\u201cThen fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.\u201d-Archilochus<\/p>\n
At first glance, the June 2025 military operation against Iran carried no risks of a nuclear war. After all, the cooperative effort by Israel and the United States was designed to prevent Iranian nuclearization. Nonetheless, in any resumption of armed conflict between Israel and the Islamic Republic, Jerusalem (potentially, in tandem with Washington): (1) could issue deterrent threats of \u201casymmetrical nuclear war\u201d (only Israel would be nuclear-capable); or Tehran (2) could enlist state allies (e.g., North Korea or Pakistan) as witting nuclear surrogates.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 These are merely basic scenarios, and now need to be augmented with clarifying details and pertinent nuances. Accordingly, in both scenarios, Israel\u2019s nuclear deterrent would benefit from a carefully calibrated shift from \u201cdeliberate nuclear ambiguity\u201d to \u201cselective nuclear disclosure.\u201d \u00a0Inter alia, if granted a reprieve from Israeli and\/or US military strikes, Tehran could recover sufficiently from the effects of its 12-day war with Jerusalem\/Washington and press ahead aggressively with long-planned military nuclearization.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 There is more. At some not yet determinable point, Israel\u2019s survival could be made contingent on the conspicuous risks of a \u201csymmetrical nuclear war.\u201d Though contrary to conventional wisdom or \u201ccommon sense,\u201d these risks could be substantial and would obtain even if Israel were to appear the stronger or \u201cmore powerful\u201d nuclear adversary.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0To meaningfully understand all this, diplomatic background will be important. For Israel, little if anything was improved by US-brokered pacts with the UAE and Bahrain[1]<\/a> \u2013 hastily contrived agreements that formally aligned Jerusalem with Sunni Arab opponents of Shiite Iran. Though some Israeli planners might still believe that Iran\u2019s nuclear threat was diminished by the \u201cAbraham Accords,\u201d such thinking (Sigmund Freud would call it \u201cwish fulfilment\u201d) would be erroneous ipso facto. Among other things, it would rest on a too-optimistic view of \u201ccountervailing\u201d Sunni military power at both conceptual and policy-making levels.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Looking ahead at the Israel-Iran axis of conflict, strategic thinking will be many-sided and densely complicated. Though counter-intuitive, an incremental growth of Sunni Arab power, however achieved, would not be in the long-term security interests of Israel.[2]<\/a> Over time, Saudi Arabia, Egypt or even non-Arab Turkey could decide to \u201cgo nuclear.\u201d Whether such development would be net-positive or net-negative for Israel\u2019s national security is impossible to predict, but a logic-based assessment by Israeli strategists will be indispensable.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Much will depend on the prevailing balance of Sunni-Shiite power, a theoretical equilibrium that would be inherently subjective and potentially indecipherable. In a worst case scenario, enemy states presumably \u201cneutralized\u201d by the Abraham Accords would no longer offer Israel a purposeful anti-Shiite bloc. Instead, these Sunni Arab states could constitute themselves as an adversarial coalition and rival or replace Shiite Iran as the Jewish State\u2019s most formidable enemy.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Even if there were no Sunni Arab nuclear proliferation factor to consider, Israel\u2019s nuclear forces and strategy would remain relevant to conventional war avoidance.[3]<\/a> While rarely discussed publicly, nuclear weapons could offer substantial security benefits to Israel in deterring non-nuclear foes.These foes could include various sub-state enemies and\/or \u201chybridized\u201d (state-sub-state) coalitions.[4]<\/a><\/p>\n Creating a Viable and Law-Enforcing Nuclear Deterrent<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 A comprehensive question warrants emphasis: After the 12-day missile war with Iran in June 2025, how should Israel best ensure a viable and law-based \u00a0nuclear deterrence posture?[5]<\/a> Generically, military assessments of any individual state\u2019s nuclear deterrent should focus on a number of different and complementary elements. These elements would concern weapon systems (offensive and defensive); weapon system infrastructures and variously-corresponding issues of threat credibility. In the specific case at hand, analytic focus has generally highlighted (1) Israel\u2019s presumptive missile and anti-missile capabilities;[6]<\/a>and (2) its expected willingness to launch under widely-diverse enemy threat narratives.