Israel Undeterred

Israel’s Aggressive Posturing and the Threat of Nuclear War

While journalists try to keep Americans focused on Hitler stand-in bad guy (Vladimir Putin and Russia), there is a very real risk of nuclear conflict in another part of the world. The threat of nuclear war is high, not between the United States and Russia, but between Israel and the Islamic World.

At the most basic level, the Near East is imbalanced in strategic terms. Nuclear deterrence theory dictates that if two (or more) opposing powers are similarly armed with nuclear weapons (including delivery methods), then both sides are deterred from attacking one another because of what is known as “MAD” (Mutually Assured Destruction).

Mutually assured destruction is not “MADness” as the propaganda narrative about the Cold War suggests, but actually the sole factor that prevented further nuclear war in the 20th century. “Assured destruction” actually has a definition as well — it’s the point at which a society is no longer able to reconstitute itself and has a 0% chance of posing a further military threat to its opponent(s). The “mutual” part is what provides the balance that prevents war.

Israel has a nuclear arsenal, and the surrounding countries, all of which are Israel’s enemies, do not. This creates a severe strategic imbalance that allows Israel to get away with rampant aggression toward states as far away as Iran, because “Whatever happens, we have got the Maxim Gun, and they have not.” Iran is framed by the permanent neocon/lib government as a basket-case state run by insane Islamic fundamentalist lunatics who want nuclear weapons in order to do something really bad, or whatever. In all likelihood, Iran’s desire for nuclear weapons is rooted in the most basic essentials of national survival, which is nuclear deterrence.

When representatives of the American government shriek hysterically about Iran, the message is “America can pursue this basic strategic principle in the name of self-defense, but if you do it, you are a crazy global criminal state and must be destroyed.”

A solution to the apparent paradox in the Near and Middle East is to allow Iran to develop a nuclear arsenal; and by allow, I mean, stop assassinating their people and destroying their facilities when they do anything that looks remotely like it. This sets aside the question of whether or not nuclear proliferation is desirable — but it probably doesn’t matter, since the incentives for Iran to develop nuclear weapons are maximized. It needs to be made clear that Iran is not developing nuclear weapons out of madness, but because Iran is incentivized to do so by Israel’s possession of them and its aggressive posture.

This leaves the other solution, which is to develop a disarmament and long-term peace treaty in the Near and Middle East. Basically, every country Israel has ever attacked would need to be part of this treaty. Unfortunately, this is necessary because unilateral disarmament would lead to the destruction of the state of Israel if not for a treaty guaranteed by the United States and Russia, primarily. This is far less likely than the other scenario for a variety of reasons.

The best possible case for peace in the Near and Middle East is that Iran develops nuclear weapons and guarantees to protect its allies under its nuclear umbrella. This actually reduces the chance of nuclear war. Right now, the Arab World probably has the conventional force to assure the destruction of Israel, but as the war in the Ukraine has shown, nothing is for certain. This uncertainty is what is most dangerous. If you look at the most dangerous points in the Cold War, it was always uncertainty that was at the root. Did the Soviets have missiles in Cuba? Was that nuclear launch detection in error, or were missiles actually in the air? The times were safest when each power knew exactly what the other was up to and what its capabilities were.

Likewise, Israel might have the nuclear capability, if not to assure destruction, then to make an attack on Israel by any state party extremely costly. No single Arab country wants to be the one to pay that price. However, Israel would likely be destroyed anyway, and the margin of error is decreasing, as the world saw in Iran’s massive drone swarm on Israel’s missile defense system. As Iran and others develop their air strike capabilities, the incentives for Israel to launch a first strike increase. Israel’s only chance for survival might be a first strike that prevents an Arab war coalition from forming. If any war coalition were to form, Israel would probably learn of it through Mossad, Five Eyes, or other intermediaries, and launch just such a strike.

Simply put, under current circumstances, both sides are incentivized, in a mutually reinforcing feedback loop, to strike first. This makes nuclear war not only likely, but basically inevitable — especially since Iran will probably develop a deliverable nuclear weapon in the near future, and Israel knows it.