should not be dismissed out of hand. In world politics generally and Jewish history in particular, almost anything is possible.              

               What would happen if Israel were ever willing to lessen or relinquish its nuclear options by acceding to the Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) as a non-nuclear weapon state, and simultaneously accepting a Palestinian state?[lxiv] Under such hard-to-imagine but still conceivable circumstances,[lxv] Israel would not only be more vulnerable to enemy first-strikes. It would also be deprived of its last-resort preemption options. This is the case because Israeli counter-retaliatory deterrence would be immobilized by reduction or removal of its nuclear weapons potential and because Israeli preemptions could not possibly be 100% effective against an enemy’s unconventional missile forces.  A less than 100% level of effectiveness could be tolerable if Israel had a near-perfect anti-ballistic missile capability, but no such capability is conceivable.

               How might enemy states respond to Israel’s weakened capabilities and to its correspondingly diminished preemption options? An informed observer might expect certain of these states, most notably Iran, to move even more purposefully and ambitiously toward full-fledged nuclear status, a move that would likely encourage first-strike intentions against Israel. There is, therefore, an important intranational (within Israel) interaction between NPT expectations for Israel and the creation of a Palestinian state and an important international interaction (Israel and its enemies) between reduced Israeli capabilities/intentions and enlarged enemy capabilities/intentions. In turn, these synergies could impair regional or world security, affecting the capabilities and intentions of other pertinent states and revealing a more or less corrosive “synergy of synergies.”

               Finally, regarding Israeli nuclear weapons and Israeli preemption options, it is vital to consider the question of counterforce vs. counter value strategies.[lxvi]   Should Israel opt primarily for the former, which could certainly appear more reasonable, enemy first-strikes could also become more likely. Recognizing this, Israel could be more likely to strike-first itself. 

               Should Israel, however, opt primarily for a recognizable counter value nuclear strategy, the preemption option could become less compelling, but the consequences to Israel, if nuclear deterrence were somehow to fail, would likely be worse. This is because a counter value strategy, by definition, would carry a diminished damage-limitation capability.

Nuclear Warfighting Options Clarified

                In principle, at least, Israel needs nuclear weapons for possible nuclear war fighting. Should its nuclear deterrence options, and/or preemption options fail, Israel’s hard target counterforce capabilities could become more-or-less critical to national survival. These capabilities would depend, in part, upon holding appropriate nuclear weapons.[lxvii]

               What, exactly, would be “appropriate?”  Instead of “Armageddon” type weapons (see “Samson Option,” below), Israel could require precision, low-yield nuclear warheads, weapons that could reduce collateral damage to acceptable levels, and hypervelocity nuclear warheads, that could help overcome enemy active defenses. Israel would also benefit from radio-frequency weapons. These are nuclear warheads that are tailored to produce as much electromagnetic pulse as possible, destroying electronics and communications over wide areas.

               Regarding the nuclear weapons needed by Israel for nuclear war fighting, Jerusalem could sometime require an intermediate option between capitulation on the one hand and resorting to inappropriately large nuclear weapons on the other. 

               All such discussion will be objectionable to people of feeling and sensitivity.   In the best of all possible worlds, it would be better to speak auspiciously of nuclear nonproliferation and nuclear arms control or sustainable nuclear deterrence[lxviii] than of nuclear warfighting. Yet, the Middle East remains a particularly dangerous neighborhood, and failures to confront the most terrible possibilities could bring the most terrible harms.[lxix]  For Israel, a state that yearns for peace and security more than any other country in this bad neighborhood –  a state born from the ashes of humankind’s most unpardonable crime –  genocide looms both as a memory and an expectation. 

The Samson Option Clarified

               Israel needs its nuclear weapons, additional to the other essential rationales already discussed, for “last resort” purposes.  Though, contrary to popular view, this is the least important need – since, by definition, any actual resort to a Samson Option would reveal the failure and collapse of all other essential security functions – it is still not unimportant.  This is because even Israeli preparations for last resort operations could still play a productive role in enhancing Israeli nuclear deterrence, preemption and war fighting options.

               Regarding prospective contributions to Israeli nuclear deterrence, preparations for a Samson Option could help convince would-be attackers that any planned aggressions would not prove gainful. This is especially the case if pertinent Israeli preparations were coupled with some level of disclosure, if Israel’s Samson weapons appeared sufficiently invulnerable to enemy first-strikes and if these weapons were identifiably counter-value in mission function.[lxx]  In view of what strategists sometimes call the “rationality of pretended irrationality,” Samson could also assist Israeli nuclear deterrence by demonstrating a determined willingness to take existential risks, but this would hold true only if Israel’s last-resort options were not tied definitionally to certain destruction.  To some extent, at least, the nuclear deterrence benefits of pretended irrationality would depend on enemy awareness of Israel’s counter-value targeting.

               Regarding prospective contributions to preemption options, preparations for a Samson Option could convince Israel that essential defensive first-strikes could be undertaken with diminished expectations of unacceptably destructive enemy retaliations.  This would depend, of course, on antecedent Israeli decisions on disclosure, Israeli perceptions of the effects of disclosure on enemy retaliatory prospects, Israeli judgments about enemy perceptions of Samson weapons vulnerability and enemy awareness of Samson’s counter value force posture.  As in the case of Samson and Israeli nuclear deterrence, last-resort preparations could assist Israeli preemption options by displaying a willingness to take certain existential risks. 

               But Israeli planners must remain mindful here of pretended irrationality as a double-edged sword.  Brandished too “irrationally,” Israeli preparations for a Samson Option could actually encourage certain enemy state preemptions.

               Regarding prospective contributions to Israel’s nuclear war fighting options, preparations for a Samson Option could convince enemy states that a clear victory would be impossible to achieve, i.e., that even after overwhelming the Jewish State and its military forces, these states would face their own destruction.  But here it would be important for Israel to communicate to potential aggressors the following understanding:  Israel’s counter value-targeted (Samson) weapons are additional to (not at the expense of) its counterforce-targeted (warfighting) weapons. In the absence of such communication, any preparations for a Samson Option could effectively impair, rather than reinforce, Israel’s limited nuclear war fighting options.

How a Regional Nuclear War Might Begin

               Further particulars should now be outlined. How might Israel actually become involved in a regional nuclear war? Four comprehensive and more-or-less plausible scenarios present themselves:  Nuclear Retaliation; Nuclear Counter-Retaliation; Nuclear Preemption; and Nuclear Warfighting,

(1)          Nuclear Retaliation

               Should an enemy state or alliance of enemy states launch a nuclear first-strike against Israel, Jerusalem would respond legally and to whatever extent possible/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 particular and unprecedented response would depend, in large measure, upon Israel’s calculated expectations of follow-on aggression and on 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) the state aggressor(s) 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 annihilation of the Jewish State. A nuclear retaliation by Israel could be ruled out in those seemingly evident circumstances only where enemy state aggressions were conventional, “typical” (that is, sub-existential or consistent with previous historic instances of enemy attack in degree and intent) and hard-target oriented (that is, directed only toward Israeli weapons and military infrastructures, and not to any “soft” civilian populations).

(2)          Nuclear Counter-Retaliation

               Should Israel ever feel compelled to preempt enemy state aggression with conventional weapons, 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.”

                All pertinent decisions would depend upon Jerusalem’s early judgments of enemy state 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 enemy conventional retaliation was plainly “all-out” and directed toward Israeli civilian populations – and not just to Israeli military targets – an Israeli nuclear counter retaliation could not be excluded and could still be judged permissible.

               Such a unique counter retaliation could be ruled out only if the enemy state’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), and accompanied by various explicit and verifiable assurances of non-escalatory intent.