[7]<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 To suitably reinforce Israel\u2019s nuclear deterrence posture, a more refined assessment is in order. This improved focus should be directed, like a laser beam, at world system context, an obligation that brings forth geo-strategic and jurisprudential foci. At times, these foci may be strongly interdependent or overlapping. At other times, they may be \u201cforce-multiplying\u201d or synergistic. Presently, military planners should think of ongoing and future developments in Ukraine, North Korea, India-Pakistan and China\/Taiwan.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 For competent investigators, deeply serious questions will need to be asked and answered; sequentially, capably, dialectically.[8]<\/a> How should such analyses proceed? A useful expression of current world legal system context would encompass all variables being shaped or coalesced as \u201cCold War II.\u201d This is not because US-Russian rivalry is necessarily more significant than the anarchic system structure originally bequeathed at the Peace of Westphalia in 1648,[9]<\/a> but because such recurrent rivalry (unlike the historically-underlying system of geopolitics or decentralized power balancing[10]<\/a>) is potentially manageable or subject to strategic manipulation.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0As an ironic \u201cCold War II\u201d caveat, the original superpowers could sometime find themselves on the same side. To wit, under President Donald J. Trump, the United States has effectively sided with the Russian aggressor against the Ukrainian victim. And in a once-unimaginable scenario, it is now plausible that Trump\u2019s \u201cDepartment of War\u201d would at some point align with Vladimir Putin against NATO. Credo quia absurdum, cautioned Roman philosopher Tertullian: \u201cI believe because it is absurd.\u201d<\/p>\n Intersections and Synergies<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 There is more. To assess the prospective impact of inter-state interactions, scholars and policy-makers will have to account for starkly bewildering relationships between them. On occasion, interactions could be expressly synergistic. This would express an always-daunting quality, one in which the \u201cwhole\u201d of any single effect is actually greater than the sum of its \u201cparts.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Suchhard-to-predict expectations will require capable evaluations.[11]<\/a> To a greater or lesser extent, hard-to-quantify effects could be filtered by variously appropriate and \u201cperemptory\u201d considerations of international law.[12]<\/a> In the final analysis, Israel\u2019s strategic choices should always take jurisprudential factors into close account. In the end, neither Israel nor the United States could ever benefit from transient military victories in a continuously Hobbesian \u201cstate of nature.\u201d[13]<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0For Israeli military planners and certain others who might be interested in Israel\u2019s nuclear strategy, US-Russian antagonisms should be studied together with Israel\u2019s relevant weapon systems and nuclear threat credibility. For refined analysts, these system-defining antagonisms are in constant flux and changing in foreseeable and unforeseeable ways.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Going forward, superpower relations, whether or not tempered by authoritative international law, could become increasingly vital or determinative for Israeli nuclear deterrence. A great deal will ultimately depend on the precise manner in which Trump- era American realignments (pro-Putin, anti-NATO) will impact this equation and the underlying elements of Israel\u2019s strategic posture.[14]<\/a> To the extent discoverable, this manner of impact would depend on Jerusalem\u2019s multiple and overlapping national nuclear power alignments with Russia and the United States. Moreover, in figuring Israel\u2019s strategic moves, China and North Korea could represent a prospectively \u201cwild card.\u201d<\/p>\n Reason and Anti-Reason<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Antecedent to any such complex considerations, much will depend on (1) the expected rationality or non-rationality of each national nuclear power; and on (2) the plausible interactions or synergies detectable between these nuclear adversaries and their respective alliance partners\/clients. Regarding the first concern, Israel\u2019s planners will need to bear in mind the subtle wisdom of German philosopher Karl Jaspers\u2019 Reason and Existence (1935): \u201cThe rational is not thinkable without its other, the non-rational, and it never appears in reality without it.\u201d[15]<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Never without it. This unambiguous assumption exhibits a rudimentary understanding for anyone engaged in strategic nuclear threat analyses. \u201cEverything is very simple in war,\u201d counsels Carl von Clausewitz in On War, \u201cbut even the simplest thing is difficult.\u201d[16]<\/a> This generally useful insight remains persuasive not only during periods of active conflict, but also in those unsteady periods of latent hostility (what Thomas Hobbes meant as a \u201cstate of war\u201d in Leviathan) that obtain between still-possible or still-impending wars of aggression.