The Order of Chaos: Israel Should Clarify Its Nuclear Doctrine and Strategy

HAMM: “What’s happening, what’s happening?

CLOV: “Something is taking its course.”

Samuel Beckett, Endgame[1]

Abstract: Though seemingly paradoxical, even chaos can exhibit a determinable order or “course.” Understood in terms of Israel’s survival in the chaotic Middle East, this means that the beleaguered country’s strategic planners will have to fashion gainful security policies from hard-to-measure conditions of geopolitical disorder. This challenge – now complicated by direct US military encounters with Iran-supported proxies – mandates coherent assessments of an incoherent world system.  Among other things, the task should elevate intellectual assets above particular weapons or forces. At the same time, such elevations of “mind” will need to be more specifically oriented toward nuclear weapons, nuclear doctrine and nuclear strategy. Prima facie, for Israel, a state already entangled in ever-growing strategic chaos, the survival stakes would be existential.

The Core Argument

It may seem a silly question: Why, in the midst of an essential war against jihadist terrorism,[2] would Israel be helped by nuclear weapons, nuclear doctrine and nuclear strategy? Even if terrorist-sponsor Iran were to become involved militarily against Israel directly, that Islamic state adversary would for the time being remain non-nuclear. To be sure, an already-nuclear North Korea maintains close ties with Iran, and could sometime put Israel in a position where nuclear threats would appear credible.  Still, the determinable probability of North Korea placing itself in survival jeopardy on behalf of Iran remains presumptively very low.[3]

Why exactly does Israel need its nuclear weapons and posture?[4] In principle, at least, even at the most conspicuous levels, a mini-state forced to contend with much larger and vengeful adversaries amid “Westphalian” anarchy,[5] would benefit from such assets. Prima facie, especially after the US-brokered Abraham Accords[6] proved irrelevant to all pertinent matters of “high strategy,”[7] nothing could be more obvious.[8]

Still, this “classical” explanation is necessarily tentative and can represent only a “first cut” conclusion. Now, a more purposeful analytic explanation will need to follow from suitably expanded theorizing[9] and would need to be made contingent on a complex variety of interrelated strategic possibilities. Though it should seem plain that Israel needs its nuclear weapons to deter enemy weapons of mass destruction (the currently worst-case scenario is an “Iranian Bomb”), much less is clear about Israel’s nuclear deterrence of enemy weapons that are neither nuclear nor biological.[10]

In these matters, additional clarity would be indispensable. To continue, in a chaotic world system, Israeli strategists will need to think dialectically. Any protracted lack of clarity could have authentically existential consequences. This unacceptable outcome would likely have nothing to do with any intellectual deficiencies in Jerusalem. It would stem, instead, from the always-inviolable rules of probability and inference in science (i.e., axioms in logic and mathematics). Plainly, because all conceivable scenarios of nuclear deterrence and nuclear war would be unprecedented, all correlative outcomes would be uncertain.

For engaged scholars and policy-makers, there will be many relevant details. Until now, comprehensive theory-building on Israeli nuclear issues has been scarce or superficial, at least in open-literature writings. It is certainly possible or even plausible that internal writings at IDF/MOD are being generated at a higher analytic level, but there are also no compelling reasons to expect career military strategists to be better prepared intellectually than their academic counterparts.

Historically, from the start of the nuclear age in the 1940s, the highest levels of strategic thinking have been discoverable in universities and think tanks, not in traditional military environments. We may recall, in this connection, the seminal writings of Herman Kahn, Thomas Schelling Anatol Rapaport, Albert Wohlstetter and Bernard Brodie. And though (for obvious reasons) neither Albert Einstein nor J. Robert Oppenheimer ever lectured or wrote about strategic aspects of nuclear weapons, nuclear doctrine or nuclear strategy, it was their core work as theoretical physicists that made the nuclear genre one of tangible military importance.

There is more. Despite a significant number of books and articles purporting to explain Israel’s need for nuclear weapons and infrastructures, little of any predictive substance has ever been offered, discussed or argued. When scholars[11] and strategists finally begin to make discernible progress on these many-sided survival issues, their explanations and proposals will need to be both conceptual and “human.”[12] To succeed in this vital task, these scholars and strategists will need to be broadly educated themselves, not just narrowly trained experts or “specialists.”[13] It is by no means insignificant that Oppenheimer was familiar with the Bhagavad-Gita and Einstein with Goethe’s Faust.

With such considerations in mind, what follows is a timely attempt to encourage a skillfully-fashioned “nuclear strategic dialectic.” While current daily news concerning Israel is largely about specific military problems and venues (e.g., Russia, Ukraine, China, Syria, Israel and Iran[14]), emphasis here will be on the commonly underlying dynamics of “escalation dominance,”[15] nuclear deterrence and nuclear warfare.[16]

Forging a Strategic Dialectic

Israeli nuclear strategists should approach their many-sided subject as a dialectical series of thoughts, one wherein each critical thought or idea presents a complication that then moves onward to the next significant thought or idea.  Contained in this original dialectic is an unending obligation to continue thinking, an obligation that can never be fulfilled altogether (because of what the philosophers would call an “infinite regress problem”), but that must still be attempted as fully and capably as possible. For clarification, the core term, “dialectic,” stems from the Greek expression for the art of conversation.  The most common current meaning of dialectic is a method of seeking truth via correct and sequential reasoning.

From the standpoint of expanding Israeli nuclear concerns, the following operations may be identified as essential but nonexclusive components of a nuclear 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 origins in 5th century BCE, 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. 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 military matters in particular. In these all-important matters, Israeli strategists will need to know how to ask and answer sequentially interrelated questions.

