PROFESSOR LOUIS RENE BERES: “PALESTINE.”IRAN, AND ISRAEL’S NUCLEAR STRATEGY
“PALESTINE,†IRAN, AND ISRAEL’S NUCLEAR STRATEGY
Critical Notes for a New Strategic Dialectic[1]
Louis René Beres
Professor of International Law Department of Political Science
Purdue University West Lafayette, IN 47907
“For By Wise Counsel, Thou Shalt Make Thy Warâ€
Proverbs 24, 6
In the always-arcane discourse of nuclear strategy, dialectical thinking is a “net.†Only those who cast, will catch. To calculate Israel’s best strategic options in the months and years ahead, therefore, the capable strategist must continue to ask and answer difficult questions; persistently, patiently, and above all, systematically. Only by drawing together, seamlessly, this complex body of queries and replies, can the serious strategist ever hope for a coherent and comprehensive body of military and diplomatic theory – a strategic master plan from which particular policies and decisions can be suitably extracted. The only alternative is the usual patchwork quilt of journalistic or reportorial “explanation,†an arbitrary mélange of more or less disjointed information and factoids lacking even the rudiments of predictive thought. Now, more than ever, Israel needs “wise counsel,†and this can only be provided by those who have first learned how to think.
Following the still-twisting cartography of his Middle East Road Map, President Barack Obama remains determined to midwife the birth of a twenty-third Arab state. Ironically, this certain-to-be fragmented and radically unstable country called “Palestine†would promptly become a bitter and irreconcilable enemy of the United States.
There is a further irony. Despite Mr. Obama’s particularly broad and plainly generic dislike of nuclear weapons – a dislike based much more on visceral emotion and clichéd “wisdom†than on dialectical logic or considered reason – any American-assisted birth of “Palestine” would substantially enlarge regional and worldwide risks of nuclear war and nuclear terrorism. It follows that before any such birth could be performed, a gravedigger would have to wield the forceps.
Prime Minister Netanyahu should strongly oppose all forms of Palestinian statehood. This opposition, moreover, should include even his own earlier-proposed “demilitarized” Palestinian state. Disingenuous even to his allies, this idealized Israeli proposal for bilateral coexistence with “Palestine” has stood no chance of success from the start. Inevitably, the new Palestinian government, supported by both codified and customary international law, would correctly assert its “inherent” right to national armed forces for “self defense.” Palestine, after all, would be a sovereign state.
It is possible, of course, going forward, that crude and subtle pressures from Washington to accept Palestine could prove geopolitically irresistible to Mr. Netanyahu. A basic question thus presents itself: In such threatening circumstances, what should be Israel’s operational and doctrinal response? One possible answer would concern Israel’s nuclear strategy, especially the so-called “Samson Option.”
On its face, a Palestinian state should have no direct bearing on Israel’s nuclear posture. Yet, although non-nuclear itself, Palestine could still critically impair Israel’s indispensable capacity to wage essential forms of conventional war. In turn, this impairment could enlarge the Jewish State’s incentive to rely on unconventional weapons in certain assorted and dangerous strategic circumstances.
Significantly, a primary cause of any such impairment is apt to be the current and ongoing training of Palestinian Authority “security forces” by the United States. Presently underway in Jordan, this flagrantly self-defeating military program, initiated under former President George W. Bush, and commanded by U.S. Lt. General Keith Dayton, would contribute mightily to any post-state aggression by Palestinian fighters determined to destroy Israel.
Credo quia absurdum. “I believe because it is absurd.†America is now creating conditions on the ground in which designated IDF units, in any post-Palestinian independence Middle East, would have to fight desperately against Fatah elements who had been trained by the United States. With this incomprehensible program, we are arming and preparing the next generation of anti-U.S. and anti-Israel terrorists.
Credo quia absurdum. The guiding U.S. presumption is that these Fatah elements are relatively “moderate.†An equally foolish and similar U.S. presumption is that there are now identifiably “moderate†elements functioning within the terrorist-organization, Hezbollah. Extending erroneous American strategic thinking to Lebanon, this curious idea has been expressed on several occasions by John Brennan, Advisor for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism to President Obama.
What is Israel to do? Confronting a new enemy Arab state that could act collaboratively and capably (thanks to the U.S.) with other Arab states, or possibly even with non-Arab Iran, and also potentially serious synergies between the birth of Palestine and renewed terrorism from Lebanon, Israel could feel itself compelled to bring hitherto clandestine elements of its “ambiguous” nuclear strategy into the light of day. Here, leaving the “bomb in the basement” would no longer make strategic sense. For Israel, of course, the geostrategic rationale for some level of nuclear disclosure would not lie in stating the obvious (merely that Israel has the bomb), but rather, inter alia, to persuade all prospective attackers that Israel’s nuclear weapons are both usable/secure, and penetration-capable.