[17]<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Even during the expansive pre-nuclear era in world law[18]<\/a> and world politics, a precarious logic of deterrence obtained within the global state of nature. Already, there had been operative a palpably fearful condition of raw competition, corrosive violence and seemingly perpetual anarchy. Despite considerable nuance from century to century, and from year to year, this balance of power existed since the 17th century Peace of Westphalia (1648.) In more specifically legal terms, this \u201cWestphalian\u201d system is generally described as a decentralized or \u201chorizontal\u201d system of international law.[19]<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Long before the advent of nuclear weapons, the worst \u201cstate of war\u201d (including ones without any \u201cactual fighting\u201d) would have been characterized by \u201cdreadful equality.\u201d Here, world politics would have taken place within a broadly chaotic bellum omnium contra omnes, a vastly bewildering contextwherein \u201cthe weakest has strength enough to kill the strongest.\u201d In such opaque circumstances, the potential sources of decision-making bewilderment could quickly multiply.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In any such worst case configuration \u2013 most apparent today wherever nuclear proliferation would manage to continue without any meaningfully correlative legal inhibitions \u2013 the life of individual human beings and entire states must inevitably be (per Thomas Hobbes) \u201csolitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.\u201d For Israel, the shifting parameters of Cold War II and certain related issues of enemy rationality could soon have indeterminable or foreseeable effects upon its presumptive nuclear doctrine and strategy. These effects include diverse issues surrounding any still-upcoming policy choices between \u201cdeliberate nuclear ambiguity\u201d and \u201cselective nuclear disclosure.\u201d[20]<\/a><\/p>\n Nuclear Ambiguity and Nuclear Deterrence<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 For Israel, a state sorely lacking in strategic depth,[21]<\/a> the former posture has prevailed unchallenged. This doctrinal stance is sometimes referred to as Israel\u2019s \u201cbomb in the basement.\u201d[22]<\/a> Still, as a multipolar axis of conflict is now being shaped in world politics by the three principal superpowers, and as prospects for enemy irrationality are tangibly greater than ever before,[23]<\/a> Jerusalem will have to make appropriate and incremental modifications to its nuclear deterrence doctrine. Included here, among other things, would be assorted policy considerations of preemption or (as described under authoritative international law) \u201canticipatory self-defense.\u201d[24]<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In principle at least, Israel\u2019s national nuclear doctrine and posture have remained determinedly ambiguous. At the same time, traditional ambiguity was ostentatiously breached at the highest possible level by two of Israel\u2019s prime ministers, first, by Shimon Peres, on December 22, 1995, and then by Ehud Olmert on December 11, 2006. Peres, speaking to a group of Israeli newspaper and magazine editors, had affirmed publicly: \u201c\u2026give me peace, and we\u2019ll give up the atom. That\u2019s the whole story.\u201d Later, when Olmert offered similarly general but still revelatory remarks, they were widely (but perhaps wrongly) interpreted as \u201cslips of the tongue.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Today, a very basic question should be resurrected in Jerusalem:<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Is comprehensive nuclear secrecy always in the best survival interests of the Jewish State?<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 To respond properly, Israel should begin with the problematic assumption that in any such complex strategic matters, \u201ctruth\u201d could prove counter-intuitive. A useful answer to this challenging query ought to be grounded in the delineable expectations and exigencies of formal strategic doctrine.Whatever else Jerusalem may already have in mind concerning such doctrine, it\u2019s response should never be a series of ad hoc decisions or otherwise unreflective\u201dseat-of-the-pants\u201d policies; that is, positions that are casually invented or re-inventedfrom one beleaguering national security crisis to the next.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In principle, at least, fashioning Israeli strategic doctrine should never consist of disjointed and\/or ad hoc calculations. Any purposeful loosening of Israeli nuclear ambiguity would need to be subtle, nuanced, more-or-less indirect and visibly incremental. Contrary to the often parodied views of any such prospective disclosure that may be found in popular news stories or on television, this loosening would not have to take the provocative form of official Israeli policy pronouncements. Instead, it could be allowed to \u201cleak out\u201d or \u201cspill out\u201d on its own, thereby allowing a crucial point to be made without precipitating any immediate sense of crisis or misfortune.