There is more. Generality is a trait of all serious strategic theory. Nonetheless, not just generality, but analytic “due diligence,” will also be required. Key arguments should be presented in their several intersecting parts and highlight multiple variants or nuances. To summarize and bring capable readers back to variously synthesizing nuclear “basics,” these are the relevant core arguments:

1. Israel needs nuclear weapons to deter large[17] conventional attacks by enemy states. The effectiveness of such Israeli nuclear deterrence will depend, inter alia, upon:  (a) perceived vulnerability of Israeli nuclear forces;   (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);[18]  (f) perceptions of Israel’s probable retaliatory response when there is an expectation of non-nuclear but chemical and/or biological[19]  counter-retaliations;[20]   (g) disclosure or continued nondisclosure of Israel’s nuclear arsenal;[21]  and (h) creation or non-creation of a Palestinian state.[22]   For all of the above, “perceived” refers to various adversarial views of 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 on (a) to (h) above. In this connection, Israel’s nuclear weapons are needed to deter enemy escalation 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 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 always remain non-nuclear), but only that they could be nuclear.[23]  Should Israel ever need to use its nuclear forces for such a purpose, it would signify the failure[24]  of these forces as a deterrent (per number 2, above). Such failure is increasingly plausible because of the problematic nature of nuclear deterrence in general and the Middle East in particular.[25]
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.[26] Without such weapons, Israel, having to rely entirely on non-nuclear forces, might not be able to deter enemy retaliations for the 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.[27] Without such weapons, Israel, having to rely entirely on non-nuclear forces, might not be able to deter enemy retaliations for the Israeli preemptive attack.
6. Israel needs nuclear weapons for nuclear warfighting. Although, in the best of all possible worlds, this need would never arise, and though Israel should avoid nuclear war fighting whenever possible, it cannot be discounted altogether. Even as the most manifestly unwelcome strategic option, it must 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 pertinent paths to nuclear warfighting include accidental/unintentional/inadvertent nuclear attacks among Israel and regional enemy states and even the escalatory consequences of nuclear terrorism against the Jewish State.[28]   As long as it can be assumed that Israel is determined to endure,[29] there are residual conditions 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 the “Samson Option.”[30]   Although any such use of nuclear weapons would be catastrophic, Israel could sometime reason that it needs to strengthen the “high end” of  its nuclear deterrence options. Such reasoning would be much more science-based than a doctrinal matter of Jewish honor or a refutation of “Masada thinking” (suicide without punishment[31] of the aggressor[32]). As an integral element of Israel’s nuclear deterrent, it could prove useful in preventing rather than fighting a nuclear war.[33] Accordingly, any actual resort to “Samson” weapons would signify the failure of all deterrence options (nuclear and non–nuclear) and the correlative failure of Israel’s nuclear weapons, doctrine and strategy to provide the state with essential national security.[34]

These are not simple military matters. There are foreseeable nuances and contradictions. If Israel should seek to reduce the perceived vulnerability of its nuclear forces by some intentionally detectable combination of multiplication/dispersion/hardening, enemy states like Iran could come to believe that Jerusalem is preparing for first-strike nuclear attacks. Such erroneous beliefs could be rendered more likely if Israel should simultaneously seek further reduced force vulnerabilities via appropriate forms of active and passive defenses.

Ironically, 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 “assured destruction” capability, Israel could create the impression that it is preparing to strike first.  Here, Israel’s attempts to convince enemy states such as Iran 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 and potentially intolerable risks.

If Israel’s enemies were to calculate that Jerusalem’s nuclear forces are vulnerable to first-strike attacks, they could then seek to exploit current but potentially transient Israeli weakness. Moreover, because a too great Israeli force vulnerability could encourage Israel to strike first, and because Israel’s enemies would understand this possible calculation, Israel’s enemies (most plausibly Iran) could discover compelling reasons to launch “preemptive” attacks.

Nuclear Deterrence Options

Among other conspicuous purposes, Israel needs its nuclear weapons to deter large conventional attacks and all levels of unconventional attack by enemy states.[35] The effectiveness of nuclear weapons in meeting these critical dissuasion needs could be limited and problematic.[36] Even if Jerusalem should move toward partial disclosure of its nuclear weapons and doctrine,[37]  Israel still could not reasonably rely upon nuclear deterrence for protracted or long-term survival.[38]

Aware of these core limitations, Israel should seek to strengthen its nuclear deterrence posture such that an enemy state like Iran would always calculate a first-strike upon the Jewish State to be irrational.  This means taking steps to convince the enemy state that the costs of such a strike would necessarily exceed the benefits. To accomplish this problematic objective, Israel should convince prospective attackers that it maintains both the willingness and the capacity to retaliate with nuclear weapons for certain high-intensity aggressions.

For such an existential obligation there could be no “ready-to-use” templates. Where an enemy state considering an attack upon Israel would be unconvinced about one or both of these components of nuclear deterrence, it could sometime choose to strike first, depending in part on the particular value or utility it assigns to the expected consequences of such an attack.

Regarding willingness,[39] even if Jerusalem were prepared to respond to certain high intensity attacks with nuclear reprisals, any enemy failure to actually recognize such preparedness could still provoke an attack upon Israel. 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 significant lack was being perceived correctly by authoritative enemy decision-makers. In this ironic case, Israeli nuclear deterrence would be immobilized not because of any “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 is essential that enemy states would believe these weapons to be usable.  This means, inter alia, that if a first-strike attack were believed capable of destroying Israel’s arsenal, the Jewish State’s nuclear deterrent would be immobilized.  Even if Israel’s nuclear weapons were configured such that they could not be destroyed by an enemy first-strike, adversarial misperceptions or misjudgments about Israeli vulnerability could still occasion the catastrophic failure of Israeli nuclear dissuasion.