Palestine, too, even if it would not actively seek collaboration with other Arab or Islamic countries, could still be exploited militarily and geographically against Israel by different regional enemies of the Jewish State. Iran and Syria, of course, represent the most obvious candidates to carry out any such exploitations. During May 2010, Iran reportedly transferred an undetermined number of Scud missiles to Syria. And in Damascus, plans are already being made to smuggle these Scuds into northern Lebanon, from where they could then strike any major city in Israel. According to Major General Paul E. Vallely (USA/Ret.), various Iranian proxies are certain to launch these missiles sometime during the summer of 2010.
Israel’s core nuclear strategy, however secret and ambiguous, must always remain oriented toward deterrence. The Samson Option refers to a presumed Israeli policy that is necessarily based upon an implicit threat of massive nuclear retaliation for certain specific enemy aggressions. This policy, to be sure, could be invoked credibly only where such aggressions would threaten Israel’s very existence. For anticipated lesser harms, Samson threats would likely not appear believable.
In Jerusalem/Tel-Aviv, the main point of any Samson Option would not be to communicate the availability of any graduated Israeli nuclear deterrent; that is, a deterrent (resembling what was once called “flexible response” in the U.S.) in which all possible reprisals would be more or less specifically calibrated to different and determinable levels of enemy aggression. Rather, it would intend to signal the more-or-less unstated promise of a counter city (“counter value” in military parlance) reprisal.
The Samson Option, then, would be unlikely to deter any aggressions short of nuclear and/or certain biological first strike attacks upon the Jewish State.
In essence, Samson would “say” the following to all potential attackers: “We (Israel) may have to ‘die,’ but, this time, we don’t intend to die alone.”
A Samson Option could serve Israel better as an adjunct to particular deterrence and preemption options than as a core nuclear strategy. The Samson Option, therefore, should never be confused with Israel’s main security objective. This core objective must always be to seek effective deterrence at the lowest possible levels of conflict.
To suitably strengthen Israeli nuclear deterrence, visible preparations for a Samson Option could help to convince enemy states that aggression would not be gainful. This would be most convincing if : (1) Israeli Samson preparations were coupled with some level of visible nuclear disclosure (i.e., ending Israel’s posture of nuclear ambiguity); (2) Israel’s Samson weapons appeared sufficiently invulnerable to enemy first strikes; and (3) Israel’s Samson weapons were recognizably “counter value” in mission function.
Samson could also support Israeli nuclear deterrence by demonstrating a greater Israeli willingness to take existential risks. In matters of nuclear strategy, it may sometimes be better to feign irrationality than to purposefully project complete rationality. Earlier, in IDF history, Moshe Dayan had genuinely understood this strangely counter-intuitive injunction: “Israel must be like a mad dog,” said Dayan, ” too dangerous to bother.â€
In our topsy-turvy nuclear world, it can be perfectly rational to pretend irrationality. But in any given Middle East conflict situation, the precise nuclear deterrence benefits of pretended irrationality would have to depend in large part upon prior enemy state awareness of Israel’s counter value targeting posture. Rejecting nuclear war-fighting as a purposeful strategic option, the Project Daniel Group, in its then-confidential report to former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon more than seven years ago (January 16, 2003), recommended exactly such a deterrence posture.
To strengthen possible strategies of preemption, preparations for a Samson Option could help to convince Israel’s own leadership that certain defensive first strikes would be cost-effective. These leaders would then expect that any Israeli preemptive strikes, known under international law as expressions of “anticipatory self-defense,†could be launched with reduced apprehensions of unacceptably damaging enemy retaliations. This complex expectation would depend upon many pertinent factors, including: (1) previous Israeli decisions on nuclear disclosure; (2) Israeli perceptions of the effects of such nuclear disclosure on enemy retaliatory intentions; (3) Israeli judgments about enemy perceptions of Samson weapons vulnerability; and (4) a presumed enemy awareness of Samson’s counter value force posture.
As with Samson-based enhancements of Israeli nuclear deterrence, any identifiably last-resort nuclear preparations could support Israel’s critical preemption options by displaying a bold national willingness to take existential risks. In this connection, the steady and undisturbed nuclearization of Iran should come immediately to mind.
But pretended irrationality can be a double-edged sword. Brandished too “irrationally,” Israeli preparations for a Samson Option could encourage enemy preemptions. Here, again, the specter of a nuclear Iran should emerge front and center.
Left to themselves, neither deterred nor preempted, certain Arab and/or other Islamic enemies of Israel, especially after the U.S.-assisted creation of a Palestinian state, could bring the Jewish State face-to-face with the palpable torments of Dante’s Inferno, “Into the eternal darkness, into fire, into ice.” Israeli strategic planners and political leaders, therefore, should soon begin to acknowledge an absolutely primary obligation to: (a) strengthen their country’s nuclear security posture; and (b) ensure that any failure of nuclear deterrence would not spark nuclear war or nuclear terror.
One way for Israel to partially meet this obligation, particularly after President Obama’s undimmed support for Palestine, and his equally-misguided support for “a world free of nuclear weapons,” would be to focus more openly and precisely on the Samson Option. In so doing, considerable attention will need to be directed to the presumed rationality of enemy leaderships, both state and sub-state. How can the capable IDF strategist recognize the difference between real and pretended irrationality?