<\/p>\n From Doctrine to Strategy<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Among other things, formal doctrine, consistent with world law, would represent the vital framework from which any gainfully pragmatic Israeli nuclear policy of ambiguity or disclosure could most suitably be extrapolated. In all military institutions and traditions, such doctrine must describe the tactical or operational manner in which designated national forces ought to fight in various plausible combat situations; the prescribed \u201corder of battle;\u201d and all manner of corollary operations. Appropriately, the literal definition of \u201cdoctrine\u201d derives from Middle English, from the Latin doctrina, which means teaching, learning and instruction.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 There is more. The central importance of codified Israeli military doctrine lies not only in the particular way it can animate, unify and optimize national military forces, but also in the expectedly efficient manner it can transmit desired \u201cmessages\u201d to an enemy state, enemy states, sub-state proxies or state-sub-state \u201chybrids.[25]<\/a> Understood in terms of Israel\u2019s strategic nuclear policy, any indiscriminate, across-the-board ambiguity could prove net-injurious to the country\u2019s national security. In this regard, it could unwittingly jeopardize certain protective functions of international law.[26]<\/a> This is likely the case because any truly effective deterrence and defense could call for a military doctrine that is at least partially recognizable by adversary states and certain sub-state insurgent\/terrorist group foes.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In fashioning Israel\u2019s strategic military plans, creating operational options for strategic surprise could prove necessary to subsequent combat operations. But successful deterrence is another matter entirely. In order to persuade would-be adversaries not to strike first \u2013 in current circumstances, a manifestly complex effort of dissuasion \u2013 projecting too much secrecy could (at least on occasion) prove counter-productive.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In matters of Israel and its enemies, both new and \u201ctraditional,\u201d optimal military success must lie in credible deterrence, not in actual war-fighting.[27]<\/a> Examined in terms of ancient Chinese military thought offered by Sun-Tzu in The Art of War, \u201cSupreme excellence consists of breaking the enemy\u2019s resistance without fighting.\u201d With this still-worthy dictum in mind, there are times for Israel when successful deterrence policies could require the deliberate \u201cloosening\u201d of information that had formerly been tightly held. Such information would concern Israel\u2019scapabilities, its intentions or both of these complex qualities taken together.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 We may recall, in this connection, a popular Cold War I-era movie in which Dr. Strangelove, an \u201ceccentric\u201d strategic advisor to the American president (and also the name of the film) discovers, to his horror, that the existence of America\u2019s \u201cdoomsday machine\u201d had not been made known in advance to the Soviets. \u201cThe whole point of the doomsday machine is lost,\u201d complains Dr. Strangelove, \u201cif you keep it a secret.\u201d To have been suitably deterred, the film instructs, and not too subtly, the Soviets ought to have been given sufficiently prior warnings of the \u201cdoomsday machine.\u201d This device had been designed to ensure the perceived automaticity of America\u2019s nuclear retaliatory response. Remembering the commonly-held strategic posture known as MAD, this response would have been instantly recognizable to the Kremlin as \u201cmassive\u201d and \u201cassuredly destructive.\u201d<\/p>\n Deterrence Ex Ante, Not Revenge Ex Post<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It follows from all this and from the more general expectations of the laws of war that Israel\u2019s nuclear weapons should remain oriented to deterrence ex ante, not to war fighting or revenge ex post. As designated instruments of a law-based system of deterrence, nuclear weapons can succeed only in their protracted non-use. Once they have actually been employed for any tangible \u201cbattle,\u201d deterrence, by definition, will have failed.[28]<\/a> Also worth noting, once nuclear weapons are used, any traditional meanings of \u201cvictory\u201d would instantly become moot.[29]<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Cold War I is over, and Israel\u2019s emerging deterrence relationship to a prospectively nuclear adversary is not reasonably analogous or comparable to the historic American-Soviet \u201cBalance-of-Terror.