A further complication could concern enemy state deployment of anti-tactical ballistic missile defenses, varied and multi-technology  deployments that could encourage pro-attack decisions against Israel by lowering the prospective attacker’s expected costs.[40]

The importance of “usable” nuclear weapons should also 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 deter. Contrary to the uninformed conventional wisdom on the subject, successful nuclear deterrence, to the extent possible, could vary inversely with perceived destructiveness.  It follows that Israeli nuclear deterrence will require not only secure second-strike forces, but also forces that could seemingly be used productively in war. To meet this requirement, Israel will have to begin to shift from “deliberate nuclear ambiguity” to “selective nuclear disclosure.”

Bringing the “Bomb” out of the “Basement”

No logic-based assessment of Israeli nuclear deterrence options could be complete without a systematic consideration of the “disclosure” issue.[41]  From the beginning, Israel’s nuclear bomb has been in the “basement.”[42]  For the future, however, it is hardly plausible that an undeclared nuclear deterrent would be continuously capable of meeting Jerusalem’s basic security goals or that it would be equal in effectiveness to a more openly-clarified nuclear deterrent.[43]

At very first glance, this issue could appear inconsequential.  Everyone, after all, already knows that Israel has “The Bomb.”  What, then, would be the purpose of belaboring the obvious?  Might not apparent “saber-rattling” prove injurious to Israel, provoking Iranian first-strike aggressions[44] that might not otherwise have been contemplated?[45]

To answer these questions, all must first understand that disclosure would never be intended to reveal the obvious, i.e., that Israel has the bomb, but rather to heighten enemy perceptions of Jerusalem’s capable nuclear forces and/or Israel’s willingness to use these forces in reprisal for certain specific (not necessarily nuclear) first-strike attacks.  What are the credible connections between an openly-declared nuclear weapons capacity and enemy perceptions of Israeli nuclear deterrence?  One such connection concerns the relation between disclosure and perceived vulnerability of Israel’s nuclear forces to preemptive destruction.[46]  Another focuses on the relationships between disclosure and perceived capacity of Israeli nuclear forces to penetrate an attacking state’s active defenses.[47]

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,[48]  incremental disclosure could represent a rational and prudent option. The operational benefits of such disclosure would derive from certain deliberate flows of information about dispersion, multiplication, hardening, speed, and evasiveness of nuclear weapons systems and from some other technical features of pertinent nuclear weapons.  Most importantly, these flows, which could also refer to C3I invulnerability and possible pre-delegations of launch authority, would serve to remove enemy doubts about Israel’s nuclear force capabilities. Such doubts, if left unchallenged, could \effectively undermine Israeli nuclear deterrence.

The credibility of Israel’s nuclear deterrent depends not only upon secure nuclear weapons, but also upon secure command/control/intelligence operations.  To reduce the risks of “decapitation,” Israel’s military planners must 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 (possibly relating to a “Samson Option” scenario.

Yet, as in all other aspects of nuclear weapons and military planning, there will be 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.

There is more. Significantly, Israel’s military planners must 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, thereby encouraging Israeli preemptions and, as a consequence, Iranian and/or Arab state “preemptions of Israeli preemption.”

Removing the bomb from Israel’s basement could also heighten enemy perceptions of the country’s willingness to make good on retaliatory threats. For example, by releasing information about its nuclear forces that identifies distinctly usable weapons, Israel might remove any doubts about Jerusalem’s nuclear resolve.  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 calculated disclosure, to believe Israel’s nuclear threats.

All this brings to mind the intricate connections between disclosure, doctrine, strategy 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 mightily to Israel’s nuclear deterrence.  Without such disclosure, Israel’s enemies will be kept guessing about Jerusalem’s probable responses, a condition of protracted uncertainty that could 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?[49]

Although 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”[50]  – 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 carefully as enemy unconventional threats become more ominous.

In looking over nuclear weapons and nuclear deterrence, Israeli planners must always pay close attention to the complicating assumption of rationality.   Assessments of Israeli nuclear deterrence always assume a rational state enemy. But this assumption of rationality is inherently problematic.[51]  Similar questions are now being raised in Washington with regard to Vladimir Putin’s nuclear threats against the United States.[52] What is the Russian president likely thinking? Putin plainly understands that any Russian first use of nuclear weapons against American military forces or civilian assets would elicit broadly catastrophic American nuclear retaliations. And if he is playing the game of “pretended irrationality” with current US President Joe Biden, “success” could conceivably enlarge the prospects for an American escalation.

There is no compelling reason to assume that prospective attackers of the Israeli State would always choose deliberately among all possible options and according to assiduously fashioned comparisons of expected costs and expected benefits.  As long as such enemies are increasingly capable of launching WMD missile attacks upon Israel, and so long as Jerusalem is unable to intercept these attacks with near-perfect or possibly even perfect reliability,[53]  this means that Israeli dependence upon nuclear deterrence could sometime have catastrophic consequences.

Quo Vadis?  Where does Israel go from here?  Barring the increasingly prospect of any successful “Peace Process” with the Palestinians and Iran (the two core problem sources are plausibly intersecting), Jerusalem must seek security beyond protections afforded by nuclear deterrence.  Israel –  without in any way diminishing its essential effort to confront enemy states with nuclear weapons capacity and resolve  –  must also prepare appropriately for certain preemptive[54]  attacks against pertinent hard targets.[55]   Most important among these prospective hard targets would be unconventional missile capabilities and certain associated infrastructures.

Preemption Options

 

Israel needs its nuclear weapons to undertake and/or support various forms of preemption.  In making its preemption decisions, Israel must determine whether such defensive strikes, known jurisprudentially as expressions of anticipatory self-defense,[56]  would be tactically cost-effective.  This would depend upon 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 (anti-tactical ballistic missile developments);  (e) expected efficiency of Israeli active defenses over time;[57]   (f) expected efficiency of Israeli hard-target counterforce operations over time;  (g) expected reactions of unaffected regional enemies;  and  (h) expected U.S. and world community reactions to Israeli preemptions.