(3)          Nuclear Preemption

               On its face, it is highly implausible that Israel would ever decide to launch a preemptive nuclear strike. Though circumstances could arise wherein such a strike would be technically rational and ascertainably legal,[lxxi] it is unlikely that Israel would allow itself to reach such “all or nothing” vulnerabilities. Unless the relevant nuclear weapons were employed in a fashion still consistent with the authoritative laws of war – the law of armed conflict –  this form of preemption would represent a flagrant violation of binding international rules.[lxxii]

               Nonetheless, 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) Israel’s state enemies had acquired nuclear and/or other weapons of mass destruction judged capable of annihilating the Jewish State; (b) these enemies had made it clear that their military intentions paralleled their capabilities; (c) these enemies were believed ready to begin an active “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.[lxxiii]

(4)          Nuclear War fighting

               Should nuclear weapons be introduced into an actual conflict between Israel and some of its enemies, either by the Jewish State or an Islamic foe, 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).

               Israel needs nuclear weapons. These weapons are required to fulfill essential deterrence options, preemption options, a Samson Option and even (though residually), war-fighting options. For multiple reasons, Israel’s nuclear weapons should never be negotiated away. At the same time, the credibility of their interrelated functions would never be automatic and would require delicately nuanced understandings of competitive risk-taking and strategic bargaining.

                Optimally, Israel’s particular nuclear weapons choices should be made in cumulative conformance with the pertinent options discussed above and the ever-changing geostrategic context of regional and world power processes.  In the final analysis, though regrettable, the penultimate structure of Israeli security must be built on a logic-based foundation of nuclear weapons, nuclear strategy and nuclear doctrine.[lxxiv]

               For Israel’s leaders, the time has arrived to more fully understand the core nature of enemy state intentions and capabilities. To make such an understanding possible, these leaders must first recognize all pertinent connections between power and survival. Once it is learned that enemy state definitions of the former are contingent on Israel’s loss of the latter, these decision-makers will be positioned to take appropriately remedial actions.

               Membership in the United Nations is not a suicide pact. No body of the world organization can require its members to forfeit the Charter’s”inherent right” to survival and self-defense. As a fully sovereign state, moreover, Israel maintains not only the right but also the obligation to ward off existential harms. For a beleaguered state that is smaller than America’s Lake Michigan, a secure and credible nuclear deterrent remains indispensable and non-negotiable.

               When Pericles delivered his prescient Funeral Oration during the Peloponnesian War (431-404 BCE), he expressed confidence in ultimate victory for Athens, but also grave concern for any self-imposed strategic errors that might be committed along the way. “What I fear more than the strategies of our enemies,” warned the cautious Athenian statesman, “is our own mistakes.” Although Pericles had exaggerated the separateness of enemy strategies and Athenian mistakes, there remains an enduring lesson here for present-day Israel:

               In observing myriad enemy preparations for war, do not forget that the ultimate effectiveness of these preparations will depend upon Israel’s responses.

               Whatever the unique particularities of such responses, Jerusalem should never place in jeopardy its foundational nuclear infrastructures and strategies.

               In the final analysis, even nuclear weapons, nuclear strategy and nuclear doctrine will not adequately safeguard Israel. In the intermediate term, such weapons and infrastructure will be indispensable to the small country’s national security, but safety in the longer term will require a much larger conceptual vision. Among other things, any such imaginative vision will have to be founded on variously immutable principles of global interrelatedness and human “oneness.”[lxxv]

In the End

The first time that an Israeli leader could have to face an authentic nuclear crisis, his or her response should flow seamlessly from a broad and previously calibrated strategic doctrine. It follows that prospective national leaders should already be thinking carefully about how this complex doctrine ought to be shaped and codified. At the outset, and whatever the particulars, these leaders will need to acknowledge the systemic[lxxvi]nature of our “world order  problem.”[lxxvii]

Any planetary system of law and power management that seeks to avoid nuclear war must first recognize this underlying axiom: As egregious crimes under international law, war and genocide[lxxviii] need not be mutually exclusive. On the contrary, as one may learn from both ancient and modern history, war can sometimes be undertaken as a presumptively “efficient” manner of national, ethnical, racial or religious annihilation. If the war in question is a nuclear conflict, this point would become unassailable ipso facto.

 Global restructuring must ultimately go beyond narrowly military forms of survival.[lxxix] At stake is not “just” the palpable survival ofparticular nation states, but also the citizens’ essential humanitas, that is, its sum total of its individual souls seeking “redemption.” For now, however, too-few Israelis have displayed any meaningful understanding of this less tangible but still vital variant of national survival.[lxxx]

The only reasonable use for nuclear weapons could be as controlled elements of dissuasion, never as actual weapons of war. The underlying principles of this rational diplomatic posture go back long before the advent of nuclear weapons. In his oft-studied classic On War (see especially his Chapter 3, “Planning Offensives”), ancient Chinese strategist Sun-Tzu reminds succinctly: “Subjugating the enemy’s army without fighting is the true pinnacle of excellence.”

There could be no more compelling strategic dictum. This distilled wisdom represents the “one big thing” for Israeli strategists, commanders and policy-makers to know. It would be best not to have any enemies in the first place, of course, but maintaining such high hopes for the Middle East would take place without solid intellectual foundation.

Immediately, and to the extent possible, Israeli leaders should make all nuclear-deterrence related preparations. In carrying out this grave responsibility, special attention should be given to plausible scenarios of an inadvertent nuclear war, scenarios pertaining both to accidental nuclear conflict and to nuclear war as a result of decision-maker miscalculation. Though prospects for deliberate nuclear war ought never to be downplayed, it is nuclear war by accident or inadvertence that warrants exceptional attention.

Following Donald Trump’s declarations of an “obliterated” Iran, parallel Israeli declarations of cease-fire agreements with Hezbollah in Lebanon[lxxxi] and recurrent American and Israeli reaffirmations of the Abraham Accords,[lxxxii] many strategists and planners in Jerusalem may believe that nuclear war risks have been reduced. Upon informed analytic reflection, however, it should become apparent that no true military “obliteration” ever took place and that the self-congratulating Accords only “made peace” with states that were never really at war with Israel.[lxxxiii] At the same time, in Iran, these Accords are viewed as an ominous alliance between a Jewish state and Iran‘s Sunni Arab foes.[lxxxiv] 

“Everything is simple in war,” says Karl von Clausewitz in On War, “but even the simplest thing is difficult.” Now, among many other things, Tehran has another reason to fear that Saudi Arabia or Egypt will decide to “go nuclear.” Simultaneously, in authoritative Palestinian circles, the Abraham Accords reinforce the view that Palestinian claims for self-determination remain on Israel’s “back burner.”

“What I fear more than the strategies of our enemies,” warned Pericles during the Peloponnesian War, “is our own mistakes.” In the end, even a meticulously refined configuration of nuclear weapons, strategy and doctrine could fail Israel. Incrementally, therefore, but as quickly as possible, Israel should join with other more-or-less like-minded states to escape from the time-dishonored  “Westphalian” dynamic of protracted war and create a more reasonably enduring and cooperation-centered world legal order.[lxxxv]

Above all else, Israel will soon need to change its nuclear deterrence posture of “deliberate nuclear ambiguity” to one of “selective nuclear disclosure.” To be sure, the devil will lie on the details. How exactly should this change be accomplished? In what specific time frames? What levels of disclosure would be optimal? How should these levels be calculated?

There is more. By what methods should nuclear disclosure be implemented? To what extent, if any, should Israel’s pertinent decisions be made in concert with the United States? And are there any aspects of Israeli nuclear deterrence that should be made more ambiguous or more opaque?

These questions are immediately important to Israel not only as discrete queries, but also as ones with foreseeable overlaps and complex interpenetrations. Whatever the precise manner of investigations favored by capable strategic thinkers in Jerusalem, these questions should always be addressed as evidentiary matters of logic and science.[lxxxvi] Adapting seventeenth-century philosopher René Descartes to twentieth-century nuclear decision-making, Israel’s national leaders should never let themselves be persuaded “except on the evidence of reason.”

For Israel, no standard of strategic decision-making could be more compelling.[lxxxvii]

[i] “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 is to adapt as required in order to best support previously-fashioned military doctrine.  doctrine is the required framework from which proper 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.