\u201d[30]<\/a> Still, there are crucial elements of now-prevailing superpower antagonisms that will necessarily and substantially impact Israel\u2019s nuclear choices. This means that Israel ought never construct its own nuclear strategic doctrine and policy apart from variously close assessments of US-Russia-China relations.[31]<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 There are Cold War deterrence lessons to be learned and adapted by Israel. More precisely, any unmodified continuance of total nuclear ambiguity concerning Israel\u2019s (a) strategic targeting doctrine; (b) secure basing modes; and\/or (c) capacity to penetrate a designated enemy\u2019s active air defenses, could cause a newly-nuclearizing or still-nuclearizing enemy state to critically underestimate Israel\u2019s retaliatory capacity or resolve.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 As a subsidiary but still urgent nuclear concern, Israeli planners will need to continually assess the capability and intentions of Pakistan, an already-nuclear Islamic state and one that has openly declared a \u201cnuclear war fighting\u201d concept of national nuclear deterrence. Returning to the formative lexicon of Cold War, this non-Arab Islamic state has already undertaken a formal shift from \u201cmutual assured destruction\u201d to \u201cnuclear utilization theory.\u201d In the specialized discourse and parlance of all orthodox nuclear strategic theory, this represents an overt shift from MAD (mutual assured destruction) to NUT (nuclear utilization theory).[32]<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Any such shift, by definition, could have profound legal consequences concerning both the presumed likelihood of a nuclear conflict (probability) and the presumed injuriousness of such a conflict (disutility).<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Going forward, assorted uncertainties surrounding the presumed components of Israel\u2019s nuclear arsenal could lead enemy states to reach the \u201cwrong\u201d conclusion. In part, this is because Israel\u2019s willingness to make good on any threatened nuclear retaliation could then be seen, widely perhaps, as inversely related to weapon system destructiveness. Ironically, if Israel\u2019s nuclear weapons were sometime believed to be too destructive, too apocalyptic,[33]<\/a> they might not credibly deter. In these cases, and more or less unwittingly, such beliefs would underscore various basic expectations of humanitarian international law or the law of armed conflict. These are the core expectations of discrimination (aka distinction); proportionality and military necessity.[34]<\/a><\/p>\n Enemy Miscalculations and Authoritative International Law<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0In the future, any continuing Israeli policy of complete ambiguity could cause an already-nuclear enemy state to overestimate the first-strike vulnerability of Israel\u2019s nuclear forces. In part, at least, this overestimation would be the result of a too-complete silence concerning measures of protection that had been deployed to safeguard Israeli nuclear weapons and launch platforms. Such silence, in turn, could be the product of Israel\u2019s perceived alignments with one or the other current superpower by any then-relevant regional foe.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 A related problem could represent the product of certain Israeli doctrinal obfuscations regarding the country\u2019s defense potential, a silence that could be mistakenly taken by enemy states as an indication of inadequate Israeli Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD). To be maximally useful, certain relevant strengths and capabilities of Arrow3 and other interrelated and multi-layered elements of active defense would need to be revealed, perhaps in previously unimaginable contours of operational detail.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Going forward, certain elements of strategic truth \u2013 especially in such wholly unprecedented contextual circumstances \u2013 could prove counter-intuitive. Then-prevailing conditions of rivalry could expect to have certain meaningful impacts on any such considered revelations.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0To best understand the utility and legal content of Israeli strategic nuclear doctrine and posture, analysts must first clearly identify for themselves the variously core foundations of Israeli nuclear deterrence. These foundations concern prospective attackers\u2019 perceptions of Israel\u2019s nuclear capability, and also Israel\u2019s willingness to use this capability. Any selective telegraphing of Israel\u2019s strategic nuclear doctrine could potentially enhance Israel\u2019s nuclear deterrence posture and thereby support both peace and international law.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It would accomplish this enhancement by heightening enemy state perceptions of Israel\u2019s capable nuclear forces and by its announced willingness to use these forces in reprisal for certain designated first-strike and\/or retaliatory attacks.