Regarding preemption options, Israel’s overall question must be as follows:  As Jerusalem must 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 only add to their chemical/biological/nuclear arsenals and that these additions will make effective Israeli preemptions more and more difficult, if not altogether impossible, rational Israeli strategy would seemingly compel Jerusalem to strike defensively as soon as possible. If, however, it was assumed that there would be no significant enlargement/deployment of enemy unconventional weapons over time, this could suggest a diminished 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 ATBM operations.[58]

Israel’s inclinations to strike preemptively, in certain circumstances, could be affected by steps taken by prospective target states to guard against an Israeli preemption.  Should Israel refrain too long from striking first, enemy states could then implement protective measures that would pose additional hazards to Israel.  These measures could include the attachment of “hair trigger” launch mechanisms to nuclear weapon systems, and/or the adoption of “launch-on-warning” policies,[59]  possibly coupled with a pre-delegation of launch authority.

Optimally, Israel would do everything possible to prevent such measures from being installed in the first place, especially because of the expanded risks of accidental or unauthorized attacks against its armaments and population centers.[60]   Yet, if such measures should become a fait accompli, Jerusalem might still calculate that a preemptive strike would be 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 Israeli judgments on the 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 enemy leaders understood that Israel had “successfully” deployed its own nuclear weapons in survivable modes, that Israel’s weapons were entirely capable of penetrating enemy active defenses, and that 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/prevention could become an existential obligation; the only real policy questions would center on specific tactical matters of timing, targeting and ordnance. The initial judgments concerning enemy definitions of “unacceptable damage” would have to be made with great care. There could be no room for Israeli error on this critical judgment.

Even if it is not faced with an irrational enemy, Israel will have to plan carefully for assorted preemption options, planning that must take into account the country’s own nuclear weapons.  In the course of such planning, it will be important to recognize that enemy capabilities and intentions are not separate or discrete considerations, but interpenetrating, interdependent, and interactive.  This means: (1) capabilities affect intentions, and vice-versa; and (2) the combined effects of capabilities and intentions may be synergistic, producing policy outcomes that are greatly accelerated, and/or are more than the simple sum of these effects.

What are particular dangers from Iran?

Whether correct or incorrect in its particular calculations, an Iranian leadership that believes it could strike Israel with impunity, near-impunity or without incurring what it would define as unacceptable costs, could sometime be motivated to undertake such a strike.  Any such motivation could be heightened to the extent that Iran would remain uncertain about Israel’s own preemption plans. Therefore, Iranian capabilities could affect and possibly determine Iranian intentions.

Such circumstances now warrant careful attention in Jerusalem.[61]

The most complex relationships between Iranian capabilities and intentions concern synergy.  The issue is not whether, or to what extent, one threat component affects the other, but instead, 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 Iranian “bolt from the blue” attack against Israel launched only because of the interactive way in which capabilities and intentions “feed” upon each other.  An example of (b) would be any Iranian attack against Israel –  bolt from the blue or product of escalation, conventional or unconventional –  that would not otherwise have taken place.

Earlier, following the Israel-weakening Oslo Agreements,[62] Israel’s inclination to preempt enemy Iranian aggression had likely diminished. After all, almost the entire global community would have frowned upon any such preemption in the midst of an allegedly well-intentioned search for peace in the region. Now, if assorted remnants of the “Peace Process” should manage to produce a Palestinian State,[63] the effects on Iranian capabilities and intentions and therefore on Israeli preemption options would be significant. Among other things, Israel’s substantial loss of strategic depth could be recognized by Tehran and other prospective enemy states as a game-changing military liability for Jerusalem.[64]  Such recognition, in turn, could heat up enemy intentions against Israel, occasioning an accelerated search for new capabilities and an incrementally heightened risk of major war.

What happens then? Israel could foresee such enemy calculations and 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, but this still might not be enough of a productive strategy. Israel 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 doctrine.

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 for possible first-strike attacks against Israel.

In this scenario, pertinent relationships between capabilities, intentions, and preemption options would be made manifest not only within Israel and relevant adversaries, but also between Israel and these states. Such relationships, too, could become authentically synergistic, thereby generating con tenuously ominous cycles of escalation, some with unintended but potentially catastrophic consequences.

A Palestinian state, even if considered by itself, 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 more substantial. This particular scenario should not be dismissed out of hand.  In world politics and Jewish history, almost anything is possible.

What would happen if Israel were ever willing to relinquish its nuclear options by acceding to the Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) as a non-nuclear weapon state and simultaneously accept a Palestinian state?[65] Under such hard-to-imagine circumstances,[66]  Israel would not only be more vulnerable to enemy first-strikes, it would also be deprived of its residual preemption options. This is the case, prima facie, 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 enemy unconventional forces.

A less than 100% level of effectiveness could be tolerable if Israel had a near-perfect ATBM (anti-tactical ballistic missile) capability, but such an exacting capability is essentially inconceivable.

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, then, an important intranational (within Israel) interaction between NPT expectations upon 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.  These synergies, in turn, could impair regional or even world security, affecting the capabilities and intentions of other pertinent states, and revealing, in effect, 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.[67]   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 become more likely to strike-first itself.

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

Nuclear Warfighting Options

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.[68]

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,[69] 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.[70]  For Israel, a state that likely yearns for peace and security more than any other state in this “neighborhood” –  a state born out of the ashes of humankind’s most terrible crime –  genocide looms both as a Jewish memory and as a possible expectation.

The Samson Option

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, as any actual resort to a Samson Option would indicate the failure of all other security functions.  Still, more-or-less conspicuous Israeli preparations for certain last resort operations could play a productive role in enhancing Israeli nuclear deterrence, preemption and war fighting options. In essence, a Samson Option is the reciprocal of expressly low-yield nuclear options that lie at the opposite end of Israel’s nuclear warfare spectrum. Taken as a whole, these continuous options (low-yield, short-range to high-yield, long-range) can provide Israel with a nuanced or rationally-calibrated nuclear deterrent.