[ii] 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).

[iii] See, by this author, Louis René Beres, Surviving Amid Chaos: Israel’s Nuclear Strategy (2016; 2018).

[iv] Says philosopher of science Karl Popper, citing to German poet Novalis: “Theory is a net. Only those who cast, can catch.” Ironically, perhaps, Novalis’ fellow German poet, Goethe, had declared, in his early Faust fragment (Urfaust): “All theory, dear friend, is grey. But the golden tree of life is green.” (Grau, theurer Freund, ist alle Theorie, Und grűn des Lebens goldner Baum.)

[v] Israel is less than half the size of America’s Lake Michigan.

[vi] See, by this author, Louis René Beres, at BESA/Israel (June 29, 2026): https://besacenter.org/creating-israels-national-security-strategy-the-nuclear-dimension/   See also, Lt. Col. (IDF/res.), Dr. Dany Shoham, April 26, 2026: https://besacenter.org/deprived-of-nukes-iran-will-likely-ramp-up-its-chemical-and-biological-weapons-capacities/

[vii] The problem of nuclear war avoidance is universal. On this point, see, by this author, Louis Rene Beres: “Nuclear War Avoidance: Why It Is Time to Start Worrying, Again,” Air and Space Operations Review, Spring 2022, United States Air Force, Pentagon, pp. 69-81.

[viii] See: Anatol Rapoport, Strategy and Conscience (1964). Says Rapoport, in an early observation that now applies usefully to Israel, Iran and nuclear war avoidance: “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.”

[ix] 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.

[x] In science, generality is a trait of all meaning. Still, the need for generality notwithstanding, strategic thinkers should seek never to lose sight of palpable humanconsequences. By definition, theory is a simplification, one purposely excluding from consideration those factors deemed unessential to analytic explanation. This indispensable exclusion comes at a cost, however, because it may involve the palpable sacrifice of espirit de finesse or the individualhumanelement of any catastrophe. Recalling the poet Goethe’s observation in Urfaust, the original Faust fragment: “All theory, dear friend, is gray, and the golden tree of life is green.” (Grau, theurer Freund, ist alle Theorie, Und grűn des Lebens goldner Baum.”)

[xi] Regarding this macrocosm, it is plain that any continuance of Westphalian anarchy (a “balance of power” system) will signal inevitable and catastrophic failure. See, by this writer, Professor Louis René Beres, at Princeton Political Review: https://www.princetonpoliticalreview.org/opinion-1/always-preparing-for-a-next-war-the-infinite-lethality-of-world-politics

[xii] This brings to mind Jose Ortega y Gassett’s classic discussion of “The Barbarism of ‘Specialization’” in The Revolt of the Masses (1930). See also, by Professor Louis René Beres, https://moderndiplomacy.eu/2020/09/13/american-democracy-and-the-barbarism-of-specialisation/

[xiii].      To meet this need, Israeli strategists must consciously approach their subject as a dialectical series of thoughts, one wherein each pertinent thought or idea presents a complication that then moves onward to the next thought or idea.  Contained in this dialectic is the unending obligation to continue thinking, an obligation that can never be fulfilled altogether (because of what philosophers call the “infinite regress problem”), but that must still be attempted as capably as possible. The term “dialectic” originates from the Greek expression for the art of conversation.  Today, the most common meaning is a method of seeking truth via correct reasoning.  From the standpoint of present nuclear concerns, the following operations may be identified as essential but also nonexclusive components of a strategic dialectic: (1) a method of refutation by examining logical consequences;  (2) a method of division or repeated logical analysis of genera into species;  (3) logical reasoning using premises that are probable or generally accepted;  (4) formal logic;  and (5) the logical development of thought through thesis and antithesis to a synthesis of these opposites.  Dialectic has its likely beginnings in the 5th century B.C.E., as Zeno, author of the Paradoxes, was recognized by Aristotle as its inventor. In the middle dialogues of Plato, dialectic emerges as the supreme form of philosophical/analytic method.  In one of these dialogues, Plato describes the dialectician as someone who knows how to ask and to answer questions.  This is precisely what should now be transposed to the study of Israeli security matters in general, and of nuclear strategy matters in particular. Strategists need in these all-important matters to know how to ask and to answer questions. 

[xiv] On deterring a nuclear Iran, see early assessments by Louis René Beres and General John T. Chain, “Could Israel Safely Deter a Nuclear Iran?” The Atlantic, August 2012; and Professor Louis René Beres and General John T. Chain, “Israel and Iran at the Eleventh Hour,” Oxford University Press (OUP Blog), February 23, 2012. USAF General Chain (now deceased) served as Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Strategic Air Command (CINCSAC).

[xv] On “escalation dominance,” see 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    

[xvi]  For generic assessments of the probable consequences of nuclear war fighting by this author, see, for example:  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: U S 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).

[xvii].     Exactly how large is unclear.  From the standpoint of Israeli defense planning, it is important not only to define pertinent thresholds between small and large conventional attacks internally, but also to: (a) treat the variable of “largeness” analytically, as a continuous rather than dichotomous variable; and (b) signal prospective attackers, well in advance of particular crises, of pertinent thresholds.  Although (b) may actually heighten enemy willingness to launch “small” attacks against the Jewish State, it likely would still be cost-effective or “gainful.”  Conceptually, these elaborations of the strategic meaning of “large” conventional attacks could represent the yield or firepower analogue of Israeli policy to geographic “red lines.”

[xviii].   Should Israel seek to reduce the perceived vulnerability of its nuclear forces by some intentionally detectable combination of multiplication/dispersion/hardening, enemy states could then come to believe, erroneously, that Jerusalem is preparing for first-strike attacks. Such erroneous beliefs could be even more likely if Israel should seek simultaneously further reduced force vulnerabilities via appropriate forms of active and passive defenses.  Ironically, therefore, in seeking to stabilize deterrence by signaling an enemy/enemies that its own nuclear forces are not vulnerable to disarming first-strikes, i.e., that these are exclusively second-strike forces, with an “assured destruction” capability, Israel could create the impression that it is preparing to strike first.  Here, Israel’s attempts to convince enemy states that it is not preparing for preemption could backfire, thereby offering certain new incentives to these enemy states to “preempt.”  The alternative, for Israel, could be to deliberately disguise efforts at nuclear force protection from enemy states, making these efforts less detectable, but such subterfuge would almost certainly be self-defeating and could carry additional risks.  Should Israel’s enemies calculate that Jerusalem’s nuclear forces are vulnerable to first-strike attacks, they would want to exploit current but potentially transient Israeli weakness. Moreover, because too great Israeli force vulnerability could encourage Israel to strike first, and because Israel’s enemies understand this calculation, Israel’s enemies could have compelling reasons to launch prompt “preemptive” attacks.

[xix].      Counterforce strategies target an enemy’s strategic military facilities and supporting infrastructures.  Such strategies may be dangerous not only because of the “collateral damage” they might produce, but also because they could heighten the likelihood of first-strike attacks.  In this connection, collateral damage refers to the damage done to human and nonhuman resources, as a consequence of strategic strikes directed at enemy forces or at military facilities.  This “unintended” damage could involve large numbers of casualties and fatalities.  Counter value strategies refer to the targeting of an enemy’s cities or industries, in effect, the targeting of civilian populations.  From the standpoint of international law, such targeting is unlawful prima facie.  Still, as a practical matter, it could reduce incentives to preempt in unstable circumstances, thereby reducing the prospect of a catastrophic war.

[xx].       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.

[xxi].      This would amount to a strategy of deterring the deterrer by credible counter-deterrent threats; i.e., threatening the deterrer with unacceptable levels of counter- retaliation.

[xxii] Still, Israel’s posture of deliberate nuclear ambiguity was effectively breached by two of the country’s prime ministers, first by Shimon Peres on December 22, 1995, and second by Ehud Olmert on December 11, 2006. Peres, speaking to a group of Israeli newspaper and magazine editors, stated publicly:  “…give me peace, and we’ll give up the atom. That’s the whole story.” Later, Olmert offered similarly general but equally-revelatory remarks.

