Israel's nuclear strategy ambiguity: disclosure doctrine.

• Author: Beres, Louis Rene

Dear Mr. Prime Minister:

Shortly after coming to power, your predecessor, Shimon Peres, took the unprecedented step of disclosing Israel's nuclear capability. Responding to questions about the Oslo expectations and the extent of Israeli concessions, Prime Minister Peres remarked that he would be "delighted" to "give up the Atom" if the region would embrace a comprehensive and lasting peace. Although this remark was almost certainly not an expression of changed nuclear policy (i.e., the intent of the remark was not to enhance Israeli nuclear power but to enhance the "Peace Process"), it does point to an important national security question: Should nuclear disclosure now become a conscious policy choice for the State of Israel? This question, in turn, should be addressed together with a comprehensive and informed consideration of another associated question: What are the precise functions of Israeli nuclear weapons?

This Memorandum seeks to answer these vital and interrelated questions. The question of disclosure is not a simple "yes" or "no" issue (obviously the basic question was already answered by Peres's "offer"), but rather, the extent of the subtlety and detail with which Israel should now communicate its nuclear posture to minacious enemy states. Regarding the question of nuclear function, the issue is not the cost-effectiveness of a simple End of the Third Temple option, but rather a much more complex investigation of doctrine, deployment, deterrence and defense.

Both of these overriding questions must be raised and explored within the ongoing context of Oslo. The so-called "Peace Process" is now the critical environment within which Israel's nuclear policy must be fashioned and understood. Setting the parameters of Israeli military power, this codified pattern of asymmetrical concessions presently exhibits a principal imperative identified by Sun-Tzu in The Art of War: "Subjugating the enemy's army without fighting is the true pinnacle of excellence."(2) Strengthened by Oslo, Israel's Arab/Islamic enemies are rapidly reaching this pinnacle, while Israel is becoming ever more distant from it. With the Peace Process, the Palestinian Authority and its allies are subjugating the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) with virtually no risk to their own armies and terrorist operators.

During the middle-1980s, some students of Middle Eastern security issues began to speak plainly of Israel's nuclear strategy with particular reference to the question of disclosure.(3) Specifically, these scholars asked whether this strategy should continue to be implicit, deliberately ambiguous, and in the "basement," or whether it should be explicit, clearly articulated, and out in the open.(4) I entered the debate personally with a series of lectures at the Israeli Strategic Studies Centers in 1984 and 1985 (the first two hosted by Maj. Gen. Res. Aharon Yariv at Jaffee) and with the first edited book on the subject in 1986.(5) Today, this debate no longer seems vital to Israeli strategists as it is perfectly obvious that Israel has a significant number of nuclear weapons. That being the case, they reason, there really is nothing further to disclose. Israel is patently a member of the Nuclear Club and everyone already knows it. Case closed!(6)

But there is a serious problem with such reasoning. The rationale for disclosure, of taking the bomb out of the "basement,"(7) would not lie simply in expressing the obvious. Rather, it would lie in the informed understanding that nuclear weapons can serve Israel's security in a number of different ways. All of these ways could benefit the Jewish State, more or less, to the extent that certain aspects of these weapons and associated strategies were disclosed. Indeed, as we shall now see, the pertinent form and extent of disclosure(8) could soon be more critical than ever before because of the current Peace Process.(9)

For the foreseeable future, Israel's state enemies - especially Iran(10) and Syria(11) (but not excluding Egypt and Jordan) - continue to enlarge and improve their conventional and unconventional military capabilities. Although no one can conclusively predict that such improvements are underway with Israel especially in mind, it would be prudent for Jerusalem to assume the worst. Moreover, even if enemy state intentions do not yet parallel capabilities, this could change very rapidly. Here, for example, Iranian capabilities could determine intentions, occasioning chemical, biological(12) or nuclear first-strikes against Israel because of expected tactical advantages.