There is more. Regarding prospective contributions to Israeli nuclear deterrence, preparations for a Samson Option could help convince would-be attackers that any massive aggressions would not prove gainful. This is especially the case if pertinent Israeli preparations were coupled with some clarifying level of disclosure, if Israel’s Samson weapons appeared sufficiently invulnerable to enemy first-strikes and if these nuclear weapons were identifiably counter value in mission function.[71]

In view of what strategists sometimes call the “rationality of pretended irrationality,” Samson could assist Israeli nuclear deterrence by demonstrating a determined willingness to take existential risks, but this would hold true only if Israel’s related options were not tied by definition to certain destruction. More precisely, Israel’s would not want Iran or other relevant state enemy to presume that Israel’s “Samson” calculations were drawn directly from the Biblical (Book of Judges) example. Far better that an ill-intending adversary fully understand that a “Samson threat” would not generally signify any Israeli expectations of a “final battle.”

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, upon antecedent Israeli decisions on disclosure, on Israeli perceptions of the effects of disclosure on enemy retaliatory prospects, on Israeli judgments about enemy perceptions of Samson weapons vulnerability and on an enemy awareness of Samson’s counter value force posture.  As in cases of Samson and Israeli nuclear deterrence, presumptively last-resort preparations could assist Israeli preemption options by displaying a willingness to take existential risks.  But Israeli planners should remain mindful here of pretended irrationality as a double-edged sword. Brandished “too irrationally,” Israeli preparations for a Samson Option could encourage Iranian/enemy state preemptions.

There is more. 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 a communication, evident preparations for a Samson Option could effectively impair rather than reinforce Israel’s limited nuclear war fighting options.

How Nuclear War Might Begin for Israel

Further particulars should be outlined. How might Israel actually become involved in a 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

If Israel should 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. Although circumstances could arise wherein such a strike would be technically rational and ascertainably legal,[72] it is unlikely that Israel would ever 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 patently serious violation of binding international rules.[73]

Expectedly, even if such consistency were possible, the psychological/political impact on the world community would be negative and far-reaching. This means, among other things, that an Israeli nuclear preemption could be expected only where (a) Israel’s state enemy/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.[74]

(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 Iranian 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, the Samson Option and even nuclear war fighting options.  Under no circumstances should Israel’s nuclear weapons ever be negotiated.

Optimally, Israel’s particular nuclear weapons choices should be made in cumulative conformance with the seven (7) explicit options that have been discussed, above, and more broadly, with the ever-changing geostrategic context of regional and world power configurations.  In the final analysis, regrettable as it may appear, the penultimate structure of Israeli security will need to be built upon foundations of national nuclear weapons, not on “nonproliferation,” “nuclear weapon free zones,” “security regimes,” or “confidence building measures.”[75]

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 upon Israel’s loss of the latter, these decision-makers would be positioned to take appropriately remedial actions.

Membership in the United Nations is not a suicide pact. No body of the world organization can ever require any of 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. In short, for a beleaguered state that is smaller than America’s Lake Michigan, a secure and credible nuclear deterrent remains non-negotiable.

When Pericles delivered his prescient Funeral Oration during the Peloponnesian War (431-404 BCE), he expressed confidence in an ultimate victory for Athens, but also a 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 is still 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 must never place in jeopardy its foundational nuclear infrastructures and strategies.

Si vis pacem, para bellum atomicum.

In the final analysis, even nuclear weapons and doctrine will not safeguard Israel. To be sure, 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 vision will have to be founded upon immutable principles of global interrelatedness and human “oneness.”[76]

In The End?

The first time that an Israeli leader could have to face an authentic nuclear crisis, one in which each side would simultaneously seek “escalation dominance” while avoiding a nuclear war, his/her response should flow seamlessly from a broad and previously calibrated strategic doctrine. It follows that prospective Israeli 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[77] nature of our “world order  problem.”[78] Even in chaos there would be some decipherable order.

Any planetary system of law and power management that seeks to avoid nuclear war should recognize a significantly underlying axiom: As egregious crimes under international law, war and genocide need not be mutually exclusive. On the contrary, as one may learn from ancient and modern history, war could sometimes be undertaken as an “efficient” manner of national, ethnical, racial or religious annihilation. When the war in question is a nuclear one, the argument would become unassailable.

Global restructuring must ultimately go beyond narrowly military forms of survival. At stake is not “just” the palpable survival of particular 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.

The only reasonable use for nuclear weapons will be as controlled elements of dissuasion, and never as actual weapons of war. The underlying principles of such a 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 such residually high hopes for the Middle East would be without intellectual foundation.

Immediately, to whatever extent possible, Israeli leaders should make all appropriate nuclear-related preparations. In carrying out this responsibility, special attention should be given to systematic scenarios of inadvertent nuclear war, narratives pertaining to accidental nuclear conflict and also to nuclear war as the result of miscalculation. Though prospects for deliberate nuclear war ought never to be downplayed – preparations for credible nuclear deterrence should be continuously maintained at highest possible levels – it is nuclear war by inadvertence that now warrants exceptional attention.

Following the US-brokered Abraham Accords, many strategists and planners in Jerusalem/Tel Aviv seemingly believed that nuclear war risks had been reduced. Upon informed analytic reflection, however, it should have become apparent that these politically-contrived agreements only “made peace” with states that were never really “at war” with Israel. At the same time, in Iran, the Accords were viewed as an ominous alliance between the Jewish State and Iran‘s Sunni Arab foes.[79]

“Everything is simple in war,” says Karl von Clausewitz in On War, “but even the simplest thing is difficult.” After devastating but inconclusive Gaza War outcomes, the issue of Palestinian statehood will remain diplomatically front and center. In this resurgent issue, Iran is sometime apt to find its military forces engaged directly with forces of Israel, a circumstance that could occasion an Israeli escalation to measured nuclear threats.