[xxiii].   Some 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 earlier reasoning against this 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. For original and much earlier writings by this author on the likely impact of a Palestinian state on Israeli nuclear deterrence and Israeli nuclear strategy, see:  Louis René Beres, “After the `Peace Process:’ Israel, Palestine and Regional Nuclear War,” DICKINSON JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL LAW, Vo. 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,” INTERNATIOINAL 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., 199, 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,  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.

[xxiv].    Both Israeli nuclear and non-nuclear preemptions of enemy unconventional attacks could lead to nuclear exchanges.  This would depend, in 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.  In any event, the likelihood of nuclear exchanges would appear to be greatest where pertinent enemy states (now, primarily Iran) are allowed to deploy ever-greater numbers of increasingly destructive unconventional weapons without some form of timely Israeli preemptive interference.  Should such deployment take place, Israel could effectively forfeit the non-nuclear preemption option, and then be forced to choose between a no-longer-timely nuclear preemption, and waiting to be struck first. It follows that the risks of Israeli nuclear preemption, of nuclear exchanges with an enemy state, andof enemy nuclear first-strikes, could all be reduced by still-timely Israeli non-nuclear preemptions, directed at critical hard targets. This argument contradicts the conventional wisdom that associates any prospective Israeli preemptive strike with “aggression,” and/or expanded harms.

[xxv].     An interesting question arises:  Exactly what criteria of “failure” would be identified by Israel in such circumstances?  The answer, it would seem, lies squarely in Israeli perceptions of enemy capabilities and intentions.  In other words, where Israeli strategists and planners witness expanding preparations for war against Israel, it would become increasingly evident (as preparations proceed) that Israeli nuclear deterrence was failing.  Absolute failure of nuclear deterrence, in Israeli judgments, would be associated with expectation of imminent enemy attack(s).  Again, failure is a variable best treated by Israeli analysts as continuous (not dichotomous).

[xxvi].    Regarding the particular context of Israeli deterrence, a rational state enemy of the Jewish State will accept or reject a first-strike option by comparing the costs and benefits of each alternative.  Where the expected costs of striking first are taken to exceed expected gains, this enemy will be deterred.  But where these expected costs are believed to be exceeded by expected gains, deterrence will fail.  Here, Israel will be faced with enemy (Arab or Iranian) attack, whether as a “bolt from the blue,” or as an outcome, anticipated or unanticipated, of crisis escalation.  Of course, where the pertinent state enemy of Israel would not meet the criteria of rationality, deterrence could be immobilized. In keeping with standard definitions of rationality in world politics, I assume here a unitary, value-maximizing, decision-maker, with one set of specified goals, one set of perceived options, and a single estimate of the consequences that ensue from each alternative. The enemy decision-maker is assumed to evaluate alternatives in his strategic environment on the basis of his preferences among them; to operate according to a preference-ordering that is consistent and transitive; and to always choose the preferred alternative.  One often ignored problem with rationality assumptions is that they concern only preference-maximizing intentions.  An enemy state may in fact meet all of the requirements of rationality, but still commit certain errors in calculation that would undermine deterrence.

[xxvii].   Israel’s nuclear counter-retaliatory threat could conceivably be diminished by certain enemy threats of unacceptably damaging counter-counter-retaliations.  Plainly, there is an infinite regress process at work here, one that is bewildering to consider, but its annoying complexity should not in any way rule outweigh its relevance.

[xxviii]. Israel’s planners must consider the prospect of an unacceptably damaging counter- counter-retaliation, a prospect of effective enemy counter-deterrence that could at some point neutralize Israel’s threat of nuclear counter-retaliation.

[xxix].    For early writings by this author on nuclear terrorism, see:  Louis René Beres, SECURITY THREATS AND EFFECTIVE REMEDIES: ISRAEL’S STRATEGIC, TACTICAL AND LEGAL OPTIONS, Ariel Center for Policy Research (Israel), Policy Paper # 102, April 2000, 110pp; Louis René Beres, TERRORISM AND GLOBAL SECURITY: THE NUCLEAR THREAT, second ed.  (Boulder and London:  Westview Press,  1987);  Louis René Beres,  “Confronting Nuclear Terrorism,”  THE HASTINGS INTERNATIONAL AND COMPARATIVE LAW REVIEW,  Vol. 14,  No. 1.,  Fall 1990,  pp. 129 – 154;  Summer 1994;  Louis René Beres,  “On International Law and Nuclear Terrorism,”  THE GEORGIA JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL AND COMPARATIVE LAW,  Vol. 24, No. 1., pp. 1-36; Louis René Beres, “The United States and Nuclear Terrorism in a Changing World: A Jurisprudential View,” THE DICKINSON JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL LAW, February 1995; Louis René Beres, “Israel, the `Peace Process,’ and Nuclear Terrorism: Recognizing the Linkages,” STUDIES IN CONFLICT AND TERRORISM, Vol. 21, No. 1., January 1998, pp. 59-86; Louis René Beres, “Facing the Ultimate Nightmare: Preventing Nuclear Terrorism Against the United States,” THE BROWN JOURNAL OF WORLD AFFAIRS, Winter/Spring 1998, pp. 1-21; Louis René Beres, “Preventing the Ultimate Nightmare: Nuclear Terrorism Against the United States,” INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INTELLIGENCE AND COUNTERINTELLIGENCE, Vol. 10., No. 3., Fall 1997, pp. 333-342; and Louis René Beres, “Israel, the `Peace Process,’ and Nuclear Terrorism: A Jurisprudential Perspective,” LOYOLA OF LOS ANGELES INTERNATIONAL AND COMPARATIVE LAW JOURNAL, Vol. 18., No. 4., September 1996, PP. 767-793.

[xxx].     This term became generally recognizable with the publication of Seymour M. Hersh’s book, THE SAMSON OPTION: ISRAEL’S NUCLEAR ARSENAL AND AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY (New York: Random House, 1991).  For a review of this work, by the present writer, see:  Louis René Beres, “Review of the Samson Option,” STRATEGIC REVIEW, winter 1992, pp. 61 – 63.  Hersh did not originate the term, which is normally associated with the “End of the Third Temple.”  The Samson metaphor, although distorted by Hersh, could be analytically useful when examined by honest and competent scholars.

[xxxi].    Still, preparations for a Samson Option could be inherently productive and should be considered conceptually distinct from any actual implementation.

[xxxii].   Examining the requirements of nuclear deterrence, strategic planners should always distinguish between conventional and unconventional attacks. Today, however, such a distinction could be misleading and counterproductive.  Looking ahead, the most serious conventional attacks would likely be launched against Israel only by enemy states having a “backup” of unconventional (prospectively nuclear) forces.  Hence, the value of Israeli nuclear deterrence will now alwayshave to be assessed vis-à-vis enemy unconventional (possibly nuclear) weapons. It is conceivable, of course, that some combination of enemy states, still effectively non-nuclear, could conclude that a combined conventional attack against Israel would be gainful. To prevent such a conclusion, i.e., to maintain nuclear deterrence in such circumstances, Jerusalem would have to convince these enemy states that their prospective combined conventional assault would elicit a fully nuclear reprisal.  This deterrence task could be made easier not only because of Israel’s greatly reduced strategic depth, but also because of Israel’s awareness that the conventional-unconventional threshold might be breached first by conventional enemy attackers. 

[xxxiii] This brings to mind the Clausewitzian concept of “friction.” In essence, friction refers to the unpredictable effects of errors in knowledge and information concerning strategic uncertainties, on 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.