To protect itself against enemy strikes, especially those attacks with potential existential costs, Israel must exploit every component function of its nuclear arsenal.(13) In this regard, the success of Israel's efforts will depend in large part upon not only its particular configuration of counterforce and countervalue operations, but also upon the extent to which this configuration is made known in advance to enemy states. Consequently, before such an enemy is appropriately deterred from launching first-strike attacks against Israel, or before it is deterred from launching retaliatory attacks following an Israeli preemption, it may not be enough that it knows that Israel has nuclear weapons. It may also need to recognize that these Israeli weapons are sufficiently invulnerable to such attacks and that they are targeted at the enemy's own pertinent military installations. To fully understand the ambiguity or disclosure question,(14) we must first recall the theoretical foundations of nuclear war and deterrence(15) as they pertain to Israel. These foundations concern prospective attackers' perceptions of both Israel's nuclear capability and Israel's willingness to utilize them. Removing the bomb from Israel's "basement" could, therefore, enhance Israel's nuclear deterrence and nuclear warfighting postures to the extent that it would heighten enemy state perceptions of Jerusalem's capable nuclear forces and its willingness to use these forces in reprisal for certain first-strike and retaliatory attacks.(16)

Mr. Prime Minister,

Let us look at these requirements more closely. To deter an enemy attack or post-preemption retaliation, Israel must prevent an aggressor, by threat of an unacceptably damaging reprisal or counter-retaliation, from deciding to strike. Here, security is sought by convincing the potential rational(17) attacker (irrational enemies are an altogether different problem) that the costs of a considered attack will exceed the expected benefits. Assuming that Israel's state enemies: (1) value self-preservation; and (2) always choose rationally between alternative options, they will always refrain from attacking an Israel that is believed willing and able to deliver an appropriately destructive response.(18)

Two factors must communicate such a belief. First, in terms of ability, there are two essential components: payload and delivery system. It must be successfully communicated to the prospective attacker that Israel's firepower and its means of delivering that firepower are capable of wreaking unacceptable levels of destruction. This means that Israel's retaliatory or counter-retaliatory forces must appear sufficiently invulnerable and sufficiently elusive to penetrate the prospective attacker's active and civil defenses. It need not be communicated to the potential attacker that such firepower and the means of delivery are superior. The capacity to deter need not be as great as the capacity to "win."

With the bomb kept silently in the basement, enemy states could conclude, rightly or wrongly, that a first-strike attack or post-preemption reprisal would be cost-effective. Were it made more plainly obvious to enemy states contemplating an attack that Israel's bombs met both payload and delivery system objectives, Israel's nuclear forces would likely better serve their overriding security functions.

The second factor of nuclear communication for Israel concerns willingness. How may Israel convince potential attackers that it possesses the resolve to deliver an immense destructive retaliation and counter-retaliation? The answer to this question lies, in part, in Israel's demonstrated strength of commitment to carry out such an attack and in the precise nuclear weapons that would be available. Here, too, continued nuclear ambiguity could create the impression of an unwilling Israel. Conversely, movement toward some as-yet-undetermined level of disclosure could heighten the impression of an Israel that is willing to follow through on its nuclear threats.

What then, are the plausible connections between a more openly declared nuclear capability and enemy state perceptions of Israel's nuclear deterrence? One such connection concerns the relation between disclosure and perceived vulnerability of Israeli nuclear forces from preemptive destruction. Another such connection concerns the relation between disclosure and perceived capacity of Israel's nuclear forces to penetrate the attacking state's active defenses. Disclosure could represent a rational and prudent option for Israel to the extent that enemy states are made appropriately aware of Israel's nuclear capabilities. The operational benefits of disclosure would accrue from deliberate flows of doctrinal information about such matters as dispersion, multiplication and hardening of nuclear systems and about some other technical features of certain nuclear weapons systems. Above all else, such carefully controlled flows would serve to remove enemy doubts about Israel's nuclear force capabilities, doubts which--if unchallenged--could undermine Israeli nuclear deterrence.

Removing the bomb from Israel's basement might also heighten enemy state perceptions of Jerusalem's willingness to make good on its nuclear retaliatory threats. For example, by releasing information about its nuclear weapons that distinctly identified "usable" forces, Israel could...