“What I fear more than the strategies of our enemies,” warned Pericles during the Peloponnesian War in ancient Greece, “is our own mistakes.” In the end, even a meticulously refined configuration of nuclear weapons, strategy and doctrine could contain too many consequential “mistakes.”  Though an ever-growing regional and worldwide chaos will make Israeli nuclear calculations exceedingly difficult, even in chaos there can be a discernible order. There are ways of conceptualizing or representing chaos that would not be negative for Israel’s survival.

Whether it is described in the Old Testament or 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 discoverable etymology reveals, chaos can represent the yawning gulf or gap wherein nothing is as yet, but where all civilizational possibility must originate.

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 that it was presumed to be anything but starkly random or without merit. It follows that for Israeli strategic planners, chaos need not necessarily be considered baneful.

For Israel, the Gaza War is merely the tip of a much larger “iceberg.” Though the underlying elements of danger – whether from state, sub-state or “hybrid” foes – could be multiplied or magnified by chaos, even such primal circumstances could have a determinable order. Going forward, the task for Israeli theoreticians and planners will be to identify exactly what in this order is “taking its course” and proceed with correspondingly appropriate transformations of national nuclear doctrine and strategy.

To guide this transformation, at least in part, theoreticians and planners will need to bear continuously in mind the jihadist search for “martyrdom.” This irrational search for “power over death” could animate jihadist violence by both individual terrorists and sovereign state adversaries.[80] On the jihadist threats posed by state adversaries, there could be no greater existential peril for Israel than a new state of  “Palestine.”[81]

NOTES

[1] Fin de Partie was first performed at the Royal Court Theatre in London on April 3, 1957.

[2] Explicit applications of the law of war to insurgent combatants’ dates to the four Geneva Conventions of 1949. As more than codified treaties and conventions comprise the law of war, the obligations of jus in bello (justice in war) are also part of “the general principles of law recognized by civilized nations” (from Art. 38 of the Statute of the International Court of Justice) and thereby bind all categories of belligerents. (See Statute of the International Court of Justice, art. 38, June 29, 1945, 59 Stat. 1031, T.S. 993).  Further, Hague Convention IV of 1907 declares that even in the absence of a precisely published set of guidelines regarding “unforeseen cases,” the operative pre-conventional sources of humanitarian international law obtain and still govern all belligerency. The related Martens Clause is included in the Preamble of the 1899 Hague Conventions, International Convention with Respect to the Laws and Customs of War by Land, July 29, 1899, 187 Consol. T.S. 429, 430.

[3] This probability is “presumptive” because it concerns an unprecedented or unique event, one that would be described in formal logic as sui generis. True probabilities, Israeli strategic thinkers should continuously bear in mind, must always be based upon the determinable frequency of pertinent past events. When there are no such events, as is the  ase with a nuclear war, there are no meaningfully ascertainable odds.

[4] “Military doctrine” is not the same as “military strategy.” Doctrine “sets the stage” for strategy. It identifies various central beliefs that must subsequently animate any actual “order of battle.” Among other things, military doctrine describes underlying general principles on how a particular war ought to be waged. The reciprocal task for military strategy 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.

[5] 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).

[6] 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/

[7] These agreements and the two complementary agreements (above) with both Sudan and Morocco did little more than codify non-aggression assurances from Sunni Arab states that had never been true adversaries of Israel. Prima facie, the agreements’ sole rationale was for domestic political consumption in the United States and Israel. Arguably, all the pertinent agreements are a net-negative for Israel because they have the effect of further exacerbating Israeli and Sunni Arab relations with Shiite Iran.

[8] On the  general value of Israel’s nuclear weapons and posture,, see debate between this author (Louis René Beres ) and Zeev Ma’oz at International Security, Harvard University, Belfer Center:  https://www.belfercenter.org/publication/correspondence-israel-and-bomb

[9] 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 grun des Lebens goldner Baum.)

[10] See by this writer: Louis René Beres,  https://besacenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/814-Israels-Nuclear-and-Conventional-Deterrence-Beres-final.pdf

[11] Rabbi Eleazar quoted Rabbi Hanina, who said: “Scholars build the structure of peace in the world.” See: Babylonian Talmud, Order Zera’im, Tractate Berakoth, IX.

[12] The need for generality notwithstanding, strategic thinkers should seek never to lose sight of pertinent human consequences. 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 individual human element of any pertinent 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 grun des Lebens goldner Baum.”)

[13] 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/

[14] 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/ret.) served as Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Strategic Air Command (CINCSAC).

[15] 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

[16]  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).

[17] 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.”

[18] 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 prima facie unlawful.  Yet, as a practical matter, it could reduce the incentives to preempt in unstable circumstances, thereby actually reducing the prospect of catastrophic war.

[19] 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.

[20] 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.

[21] 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.

[22] Some current Israeli supporters of a Palestinian state argue that its prospective harms to Israel could be reduced or even eliminated by ensuring that state’s immediate “demilitarization.” For earlier reasoning against this naive argument, see: Louis René Beres and (Ambassador) Zalman Shoval, “Why a Demilitarized Palestinian State Would Not Remain Demilitarized: A View Under International Law,” Temple International and Comparative Law Journal, Winter 1998, pp. 347-363; and Louis René Beres and Ambassador Shoval, “On Demilitarizing a Palestinian `Entity’ and the Golan Heights: An International Law Perspective,” Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law, Vo. 28., No.5., November 1995, pp. 959-972. 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.

[23] 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, and of 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.

[24] 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 rather than dichotomous.

[25] 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 and/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.

[26] Israel’s nuclear counter-retaliatory threat could conceivably be diminished by certain enemy threats of unacceptably damaging counter-counter-retaliations.  There is an infinite regress process at work here, one that is confusing and bothersome to consider, but its annoying complexity in escalatory dynamics does not in any way rule out its relevance.

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

[28] 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.