[xxxiv].  See by this writer: Louis René Beres, “Israel’s Strategic Doctrine: Updating Intelligence Community Responsibilities,” International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, 2015, 28:1, pp. 89-104; Louis René Beres, “Changing Direction?  Updating Israel’s Nuclear Doctrine,” Strategic Assessment, The Institute for National Security Studies, Tel-Aviv University, Vol. 17, No.3., October 2014, pp. 93-106; Louis René Beres, “Facing Myriad Enemies: Core Elements of Israeli Nuclear Deterrence,” The Brown Journal of World Affairs, Fall/Winter 2013, Vol. XX, Issue 1., pp. 17-30; and Louis René Beres, “Looking Ahead: Revising Israel’s Nuclear Ambiguity in the Middle East,” Herzliya Conference, Policy Paper, Herzliya Conference, March 11-14, 2013 (IDC Herzliya, Israel). For a much earlier consideration of the nuclear disclosure issue, by this writer, see:  Louis René Beres, ed., SECURITY OR ARMAGEDDON: ISRAEL’S NUCLEAR STRATEGY (Lexington MA:  Lexington Books, 1986).  Presently, Israel is likely moving toward further sea-basing (submarines) of some of its nuclear forces, a deterrence-enhancing move that ought not to remain “too ambiguous” to Israel’s pertinent enemies. On this issue, see: Louis René Beres and (Admiral, USN/ret.) Leon “Bud” Edney, “Israel’s Nuclear Strategy: A Larger Role for Submarine-Basing,” The Jerusalem Post, August 17, 2014; and Professor Beres and Admiral Edney, “A Sea-Based Nuclear Deterrent for Israel,” Washington Times, September 5, 2014.

[xxxv].   Nor should Israel ever rely upon nuclear deterrence offered by the United States as “extended deterrence.” Implausible and unreliable during “Cold War I,” extended deterrence in the currently chaotic world order is even more problematic.  With the effective disappearance of Israel as a “strategic asset,” the United States would almost certainly not regard any nuclear retaliation on behalf of Israel to be cost-effective.  See Louis René Beres, “Staying Strong: Enhancing Israel’s Essential Strategic Options,” Harvard National Security Journal, Harvard Law School, June 13, 2014.

[xxxvi] Modern philosophic 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, Friedrich Nietzsche drew just as freely and perhaps more importantly upon Arthur Schopenhauer. Goethe was also 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 (Goethe died in 1832). It is reprinted in Ortega’s anthology, The Dehumanization of Art (1948) and available from Princeton University Press (1968).

[xxxvii]. The “flip side” of this calculation is the effect of Israel’s own active defense system.  Should a would-be attacker believe Israel’s Hetz or related/integrated systems would display an appropriately high degree of effectiveness, such belief could discourage an attack decision against Israel by lowering the attacker’s expected benefits.

[xxxviii].           On the issue of Israel’s nuclear ambiguity, or “amimut,” see, by this author, Louis René Beres: Security or Armageddon: Israel’s Nuclear Strategy (Lexington Books, D C Heath, 1986). This collection of original essays by leading scholars on amimut stemmed from Professor Louis René Beres’ several lectures in the early 1980s at the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies in Tel-Aviv, hosted by MajGen. (IDF/res) Aharon Yariv. Analytically, any Israeli policy end to deliberate nuclear ambiguity should reject narrowly dichotomous options (i.e., only two options, nuclear disclosure or nuclear nondisclosure). This rejection would allow Israeli planners and policy makers to identify multiple disclosure options along a continuum of possibilities, and to choose that particular level of information presumed maximally gainful to Israel’s nuclear deterrence posture.

[xxxix].  Israeli planners may also want to consider some plausible linkages between disclosure, or removing the bomb from the “basement,” and alternative preemption options.  For example, if it is assumed that disclosure would enhance Israeli nuclear deterrence, recourse to preemption will likely be diminished.  As creation of a Palestinian state could encourage Israeli abandonment of “deliberate ambiguity” (of the “bomb in the basement”), such creation could make preemption less likely.  But there are other important variables here that need to be considered synergistically with the effects of disclosure and/or of territorial concessions.

[xl].        A related issue concerns acceptance of Israel as a nuclear power.  Here it is often argued that such acceptance would exacerbate the regional nuclear arms race.  There is, however, no real evidence to support this particular argument, which could, by extrapolation, also be used erroneously, and possibly with grave security consequences, against disclosure.

[xli] On Israeli sea-basing of nuclear weapons (submarines), see earlier: Louis René Beres and Admiral Leon “Bud” Edney, “Israel’s Nuclear Strategy: A Larger Role for Submarine-Basing,” The Jerusalem Post, August 17, 2014; and Professor Louis René Beres and Admiral Leon “Bud” Edney, “A Sea-Based Nuclear Deterrent for Israel,” Washington Times, September 5, 2014. Admiral Edney was NATO Supreme Allied Commander, Atlantic (SACLANT).

[xlii].     For now, at least, Israeli nuclear forces could surely penetrate the active defenses of any enemy attacker after Israel had absorbed a first-strike attack.  This could change, in the future, if there were substantial enemy progress on appropriate forms of anti-tactical ballistic missile (ATBM) defenses and/or an enemy state or states were allowed to achieve a devastating first-strike capability, i.e., one that effectively precludes Israeli reprisal.  This second prospect is itself dependent, in part, upon Israel’s active defense capabilities and on Israel’s configuration of nuclear retaliatory forces. There is a synergistic relationship between Israeli/Arab/Iranian missile/drone defense developments, one that constantly increases arms race momentum, both defensive and offensive.  This interactive relationship suggests perpetual instability and thus another reason why Israeli security should ultimately be constructed on more than the fragile dynamics of nuclear deterrence.

[xliii].    Ironically, region-wide commitments to active defense measures could heat up the area arms race, occasioning all sides to accelerate their offensive weapons capabilities.  Theoretically, a region-wide missile/drone defense agreement could prevent or slow down offensive developments, but – as a practical matter – such an accord would stand little chance of success.  Recognizing uncertainty and distrust as givens in the Middle East strategic equations, Jerusalem now has little choice but to continue with improving multilayered active defenses and corollary searches for hard-target kill capabilities.  At the same time, aware that successful active defense will require a near-perfect interception capability (because a single unintercepted nuclear warhead could produce unacceptable damage) and that such capability is delusionary to expect, Israel has no choice but to prepare for residual preemption options.

[xliv].     The credibility of Israel’s nuclear deterrent depends not only on secure nuclear weapons, but also secure command/control/intelligence operations.  To reduce the risks of “decapitation,” Israel’s military planners should always consider the complex relationships between C3I invulnerability and pre-delegations of launch authority.  This means that an essential aspect of Israel’s nuclear deterrence posture could include increasing the number of authoritative decision-makers who would have the right to launch nuclear weapons under certain very carefully-defined residual contingencies (probably relating to the “Samson Option” scenario).  Yet, as in all other aspects of nuclear weapons and military planning, there are negative factors to consider.  Because the deterrence value of expanded decisional authority would require that prospective attackers learn in advance that Israel had taken these decapitation-avoidance pre-delegations (after all, without such learning, enemy states would be more apt to calculate that first-strike attacks were cost-effective), these states might feel increasingly compelled to “preempt.”  Such “preemption” incentives would derive from new enemy state fears of a fully intentional Israeli first-strike, and/or new fears of accidental, unauthorized, or unintentional nuclear strikes from Israel.  Aware of these probable enemy reactions to its pre-delegations of launch authority, pre-delegations which might or might not be complemented by launch-on-warning measures, Israel, reciprocally, could feel compelled to actually strike first, a preemption of “preemptive” attack that may or may not prove to be net gainful, and that may or may not have been avoided by antecedent resistance to pre-delegations of launch authority. Significantly, Israel’s military planners should understand that this entire scenario could be “played” in the other direction.  Here, Iran or an Arab enemy state seeking to reduce its decapitation risks would implement pre-delegations of launch authority, Ironically, however, these implementations could encourage Israeli preemptions and correlative enemy state preemptions of an Israeli preemption.

[xlv].      See Aron’s On War, Terence Kilmartin, and tr.  (New York:  Doubleday Anchor, 1959), p. 81.

