Overlooked synergies: Iranian nuclear weapons and a Palestinian State

Louis René Beres (Ph.D., Princeton, 1971)
Emeritus Professor of International Law
Purdue University
lberes@purdue.edu

          Though generally examined as unrelated perils, Iran’s nuclear weapons program and Palestinian statehood represent more than separate threats to Israel. Considered together, these threats, each potentially existential by itself, are also interactive. More precisely, they are “synergistic.”

What does such a dynamic interaction mean for Israel’s survival? By definition, in synergies, the “whole” threat effect is greater than the sum of its “parts.”[1] Accordingly, for Israeli military planners, science-based strategic analyses should (1) acknowledge this force-multiplying dynamic; and (2) identify all pertinent remedies.

In Jerusalem, Israel’s planners will confront multiple policy nuances. Needed security policy particulars will remain unhidden. Despite its recent success with active defense measures against Iranian missiles, nothing less than a 100% reliability of intercept could be tolerable against enemy weapons that would be nuclear. But because any such probability of interception would be impossible, Jerusalem will have to ensure that it can complement the small country’s[2] active defenses with apt strategies and tactics of offensive warfare.

It was famously understood by ancient Chinese strategist Sun Tzu and later by Prussian military thinker Karl von Clausewitz that narrowly defensive warfare can never result in victory.  Any Israeli reliance on defense in an impending war against Iran would end either in an injurious stalemate or in Israel’s defeat. Correspondingly, if Jerusalem were confronted by an already-nuclear Iranian adversary, even an Israeli victory could be effectively unacceptable and tangibly intolerable.

Iran and Palestine are not separate or discrete perils for Israel. Instead, they represent intersecting, mutually reinforcing and potentially existential perils. It follows, inter alia, that Jerusalem should do whatever possible to reduce synergistic dangers on both fronts simultaneously. For Israel, the survival remedy must be continuous and should suitably match the threat.

None of this is meant to minimize the importance of missile defense. Operationally, for Israel, such defense should still have its proper and continuously-improving place. Now, however, Jerusalem’s Iran focus should also be on Israel’s conventional and nuclear deterrence. Above all, this means a prompt doctrinal shift from “deliberate nuclear ambiguity” to “selective nuclear disclosure.” It also means more serious plans for plausible non-nuclear preemptions; that is, for expressions of “anticipatory self-defense”[3] against a not-yet-nuclear Iranian adversary.

In the best of all possible circumstances, stable and persuasive Israeli deterrence will pose major policy challenges. Here, the intellectual and doctrinal hurdles involved are certain to be many-sided and complex; quite possibly, these difficulties could become overwhelming. In any event, because of expectedly synergistic interactions between Iranian nuclear weapons and Palestinian independence, Israel will need to estimate variously bewildering outcomes. Still, because all such interactions would be unprecedented or sui generis, Jerusalem will have no way to assign any logic-based probabilities.

One way to better understand this problem has to do with expectations of Iranian decision-making rationality. More precisely, Israel’s leaders will have to accept that Iranian decision-maker might not always satisfy elementary standards of rational behavior. In such entirely conceivable circumstances, Jihadist surrogates operating against Israel throughout the Middle East – including “Palestine” – would sometime choose to value presumed religious obligations more highly than any other personal or collective preferences. By definition, such irrational Iranian proxies could refuse to back away from considered aggressions against Israel, and whatever the expected retaliatory harms.

With such complex considerations in mind, Israel must plan a prompt and systematic move beyond the country’s traditional posture of “deliberate nuclear ambiguity.” By preparing to shift more prudentially toward “selective nuclear disclosure,” Israel could better ensure that a still-rational Iranian enemy would remain subject to Israeli nuclear deterrence. At the same time, such preparations are apt to be of no real use vis-à-vis an irrational Iranian foe, whether it is pre-nuclear or already-nuclear. In cases of presumed Iranian decision-making irrationality, Israel’s incentive to augment or supplant all deterrence with a strategy of preemption would become self-evident.

There is more. Israeli planners will need to understand that the credibility of the country’s nuclear deterrent could vary inversely with Iranian estimations of Israeli nuclear destructiveness. In these ironic circumstances, enemy perceptions of a too-large or too-destructive Israeli nuclear deterrent force or an Israeli force that is seemingly vulnerable to first-strike attacks would undermine this deterrent.

Israel’s Iranian adversary should also regard the Jewish State’s nuclear retaliatory forces as “penetration capable.” For Jerusalem, this means maintaining nuclear forces that would appear capable of “punching through” Iranian active defenses. A new state of Palestine would assuredly be non-nuclear itself, but could still represent indirect nuclear dangers to Israel. This is because the new Arab state would generally tilt the regional balance-of-power against Israel, especially by its anticipated post-statehood alignments with Iran and by its provision of an optimal launching point for terror attacks against Israel.  Reciprocally, if Iran is “allowed” to cross the nuclear weapons threshold – a breakthrough made more believable by the absence of any direct Israeli warfare with a still pre-nuclear Iran[4] – it would substantially enlarge “Palestine’s” regional power position.

There is something else, a “macro variable” that concerns issues and elements of geo-strategic context. This references the wider global setting of “Cold War II.” It is within this continuously transforming background of US., Russian and Chinese “tripolarity” that (1) Palestinian statehood would impact nuclear aggressions and (2) Iranian nuclearization would impact Palestinian statehood. In essence, it is from the dynamic background of “Cold War II” that pertinent synergies would arise.

To better understand such synergies, Israel should be reminded of Karl von Clausewitz’s warnings in Principles of War (1812): “Defensive warfare does not consist of waiting idly or thing to happen. We must wait only if it brings us visible and decisive advantages.”[5] Long before the Prussian military theorist, ancient Chinese strategist Sun-Tzu had already observed in his The Art of War:  “Those who excel at defense bury themselves away below the lowest depths of the earth. Those who excel at offense move from above the greatest heights of Heaven. Thus, they are able to preserve themselves and attain complete victory.”

Unwittingly, Clausewitz and Sun-Tzu have left time-urgent messages for Israel. Facing complex and potentially synergistic enemies in Iran and “Palestine,” Jerusalem needs to accelerate appropriate initiatives against these intersectional foes. In summary, this means a willingness to engage in direct warfare with a pre-nuclear Iran and to adopt an openly pro-active stance against Palestinian statehood.

Realistically, such simultaneous initiatives would be markedly unpopular and would not propel Israel “above the greatest heights of Heaven.” But they could represent the beleaguered Jewish State’s only remaining path to survival.

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Louis René Beres (Ph.D., Princeton, 1971) is Emeritus Professor of Political Science and International Law at Purdue. He is the author of twelve books, and several hundred journal articles in the field. Professor Beres is a seven-times contributor to the Oxford University Press Yearbook on International Law and Jurisprudence, and a member of the Oxford University Press editorial advisory board for this annual publication. He was born in Zürich at the end of World War II.