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 To deter an enemy attack, or a post-preemption retaliation against Israel,[35]<\/a> Jerusalem must always prevent a rational aggressor, by threat of an unacceptably damaging retaliation or counter-retaliation, from deciding to strike. Here, Israel\u2019s national security would be sought by convincing the potential rational attacker (irrational state enemies could of course pose an altogether different and possibly insurmountable problem) that the costs of any considered attack will always exceed the expected benefits. Assuming that Israel\u2019s state enemies: (1) value self-preservation most highly; and (2) choose rationally between all alternative options, they will necessarily refrain from any attack on an Israel that is believed both willing and able to deliver an unacceptably destructive response.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 These enemy states might also be deterred by the plausible prospect of a more limited Israeli attack, one that would be directed only at national leaders. In the usual parlance adopted by military and intelligence communities, this particular prospect refers to more-or-less credible threats of \u201cregime targeting.\u201d Whether credible or incredible, any such threats could be severely problematic in specifically legal terms.[36]<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Two factors must combine to communicate such potentially essential belief. First, in terms of capability, there are two critical components: payload and delivery system. It must be successfully communicated to any calculating attacker that Israel\u2019s firepower, and its available means of delivering that firepower, are invariably capable of inflicting unacceptable levels of destruction. This means that Israel\u2019s retaliatory or counter-retaliatory forces must always appear sufficiently invulnerable to enemy first-strikes and aptly elusive to penetrate the prospective attacker\u2019s active and civil defenses.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It may or may not need to be communicated to a potential attacker that such firepower and delivery vehicles are in any way superior to those of the relevant adversary. Deterrence, Israel\u2019s planners must continuously bear in mind, is never about \u201cvictory.\u201d Significantly, the capacity to deter may or may not be as great as the capacity to \u201cwin.\u201d[37]<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 As a current example, Israeli planners could think about North Korea and the United States. In this increasingly problematic dyad of international adversaries, the Americans are in fact clearly superior in all of the usual expressions of hardware and battle-readiness, but the North Koreans could still bring significant harms to US armed forces and (potentially) to portions of the American mainland. And this is to say nothing about parallel or corollary damages that might be visited upon US allies in South Korea or Japan.<\/p>\n Increasingly Complex Calculations<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 With Israel\u2019s strategic nuclear doctrine kept locked in the \u201cbasement,\u201d enemy states could sometime conclude, rightly or wrongly, that a first-strike attack or post-preemption reprisal would be cost-effective. But if relevant Israeli doctrine were made more obvious to enemy states contemplating an attack \u2013 \u201cobvious\u201d in that Israel\u2019s nuclear assets seemingly met both payload and delivery system objectives \u2013 Jerusalem\u2019s nuclear forces could better serve their multiple security functions.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 For Israel, the second requirement of nuclear deterrence concerns willingness. How could Israel convince any potential nuclear attackers that it possessed the resolve to deliver an appropriately destructive retaliation and\/or counter retaliation? The answer to this question will lie largely in doctrine, that is, in Israel\u2019s demonstrated strength of commitment to carry out such an attack and the nuclear ordnance that would be made available.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Here, too, continued ambiguity over nuclear doctrine could wrongfully create the impression of an unwilling Israel. Conversely, any doctrinal movement toward some as-yet-undetermined level of disclosure could heighten the impression that Israel was in fact willing to follow-through on its explicit nuclear threats.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 There are variously persuasive connections between any incrementally more \u201copen\u201d or disclosed Israeli strategic nuclear doctrine and enemy state perceptions of Israeli nuclear deterrence. One such connection centers on the expected relationship between prospectively greater nuclear openness and the perceived vulnerability of Israel\u2019s nuclear forces to preemptive destruction. Another such connection concerns the relation between greater doctrinal openness and the perceived capacity of Israel\u2019s nuclear forces to penetrate an offending state\u2019s active defenses.