[xlvi].     In the United States, “flexible response” ultimately evolved into a doctrine known as the “countervailing nuclear strategy.”  Codified in Presidential Directive # 59, which was signed on July 25 1980, and later reaffirmed by President Ronald Reagan, this strategy represented further retreat from the doctrine of “massive retaliation” (a doctrine authoritatively defined by John Foster Dulles on January 13, 1954).  The countervailing strategy envisioned a broad array of nuclear retaliatory options within a carefully defined spectrum of deterrence.  This writer (who believes that countervailing strategy doctrine, especially if it were coupled with limited disclosure, could enhance Israeli security) opposed U.S. countervailing nuclear strategy.  For a full account of this opposition, see:  Louis René Beres,  “Tilting Toward Thanatos:  America’s `Countervailing’ Nuclear Strategy,”  WORLD POLITICS,  Vol. XXXIV,  No. 1.,  October 1981 (pp. 25 – 46);  Louis René Beres,  MIMICKING SISYPHUS: AMERICA’S COUNTERVAILING NUCLEAR STRATEGY  (Lexington MA;  Lexington Books,  1983);  Louis René Beres,  REASON AND REALPOLITIK: U.S. FOREIGN POLICY AND WORLD ORDER (Lexington MA:  Lexington Books,  1984);  and Louis René Beres,  “Presidential Directive 59:  A Critical Assessment,”  PARAMETERS,  Journal of the U.S. Army War College,  Vol. XI,  No. 1,  March 1981, pp. 19 – 28.  The article in PARAMETERS formed a debate with an accompanying piece by Colin S. Gray, “Presidential Directive 59:  Flawed but Useful,” PARAMETERS, Vol. XI, No. 1., pp. 29 – 37.  I was given the “last word” in the PARAMETERS debate in Vol. XI, No. 2, June 1981:  “Louis René Beres Replies to Colin Gray and Leon Sloss on PD59,” pp. 90 – 93.  My fundamentally different views on the “countervailing” strategy for the United States and for Israel derive from the fundamentally different threat circumstances faced by these two very different (superpower and mini-state) countries.

[xlvii] In this connection, significant threats from Iran could emanate in increments from that country’s pre-nuclear or sub-nuclear force postures. As an example, future military threats from Iran could escalate from Tehran’s asymmetric warfare doctrine to Israel’s assertions of asymmetrical nuclear warfare. For background explanations of Iranian doctrine, see recently published at Journal of Strategic Studies: Levy, D., Pinko, E., & Shamir, E. (2026). Asymmetric war at sea: The doctrine of Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy (IRGCN). Journal of Strategic Studies, 49(2), 158–192. https://doi.org/10.1080/01402390.2025.2598757

[xlviii] Expressions of decisional irrationality in world affairs could take 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).

[xlix].     In certain worst-case scenarios, Israeli active defense deployments could become little more than a refashioned Bar-Lev line, thus encouraging false reassurances, of national security while providing little soft-target protection.  In the case of space based defense against ballistic missiles, this refashioned Bar-Lev line could display various “orbiting” characteristics. For early writings on Israel and Arrow/Hetz, see: Louis René Beres and Major-General (IDF/ret.) Isaac Ben-Israel, “Think Anticipatory Self-Defense,” The Jerusalem Post, October 22, 2007; Professor Beres and Major-General Ben-Israel, “The Limits of Deterrence,” Washington Times, November 21, 2007; Professor Beres and MG Ben-Israel, “Deterring Iran,” Washington Tines, June 10, 2007; and Professor Beres and MG Ben-Israel, “Deterring Iranian Nuclear Attack,” Washington Times, January 27, 2009.

[l].          In seeking to justify his most recent war against Iran, US President Donald Trump conflated preemption with prevention. Jurisprudentially, there is an important distinction between preemptive attacks and preventive attacks.  Under international law, only preemption could be considered lawful, and then only when that defensive first strike met several codified and customary criteria of permissibility. 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 concern for imminent hostilities, but rather for fear of a longer-term deterioration in the vital military balance.  Hence, in a preemptive attack, the length of time by which the enemy’s action is anticipated is relatively 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 imminence is plausible could sometime be fatal. 

[li].         Contrary to conventional wisdom, both nuclear deterrence and associated forms of nuclear strategy, including preemption, can fully support the authoritative expectations of international law.  The adequacy of international law in preventing nuclear war in the Middle East will depend upon far more than formal treaties, customs and general principles.  It will depend, especially, upon the success or failure of particular country strategies in the region.  If Israel’s nuclear strategy should reduce the threat of nuclear war, either because of successful forms of nuclear deterrence, or because of essential preemptive strikes, this strategy must be considered as an authentic component of international law enforcement.

[lii] Carl von Clausewitz clarifies: “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, at Harvard Law School, Harvard National Security Journal:  Louis René Beres, https://harvardnsj.org/2013/10/24/lessons-for-israel-from-ancient-chinese-military-thought-facing-iranian-nuclearization-with-sun-tzu/

[liii].      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.

[liv].       Here, efficiency must be measured in terms of population protection as well as retaliatory force protection.  In principle, at least, active defense systems can be configured to protect civilian populations as well as forces and force infrastructures.

[lv].        There may be no adequate effort to examine an important aspect of Israeli active defense planning, i.e., the relationship between such planning and the willingness to preempt. To the extent that Israel’s leaders have faith in various deployed forms of ballistic missile defense, they should be increasingly willing to forego any preemption option.

[lvi].       Launch-on-warning describes a strategic doctrine that calls for the retaliatory launch of bombers and/or missiles on receipt of warning that a missile attack is underway.  This doctrine, which requires launch before the attacking warheads reach their intended targets, is sometimes called “launch on positive or confirmed notification of attack,” to distinguish between the possible and actual attack.  In U.S. strategic doctrine, launch-on-warning (LOW) is treated as one of two primary “prompt launch” options, the other option being launch-under-attack (LUA).  Under LUA, the U.S. National Command Authority (NCA) would wait until confirmation had been received of nuclear detonations on American soil before ordering retaliatory strikes.  Under LOW, confirmed detection of missile launches from at least two types of sensors –  e.g., ground-based radars and satellites –  would likely be adequate. 

[lvii].     Other risks to Israel of such measures could be associated with the compressed time available to enemy decision-makers under prompt launch options and Jerusalem’s uncertainty concerning thresholds of attack above which enemy decision-makers would opt for prompt launch.  Even if well-defined thresholds were known to Israeli leaders (this assumes, of course, the antecedent premise that enemy decision-makers had actually advanced such authoritative definitions), they could still be low enough to be considered destabilizing.

[lviii].    War and genocide need not be mutually exclusive.  War might well be the 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.  It follows that where Israel is identified as the institutionalized expression of the Jewish People (an expression that includes national, ethnical, racial, and religious components), acts of war intended to destroy the Jewish State could assuredly be genocidal.

[lix] Even war against a still pre-nuclear Iran could involve the use of Israeli nuclear weapons and/or Iranian resort to radiation dispersal weapons. Moreover, at some indeterminable point, Iran could successfully fire conventional missiles against Israel’s nuclear reactor at Dimona or (at least in principle) engage an already-nuclear North Korean ally to act on its behalf.

[lx].        Core portions of the Islamic world’s genocidal intentions against “Jewish occupiers” predate the creation of Israel as a modern state in 1948.  On November 28, 1941, Haj Amin, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, met in Berlin with Adolph Hitler.  The acknowledged subject of their meeting was “The Jewish Question.”  Coming after Haj Amin’s organization of Muslim SS troops in Bosnia (where a different sort of “ethnic cleansing” is currently underway), this meeting included the Mufti’s promise to form an Arab legion to aid Germany in the war.  Haj Amin did everything possible to ensure Hitler’s success in the “final solution,” even urging the foreign ministers of lesser Axis powers (Italy, Rumania, and Bulgaria) not to allow Jews to leave for Palestine.  It was essential, Haj Amin insisted, that Jews be sent to countries “where they would find themselves under active control, for example, in Poland, in order thereby to protect oneself from their menace and to avoid the consequent damage.”  See Joan Peters, FROM TIME IMMEMORIAL: THE ORIGINS OF THE ARAB-JEWISH CONFLICT OVER PALESTINE (London:  1984), pp. 436 – 7, which reproduces the Mufti’s own account of his meeting with Hitler.

