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The bomb in
the basement By Louis Rene Beres September 24, 2001 Former Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has sharply questioned Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's declared continuation of "deliberate ambiguity" in Israel's strategic doctrine. Although ambiguity on Israel's nuclear status essentially ended a week after Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's assassination - when Prime Minister Shimon Peres announced that he would "gladly give up the atom for peace" - no really purposeful disclosure of this status has ever been undertaken. What is required now, immediately, in a region approaching anarchy and possibly even war, is a calculated and limited clarification of Israel's nuclear doctrine. Netanyahu is correct. The issue is not, as the former prime minister knows, a simple "yes" or "no" on Israel's nuclear posture, but rather the extent of subtlety and detail with which Israel should now communicate this posture to enemy states. The issue is not simply an "End of the Third Temple" option, but rather a very complex and nuanced disclosure of doctrine, deployment, weapons, deterrence, and defense. To protect against enemy attack, possibly with unconventional weapons, Israel must exploit its still-latent nuclear assets. The success of Israel's efforts will depend not only upon its particular configuration of "counterforce" (warfighting) and "countervalue" (assured destruction) operations, but also upon the extent to which this configuration is made known in advance. Before an enemy state is deterred from striking first, or before it can be deterred from launching retaliatory strikes following an Israeli preemption, it will not be enough that it "knows" Israel has nuclear weapons. It will also need to recognize that these Israeli weapons are sufficiently invulnerable to attack and/or that these weapons are targeted at their own pertinent weapons and command-control systems. Israel must now strengthen its nuclear deterrence so that an enemy state will always reason a first-strike attack would be irrational. To accomplish this important objective, Israel must convince would-be attackers that it maintains both the willingness and the capacity to retaliate with nuclear weapons. Where an enemy state considering an attack upon Israel would be unconvinced about either one or both of these elements, it might choose to strike first. This would depend in part upon the particular value it places upon the expected consequences of such an attack. Regarding willingness: Even if Israel were prepared to respond to certain attacks with nuclear reprisals, an enemy failure to recognize such preparedness could provoke an attack. Here, misperception or errors in information could immobilize Israeli nuclear deterrence. It is also plausible that Israel would, in fact, lack willingness to retaliate, and that this lack was recognized by enemy leaders. In this case, Israeli nuclear deterrence would be immobilized, not because of confused signals, but because of signals that had not been properly confused. About capacity: Even if Israel maintains a substantial arsenal of nuclear weapons, it is essential that enemy states believe these weapons to be usable. This means that if a first-strike attack is believed capable of destroying Israel's arsenal, the Jewish state's nuclear deterrent will be immobilized. Even if Israel's nuclear weapons were configured so that they could not be destroyed by an enemy first-strike, enemy misperceptions about Israel's vulnerability could cause a failure of nuclear deterrence. The importance of usable nuclear weapons must also be examined from the standpoint of probable harms. Should Israel's nuclear weapons be seen by an enemy state as very high-yield, "city-busting" weapons, rather than minimal yield "warfighting" weapons, they might not deter. Enemy states must understand that Israel not only has secure second-strike nuclear forces, but also forces that could be used credibly in war. All this brings to mind the connections between disclosure, doctrine, and deterrence. To the extent that Israel's strategic doctrine identifies graduated forms of reprisal, the disclosure of such a doctrine in its broadest and most nonspecific contours would enhance Israel's nuclear deterrence. Without such disclosure, Israel's enemies will be kept guessing about Jerusalem's probable responses, a condition of extended uncertainty that could serve Israel's security for a while longer, but - at one time or another in the future - might fail altogether. Israel's survival depends on its nuclear weapons
and doctrine. Both Netanyahu and Sharon recognize this. But Netanyahu's
call for reduced nuclear ambiguity is the right one. It should be studied
and appropriately implemented as quickly as possible. Views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.
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