This will become an urgent question. In those rare cases where an enemy state or terror group might not value its own physical survival more highly than any other preference or combination of preferences, the standard logic of deterrence would be rendered inoperable. In such cases, all bets would be off regarding probable enemy reactions to Israeli threats of retaliation. The probability of any such case arising may be very low, but the attendant disutility of any single case could still be intolerably high.
IDF planners and other interested strategists should now consider also the cumulative capabilities and intentions of Israel’s non-state enemies; that is, the entire configuration of anti-Israel terrorist groups. Such assessments should now offer more than a simple group by group inventory of enemy assets and intentions. These groups should also now be considered in their entirety, collectively, as they may interrelate with one another vis-à -vis Israel.
These several hostile non-state organizations will also need to be examined in their interactive relationships with core enemy states. Recalling, for example, the discussion of Palestine (above), it is important to recognize and understand all possible synergies with Iran and Syria in particular.
In the matter of synergies, interested strategists will also need to consider critical “force multipliers.†A force multiplier is a collection of related characteristics, other than weapons and size of force, that may make any military organization more effective in combat. A force multiplier may be generalship; tactical surprise; tactical mobility; or particular command/control system enhancements.
Seeking improved force multipliers for Israel, strategic thinkers should now assess well-integrated elements of cyber-warfare, and a reciprocal capacity to prevent and blunt any incoming cyber-attacks. Today, this particular force multiplier could even prove to be decisive.
In a world of growing international anarchy, IDF planners should now investigate all pertinent enemy force multipliers; challenging and undermining enemy force multipliers; and developing/refining its own force multipliers. More specifically, this means an appropriately heavy IDF emphasis on air superiority; communications; intelligence; and surprise. Again, recalling Moshe Dayan’s counter-intuitive injunction, it may also mean a heightened awareness of the possible benefits of pretended irrationality (Samson Option).
The state system of international statecraft came into being in the 17th century, after the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. For the most part, our “Westphalian†system remains almost entirely anarchic. Several emerging hazards to Israeli national security will be shaped by this primary condition.
Nonetheless, to observant strategists, there will also be a discernible geometry of chaos, and calculating the implications of this particular “geometry†will prove to be an important and cost-effective task. Before this can happen, interested strategists must take steps to ensure that their analyses and recommendations are detached from any false hopes. Recalling Thucydides, writing prophetically (416 BCE) on the ultimatum of the Athenians to the Melians during the Peloponnesian War: “Hope is by nature an expensive commodity, and those who are risking their all on one cast find out what it means only when they are already ruined….â€
Interested strategic thinkers, please take note. Strategic dialectic is a net. Only those who cast, can catch.
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LOUIS RENÉ BERES was educated at Princeton (Ph.D., 1971), and is the author of many books and articles dealing with Israeli security matters. Born in Zurich, Switzerland, on August 31, 1945, he was Chair of Project Daniel, and, in Fall 2009, published “Facing Iran’s Ongoing Nuclearization: A Retrospective on Project Daniel,†International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, Vol. 22, No. 3., pp. 491-514. Recent related publications include: Louis René Beres, “Understanding the `Correlation of Forces` in the Middle East: Israel’s Urgent Strategic Imperative,†The Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs, Vol. 4., No. 1, 2009, pp. 77 – 88; Louis René Beres, “Israel, Iran and Project Daniel,” a Working Paper for the Ninth Annual Herzliya Conference on the Balance of Israel’s National Security and Resilience, Israel, February 2-4, 2009; Louis René Beres, “Israel’s Uncertain Strategic Future,” Parameters: U.S. Army War College Quarterly, Spring 2007, pp. 37-54; and Louis René Beres, “Israel and the Bomb,” International Security (Harvard), Summer 2004, pp. 175 – 180. Professor Beres is also the author of many opinion columns in such newspapers as The New York Times; The Washington Post; The Washington Times; Los Angeles Times; The Christian Science Monitor; USA Today; The Boston Globe; Chicago Tribune; The Jerusalem Post and Ha’aretz (Israel). He also writes regularly for U.S. News & World Report.
NOTE
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[1] Military strategists should always approach their subject as a dialectical series of thoughts, where each pertinent idea presents a complication that moves onward to the next pertinent thought or idea. Contained in this dialectic is the obligation to continue thinking, an obligation that can never be fulfilled altogether because of what the philosophers call an infinite regress problem. Still, it is an obligation that must be undertaken as fully and as competently as possible. The actual term, “dialectic,†originates from an early Greek expression for the art of conversation. A currently more common meaning is that dialectic is a method of seeking truth by correct reasoning. More precisely, it offers a method of refutation by examining logical consequences, and also the logical development of thought via thesis and antithesis to an eventual synthesis of opposites. In the middle dialogues of Plato, dialectic emerges as the quintessential form of proper philosophical/analytical method. Here, Plato describes the dialectician as one who knows how to ask, and then answer, questions. In the matter of “Palestine,†Iran and Israeli nuclear strategy, this kind of knowledge must precede all compilations and inventories of military facts, figures, force structures and power balances.
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