[lxi].       The Oslo Agreements were arguably null and void according to authoritative international law. To clarify, all states are obligated by international law to seek out and prosecute the perpetrators of crimes of war, crimes against peace, crimes against humanity and crimes of terrorism. (See, inter alia, DRAFT CODE OF OFFENSES AGAINST THE PEACE AND SECURITY OF MANKIND, GAOR, No. 9, A/2693.)  Derived from the peremptory norm of Nullum crimen sine poena, “No crime without a punishment,” this obligation was plainly violated by Israel’s volitional agreement with a known terrorist organization. Recognizing that, according to Article 53 of the VIENNA CONVENTION ON THE LAW OF TREATIES, any agreement “…is void, if at the time of its conclusion, it conflicts with a peremptory norm of general international law,” the agreement, witnessed officially by representatives of the United States and Russia, should be disregarded.  Conflicting with a peremptory norm o jus cogens norm that, according to Article 53 of the VIENNA CONVENTION is “a norm accepted and recognized by the international community of states as a whole from which no derogation is permitted….,” the agreement confers no jurisprudential responsibilities of any kind. See, earlier, Louis René Beres, “The Oslo Agreements in International Law, Natural Law and World Politics,” ARIZONA JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL AND COMPARATIVE LAW, Vol. 14, No. 3., 1997, pp. 715 – 746; Louis René Beres, “Israel After Fifty: The Oslo Agreements, International Law and National Survival,” CONNECTICUT JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL LAW, Vol. 14, No. 1., Summer 1999, pp. 27-81; Louis René Beres, ISRAEL’S SURVIVAL IMPERATIVES: THE OSLO AGREEMENTS IN INTERNATIONAL LAW AND NATIONAL STRATEGY, Ariel Center for Policy Research (Israel), Policy Paper # 25, 1998, 74 pp;  Louis René Beres, “Why The Oslo Accords Should be Abrogated by Israel,” AMERICAN UNIVERSITY JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL LAW AND POLICY, Vol. 12, No.2, 1997, pp. 267-284; Louis René Beres, “The Oslo Agreements in International Law, Natural Law and World Politics, BTZEDEK, Spring 1997, pp. 60-67. 

[lxii].     See 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. pp. 229 – 286.

[lxiii].    A great deal has been written on the issue of “strategic depth.”  The heart of the issue was addressed as early as June 29, 1967, when a U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff memorandum specified that returning Israel to pre-1967 boundaries would drastically increase its vulnerability.  The then Chairman of the JCS, General Earl Wheeler, concluded that for minimal deterrence and defense, Israel must retain Sharm el Sheikh and Wadi El Girali in the Sinai; the entire Gaza Strip; the high ground and plateaus of the mountains in Judea and Samaria; and the Golan Heights, east of Quneitra.  It is also worth noting that issues of Israeli strategic depth intersect with far broader questions of regional enemy forces, both state and sub-state. On these questions, see: Louis René Beres, “Understanding the `Correlation of forces’ in the Middle East: Israel’s Urgent Strategic Imperative,” Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs, Vol. IV, No. 1. 2010, pp. 77-88.

[lxiv].     This question was examined fully, by this author, many years back.  See Louis René Beres, “The Nonproliferation Treaty and the Loss of Israel’s Strategic Assets: The Looming Threat,” NATIV, Vol. 6, No. 6., November 1993, pp. 15 – 18.

[lxv].      Similar circumstances might be occasioned by Israeli adherence to a nuclear-weapons-free-zone arrangement for the Middle East.  For Israel, such a zonal agreement would leave the Jewish State more vulnerable to certain devastating enemy attacks.  Deprived of its ultimate form of deterrence and war fighting, Israel, at best, could be subject to massive conventional and/or chemical/biological first-strikes.  At worst, an enemy state or states would continue, clandestinely, to acquire nuclear weapons, leaving Israel to face the choice of extinction or capitulation.  Nonetheless, it should still be noted here that nuclear war fighting could never be an acceptable option for Israel. This point was, in fact, a major conclusion of the Final Report of Project Daniel: Israel’s Strategic Future, ACPR Policy Paper No. 155, ACPR, Israel, May 2004, 64 pp. See, also: Louis René Beres, “Facing Iran’s Ongoing Nuclearization: A Retrospective on Project Daniel,” International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, Vol. 22, Issue 3, June 2009, pp. 491-514. Professor Beres served as Chair of Project Daniel.

[lxvi].     In considering this question, Israeli planners should undertake antecedent investigations of enemy inclinations to strike first and associated enemy intentions to strike all-at-once or in specifiable stages. For example, should these planners assume that certain enemy states in the process of “going nuclear” are apt to strike first and to strike in unlimited fashion (i.e., to fire all nuclear warheads right away), Israeli counterforce-targeted warheads, used in retaliation, could hit only empty silos/launchers. Confronted with such circumstances, Israel’s only rational application of counterforce doctrine could be to strike first itself.  If, for whatever reason, Israel were to reject the preemption option, given the assumptions above, there would be no reason to opt for counterforce targeting.  From the standpoint of compelling intra-war deterrence, a counter value strategy could prove more gainful/purposeful under such conditions.  Should Israeli analysts assume that enemy states “going nuclear” are apt to strike first andto strike in a limited fashion, holding some significant measure of nuclear firepower in reserve for follow-on strikes, Israeli counterforce-targeted warheads, used in retaliation, could still express meaningful damage-limiting benefits.  Counterforce operations could serve both an Israeli preemption, or, should Israel decide, for whatever reason, not to preempt, an Israeli retaliatory strike.  Should an Israeli first-strike be intentionally limited, perhaps because it would be coupled with a guarantee of no further destruction in exchange for an end to hostilities, such operations could serve an Israeli counter-retaliatory strike. This is the case because Israel’s attempt at intra-war deterrence could fail, occasioning the need for follow-on strikes to produce essential damage-limitation.

[lxvii].   A contrary position was offered by Yehoshafat Harkabi, a former head of Aman (IDF Military Intelligence).  Writing in THE BAR KOKHBA SYNDROME, Harkabi argues that while “it is not absurd for the nuclear powers to plan for nuclear warfare,” nuclear war itself is “absurd.” See: The Bar Kokhba Syndrome: Risk and Realism in International Politics (Chappaqua, New York: Rossel Books, 1983).

[lxviii].  Israeli preparations for nuclear war fighting could be conceived not as distinct alternatives to nuclear deterrence, but as essential and even integral components of nuclear deterrence.  In 1981, Colin Gray, reasoning about U.S.-Soviet nuclear relations, argued that a vital connection exists between “likely net prowess in war and the quality of pre-war deterrent effect.”  (See:  Colin Gray, National Style in Strategy: The American Example,” INTERNATIONAL SECURITY, 6, No. 2, fall 1981, p. 35.)  Elsewhere, in a published debate with this writer, Gray said essentially the same thing:  “Fortunately, there is every reason to believe that probable high proficiency in war-waging yields optimum deterrent effect.”  (See Gray, “Presidential Directive 59: Flawed but Useful,” PARAMETERS, 11, No. 1, March 1981, p. 34.  Gray was responding directly to Louis René Beres, “Presidential Directive 59: A Critical Assessment,” PARAMETERS, March 1981, pp. 19 – 28.)  Gray’s argument paralleled a contemporary report to the U.S. Congress by the Comptroller General of the United States, COUNTERVAILING STRATEGY DEMANDS REVISION OF STRATEGIC FORCE ACQUISITION PLANS, U.S. General Accounting Office, MASAD-81-35, August 5, 1981, 54 pp.  Now, extrapolating from these arguments (linking nuclear war fighting capabilities to stable nuclear deterrence) to the current Israeli case, Jerusalem should ask the following questions:  Why should our state enemies more likely be deterred from initial acts of aggression by an Israel that has announced its intention to dominate escalation processes during a nuclear war than by an Israel that remains content with the capacity for “assured destruction?”  As an Israeli search for nuclear war fighting capability could heighten enemy fears of an Israeli first-strike, wouldn’t this search degradeour security?  Moreover, as our nuclear weapons that are counterforce targeted to conform to nuclear war fighting doctrines of deterrence would produce substantially less damage to enemies than would extensive counter value attacks, won’t these weapons have a significantly reduced deterrent effect?  These are difficult questions that need to be asked, again and again, not because Israel can dispense with a nuclear war fighting capability (a capability it may require whatever its effect on nuclear deterrence), but because this capability must be optimized between ongoing needs of nuclear deterrence and theoretically possible needs of nuclear military engagement.                      