[29] On the universal will to national self-preservation, see Thomas Jefferson, Opinion on the French Treaties (April 28, 1793): “The nation itself, bound necessarily to whatever it’s preservation and safety require, cannot enter into engagements contrary to its indispensable obligations.” See: Merrill D. Peterson, The Political Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Monticello Monograph Series, Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation, 1993, p. 115.

[30] 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, though distorted by Hersh, can be analytically useful when suitably examined by honest and capablee scholars.

[31] Punishment of aggression is a firm expectation of international law.  The peremptory principle of Nullum Crimen sine poena, “No crime without a punishment,” has its origins in the Code of Hammurabi (c. 1728 – 1686 B.C.E.); the Laws of Eshnunna (c. 2000 B.C.E.); the even earlier Code of Ur-Nammu (c. 2100 B.C.E.) and the law of exact retaliation, or Lex Talionis, presented in three separate passages of the Torah.

[32] For authoritative legal meanings of “aggression,” see especially: RESOLUTION ON THE DEFINITION OF AGGRESSION, Dec. 14, 1974, U.N.G.A. Res. 3314 (XXIX), 29 U.N. GAOR, Supp. (No. 31) 142, U.N. Doc. A/9631, 1975, reprinted in 13 I.L.M. 710, 1974; and CHARTER OF THE UNITED NATIONS, Art. 51. Done at San Francisco, June 26, 1945. Entered into force for the United States, Oct. 24, 1945, 59 Stat. 1031, T.S. No. 993, Bevans 1153, 1976, Y.B.U.N. 1043.

[33] For example, as discussed by political scientist Robert Harkavy in an early book edited by this writer, one rationale for Israeli nuclear weapons is as “a `last resort’ counter cities deterrent – in the face of conventional warfare defeat, and of the overrunning and possible wholesale massacre of the Israeli homeland and population.”  See Harkavy’s “The Imperative to Survive,” in Louis René Beres, SECURITY OR ARMAGEDDON: ISRAEL’S NUCLEAR STRATEGY (Lexington MA:  Lexington Books, 1986), p. 106.  Significantly, Harkavy was one of the important “pioneers” of this genre.  See especially his SPECTRE OF A MIDDLE EASTERN HOLOCAUST: THE STRATEGIC AND DIPLOMATIC IMPLICATIONS OF THE ISRAELI NUCLEAR WEAPONS PROGRAM, Monograph Series in World Affairs (Denver: University of Denver Press, 1977).

[34] Nonetheless, preparations for a Samson Option could be inherently productive and should be considered conceptually distinct from any actual resort to such nuclear weapons use.

[35] Normally, strategic planners, examining the requirements of nuclear deterrence, distinguish sharply between conventional and unconventional attacks. Today, however, such a sharp dichotomy could be misleading and counterproductive.  Plausibly, the most serious large conventional attacks would be launched against Israel only by enemy states with a conspicuous backup of unconventional (prospectively even nuclear) forces. Still, as we may infer from recent Iranian attacks upon an already nuclear Pakistan, a powerful non-nuclear state could still judge an attack against a nuclear state to be gainful or cost-effective.

[36] The Clausewitzian concept of “friction” references the unpredictable effects of errors in knowledge and information concerning strategic uncertainties; under-estimations or over-estimations of relative power position; and 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.

[37] See earlier, 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.

[38] 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 “Cold War II” would be even more problematic.  With an expanding number of nuclear states, 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.

[39] 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).

[40] The “flip side” of this calculation is the effect of Israel’s own active defense system.  Should a would-be attacker believe Israel’s variously 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.

[41] On the issue of Israel’s nuclear ambiguity, or “amimut,” see earlier, 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.

[42] Earlier, by this author, see: Louis René Beres, “Changing Direction? Updating Israel’s Nuclear Doctrine,” INSS, Israel, Strategic Assessment, Vol. 17, No.3., October 2014, pp. 93-106. See also: Louis René Beres, Looking Ahead: Revising Israel’s Nuclear Ambiguity in the Middle East, Herzliya Conference Policy Paper, Herzliya Conference, March 11-14, 2013 (Herzliya, Israel); Louis René Beres and Leon “Bud” Edney, Admiral  (USN/ret.) “Facing a Nuclear Iran, Israel Must Rethink its Nuclear Ambiguity,” U.S. News & World Report, February 11, 2013; 3pp; and Professor Louis René Beres and Admiral Leon “Bud” Edney,  “Reconsidering Israel’s Nuclear Posture,” The Jerusalem Post, October 14, 2013. Admiral Edney served as NATO Supreme Allied Commander, Atlantic (SACLANT).

[43] Israeli planners will also want to consider certain plausible linkages between selective nuclear disclosure and alternative preemption options.  For example, if it is assumed that such disclosure would enhance Israeli nuclear deterrence, recourse to a preemption option would likely be diminished.  As creation of a Palestinian state could encourage Israeli abandonment of “deliberate nuclear ambiguity,” 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 territorial concessions.

[44] Though such Iranian aggressions would not yet be nuclear, even massive conventional (including chemical/biological) attacks could emetine elicit Israeli nuclear retaliations.

[45] 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.

[46] On Israeli sea-basing of nuclear weapons (submarines), see 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).

[47] For now, Israeli nuclear forces could surely penetrate the active defenses of any enemy attacker after the Jewish State 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 an Israeli reprisal.  This second prospect is itself dependent, in part, upon Israel’s developing ATBM capabilities, and upon Israel’s configuration of nuclear retaliatory forces. There is a synergistic relationship between Israeli/Arab/Iranian ATBM developments, one that constantly increases arms race momentum, both defensive and offensive.  This interactive relationship suggests perpetual instability, and reveals another reason why Israeli security should ultimately be founded upon more than the inherently fragile dynamics of nuclear deterrence.