[lxix] This brings to mind assorted intersections between Israel’s nuclear strategy and UIS national Security. See Louis René Beres (with postscript by USA/ret. General Barry R. McCaffrey), Israel’s Nuclear Strategy and America’s National Security, Tel-Aviv University, Yuval Ne’eman Workshop for Science, Technology and Security, December 2016:  https://sectech.tau.ac.il/sites/sectech.tau.ac.il/files/PalmBeachBook.pdf

[lxx].      By definition, the Samson Option would be executed with counter value-targeted nuclear weapons.  Reasonably, Israeli last-resort operations could come into play only after all counterforce options had first been exhausted.

[lxxi] See Summary of the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons (Advisory Opinion), 1996 I.C.J. 226 (Opinion of July 1996).

[lxxii] This is not necessarily the case with respect to certain conventional forms of preemption. 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. For a jurisprudential assessment of these undeclared but still-appropriate expressions of anticipatory self-defense, by this author, see: Louis René Beres, “Striking Hezbollah-Bound Weapons in Syria: Israel’s Actions Under International Law,” Harvard National Security Journal, Harvard Law School, Online, posted August 26, 2013. See also, by Professor Beres, : https://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/israeli-raids-syrian-targets-legal/

[lxxiii] On non-nuclear 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).

[lxxiv] The term “penultimate” is used here because Israel’s ultimate security objective should be the transformation of Westphalian international law (a self-destroying system of Realpolitik) into a more fundamentally cooperative system of law-based power management.

[lxxv] On deterring a potentially nuclear Iran, see: Louis René Beres and General John T. Chain, “Could Israel Safely Deter a Nuclear Iran?” The Atlantic, August 2012; and Professor Louis René Beres and General John T. Chain, “Israel and Iran at the Eleventh Hour,” Oxford University Press (OUP Blog), February 23, 2012. General Chain (USAF/now deceased.) served as Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Strategic Air Command (CINCSAC).

[lxxvi] “The existence of system in the world,” says French philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin in The Phenomenon of Man, “is at once obvious to every observer of nature, no matter whom….” (1955).

[lxxvii] “World order” has its contemporary intellectual origins in the work of Harold Lasswell and Myres McDougal at the Yale Law School, Grenville Clark and Louis Sohn’s WORLD PEACE THROUGH WORLD LAW (1966) and the large body of writings by Richard A. Falk and Saul H. Mendlovitz during the 1960s and 1970s.

[lxxviii]Neither international law nor US law specifically advises particular penalties or sanctions for states that choose not to prevent or punish genocide by others. All states, most notably the “major powers” belonging to the UN Security Council, are bound, among other things, by the peremptory obligation (defined at Article 26 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties) known as pacta sunt servanda, to act in continuous “good faith.” This pacta sunt servanda obligation is itself derived from an even more basic norm of world law commonly known as “mutual assistance.” This civilizing norm was famously identified within the classical interstices of international jurisprudence, most notably by eighteenth-century Swiss legal scholar, Emmerich de Vattel, in The Law of Nations (1758),

[lxxix] This continuance will require certain antecedent modifications of Realpolitik or power politics. 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 still present 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.

[lxxx] Whether it is described in the Old Testament or in other major sources of ancient Western thought, chaos can also be viewed as a source of human betterment. Here, in essence, chaos is that which prepares the world for all things, both sacred and profane. Further, as its conspicuous etymology reveals, chaos represents the yawning gulf or gap wherein nothing is as yet, but where all civilizational opportunity must originate. Appropriately, the German poet Friedrich Hölderlin observed: “There is a desert sacred and chaotic which stands at the roots of the things and which prepares all things.” Even in the ancient world, the Greeks thought of such a desert as logos, a designation which indicates to us that it was presumed to be anything but starkly random or inherently without merit.

[lxxxi] In law, both a cease fire and an armistice (arrangements sought by US President Trump vis-a-vis Iran during 2026) represent an intra-war convention, an agreement concluded between belligerents.  Prima facie, such an agreement does not terminate a state of war.  The 1907 Hague Convention IV Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land, stipulates, at the Annex to the Convention, that “An armistice suspends military operations by mutual agreement between the belligerent parties.”  (Emphasis added):  See CONVENTION NO. IV RESPECTING THE LAWS AND CUSTOMS OF WAR ON LAND, WITH ANNEX OF REGULATIONS.  Done at The Hague, Oct. 18, 1907.  Entered into force, Jan. 26, 1910.  36 Stat.  2277, T.S. No. 539, 1 Bevans 631, at Chapter V, Art. 36.)  The courts of individual states have also affirmed the principle that an armistice does not end a war (See, for example, Kahn v. Anderson, Warden, United States, Supreme Court, 1921, 255, U.S. 1).  Throughout history, though overlooked by Donald J. Trump, cease-fires and armistices have envisaged a resumption of hostilities. 

[lxxxii] See https://www.state.gov/the-abraham-accords/ To be considered as complementary is the Israel-Sudan Normalization Agreement (October 23, 2020) and Israel-Morocco Normalization Agreement (December 10, 2020). See also: https://www.state.gov/the-abraham-accords/

[lxxxiii] Friedrich Nietzsche warns prophetically in Zarathustra: “Never seek the higher man [higher person] at the marketplace.”  Regarding US President Donald J. Trump, it’s a warning that should be heeded in Jerusalem.

[lxxxiv] A Salafi/Deobandi (Sunni) Crescent has emerged to challenge the Shiite Crescent. This emergence represents an attempt by Salafi/Deobandi Islamist groups to counter alignments forged by Iran, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon (Hezbollah). Earlier, the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban signaled growing Salafi/Deobandi power vis-à-vis Iran, the United States and Israel. During late summer 2026, the Trump administration was preparing to sell F-35 jet fighters to the anti-Israel (and potentially nuclear) Erdogan regime in Turkey.

[lxxxv] Intermittently, Vladimir Putin has issued non-specific nuclear threats against the United States, issuances that seemingly stem from selected Kremlin policies of “pretended irrationality.” 

[lxxxvi] Remarks Jose Ortega y’Gasset: “Science, by which I mean the entire body of knowledge about things, whether corporeal or spiritual, is as much a work of imagination as it is of observation…. The latter is not possible without the former.” (Man and Crisis, 1958).

[lxxxvii] A final clarification is here noted. Though theories of nuclear deterrence and nuclear war originated in the bipolar context of US-Soviet Cold War, basic world system dynamics remain valid in the multipolar world. At the same time, many of these critical dynamics have morphed into variously specific post-Cold War configurations and expectations. To wit, from Israel’s current strategic standpoint, understanding the dynamics of MAD (“mutual assured destruction”)could offer no directly useful policy guidelines, nor could any related Cold War dynamics that are based on adversarial symmetry or near-symmetry. Also, for Jerusalem, strategic decision-making will not need to account for “hard-shell” alliances that resemble NATO or Warsaw Pact or for any once-presumed obligation to support broader legal principles of world order reform.