[48] 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 ATBM agreement could prevent or slow down such offensive developments (by initiating a moratorium or outright cessation of active defense measures), but – as a practical matter – it would stand no chance of success.  Recognizing uncertainty and distrust as givens in the Middle East strategic equations, Jerusalem has little choice but to continue with its multilayered active defenses, and with its corollary search for hard-target kill capabilities.  At the same time, aware that successful active defense will require a near-perfect interception capability (because even a single unintercepted nuclear warhead could produce unacceptable damage), and that such capability is impossible to achieve, Israel could have no choice but to maintain and prepare tactically for certain residual preemption options.

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

[50] 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 the latest 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 coupled with selective nuclear disclosure, could enhance Israeli national security) earlier 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.

[51] 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).

[52]     See: https://cis.mit.edu/publications/analysis-opinion/2022/what-putin%E2%80%99s-nuclear-threats-mean-us

[53] In certain worst-case scenarios, Israeli active defense deployments could sometime become little more than a refashioned Bar-Lev line, thus encouraging false reassurances on national security and providing little meaningful soft-target protection.  For earlier 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.

[54] Jurisprudentially, there is an important distinction between preemptive attacks and preventive attacks.  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 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 the fact that delaying a defensive strike until imminence is plausible could be fatal.  It follows, in the strictest sense of international law, that my discussion of preemption may sometimes come closer to the meaning of prevention.

[55] Contrary to conventional wisdom, both nuclear deterrence and associated forms of nuclear strategy, including preemption, can support the expectations of authoritative 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 should be considered an authentic component of international law enforcement.

[56] 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.

[57] Here, efficiency must be measured in terms of population protection as well as retaliatory force protection.  In principle, at least, systems such as Arrow can be configured to protect civilian populations as well as forces or infrastructures.

[58] There may be no ongoing effort to examine a uniquely 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 substantial faith in various deployed forms of ballistic missile defense, they may be increasingly willing to forego the preemption option.

[59] 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.

[60] 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 about thresholds of attack above which enemy decision-makers would opt for a prompt launch.  Even if well-defined thresholds were known to Israeli leaders (this assumes, of course, the antecedent premise that enemy decision-makers had advanced such authoritative definitions), they could still be low enough to become destabilizing.

[61] A portion of the Islamic world’s genocidal intentions against “Jewish occupiers” predates the creation of Israel 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.

[62] 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.

[63] 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. More recently, see Louis Rene Beres and (Ambassador) Zalman Shoval, “For Israel, a `Two-State Solution’ Would be a Final Solution,” JURIST, January 2024.

[64] Much has been written on the question 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.

[65] 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.

[66] In principle, similar circumstances might be occasioned by Israeli adherence to a nuclear-weapons-free-zone arrangement for the Middle East.  For Israel, however, such a zonal agreement could 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 become subject to massive conventional and/or chemical/biological first-strikes.  At worst, an enemy state such as Iran 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 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 (PM Sharon).

[67] 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 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 and to 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.

[68] 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).

[69] Israeli preparations for nuclear war fighting should be conceived not as a distinct alternative to nuclear deterrence, but as essential and potentially integral components of nuclear deterrence.  Some years ago, 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.  Extrapolating from these arguments (linking nuclear war fighting capabilities to stable nuclear deterrence) to the current Israeli case, Israel’s military planners 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 degrade Israel’s security?  Moreover, as Israel’s counterforce-targeted nuclear weapons conform to nuclear war fighting doctrines of deterrence, would these doctrines produce substantially less damage to state enemies than would counter value attacks? Wouldn’t these weapons have a significantly reduced deterrent effect?  These are difficult questions that need to be asked, again and again, not because Israel should 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 pertinent needs of nuclear deterrence and the theoretically possible needs of a nuclear engagement.

[70] This brings to mind assorted intersections between Israel’s nuclear strategy and UIS national Security. See Louis René Beres (with Postscript by General USA/ret. 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

[71] By definition, a Samson Option would be executed with counter value-targeted nuclear weapons.  Reasonably, therefore, Israeli “last-resort operations” could come into play only after all available counterforce options had already been exhausted.

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

[73] This is not necessarily the case, however, 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/

[74] On non-nuclear or conventional preemptions by Israel, see Menachem Begin Heritage Center, Israel’s Strike Against the Iraqi Nuclear Reactor 7 June 1981, a collection of original articles and lectures by Yitzhak Shamir, Rafael Eitan, David Ivri, Yaakov Amidror, Yuval Ne’eman, Yoash Tsiddon-Chatto, and Louis René Beres. See also: Louis René Beres and COL. (IDF/ret.) Yoash Tsiddon-Chatto, “Reconsidering Israel’s Destruction of Iraq’s Osiraq Nuclear Reactor,” 9 Temple International and Comparative Law Journal, 437 (1995). COL. Tsiddon-Chatto was a Chief of Planning for the Israel Air Force, and a member of Professor Louis René Beres’ Project Daniel (PM Sharon/2003).

[75] 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 cooperative system of law-based power management. On such essential transformations by this author, see Louis René Beres, articles at Oxford Annual Yearbook of International Law and Jurisprudence, Oxford University Press, 2021, 2022 and 2023 editions.

[76] 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/ret.) served as Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Strategic Air Command (CINCSAC).

[77] “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).

[78] “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.

[79] A Salafi/Deobandi (Sunni) Crescent has emerged to challenge the Shiite Crescent. The objective is an attempt by Al Qaeda and other Salafi/Deobandi Islamist groups to counter the Crescent created by Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. The fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban might suggest growing Salafi/Deobandi power vis-à-vis Israel, Iran and the United States.

[80] “I believe,” says Oswald Spengler in his still magisterial The Decline of the West (1918), “is the one great word against metaphysical fear.”

[81] See, recently at JURIST, by Professor Beres and Ambassador Shoval: https://www.jurist.org/commentary/2024/01/for-israel-a-two-state-solution-would-be-a-final-solution/