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 To be deterred by Israel, a newly-nuclear Iran[38]<\/a> or any other newly nuclear adversary (potentially, at least, one of the major Sunni Arab states also worried about a resurgent Iran) would need to believe that at least a critical number of Israel\u2019s retaliatory forces would successfully survive an enemy first-strike, and that these forces could not subsequently be prevented from hitting their pre-designated targets in Iran or elsewhere. Regarding the \u201cpresumed survivability\u201d component of such an adversarial belief, reliable sea-basing (submarines) by Israel could prove a critical case in point.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 There is more. Carefully reasoned, expanding doctrinal openness or partial nuclear disclosure could represent a rational option for Israel so long as situationally-pertinent enemy states were made aware of Israel\u2019s nuclear capabilities. The presumed operational benefits of any such expanding doctrinal openness would accrue from certain deliberate flows of information about dispersion, multiplication and hardening of Israel\u2019s strategic nuclear weapon systems, and from other technical features of these systems. Most important, orderly and doctrinally-controlled flows of information could remove any lingering enemy state doubts about Israel\u2019s nuclear force capabilities and its plausible intentions.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Left unchallenged, such doubts could lethally undermine Israeli nuclear deterrence and, correspondingly, war-avoidance elements of pertinent international law.<\/p>\n Israel and \u201cFriction\u201d: Inadvertent versus Deliberate Nuclear War<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 A key problem in purposefully refining Israeli strategic nuclear policy on issues of deliberate nuclear ambiguity has to do with what Prussian military thinker, Carl von Clausewitz, famously called \u201cfriction.\u201d[39]<\/a> To wit, no military doctrine could ever fully anticipate the actual pace of combat activity or the precise reactions of individual human commanders under fire. It follows that Israel\u2019s nuclear doctrine should somehow be encouraged to combine adequate tactical flexibility with selective doctrinal openness. To understand exactly how such seemingly contradictory objectives could be reconciled in Jerusalem now presents a primary intellectualchallenge to Israel\u2019s national command authority.[40]<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In the end, Israeli planners must think about plausible paths to a nuclear war that include variously relevant risks of an inadvertent or accidental nuclear war. It is possible (perhaps even plausible) that the risks of any deliberate nuclear war involving Israel would be very small, but that the Jewish State could still be vulnerable to such a war occasioned by (1) mechanical\/electrical\/computer malfunction on one side or the other; and (2) assorted decisional errors in reasoning (i.e., miscalculation).<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 To properly assess different but intersecting risks between deliberate nuclear war and inadvertent or accidental nuclear war should be regarded in Jerusalem as a core conceptual goal. These risks, including their corollary legal implications, could operate independently of one another and be impacted by Trump-era alignments. Also, Israel \u2013 like the much larger United States \u2013 should continuously prepare for issues of cyber-attack and cyber-war. Always, such challenging issues should be considered in tandem with the relentless proliferation of \u201cdigital mercenaries.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 One more analytic distinction warrants mention at this late-stage assessment. It references the difference between inadvertent nuclear war and accidental nuclear war. By definition, any accidental nuclear war would be inadvertent. An inadvertent nuclear warm however, need not be accidental. False warnings, which could be generated by technical malfunction or sparked by third-party hacking interference, would not be included under causes of an unintentional or inadvertent nuclear war. Instead, they would represent cautionary narratives of accidentalnuclear war.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Most critical among the plausible causes of inadvertent nuclear war would be errors in calculation by one or both (or several) sides. The most conspicuous example would involve misjudgments of enemy intent or enemy capacity that would emerge and enlarge as a particular crisis escalated. In part, such consequential misjudgments could stem from an amplified desire by one, both or several parties to achieve \u201cescalation dominance.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In any such projected crisis, all rational sides would likely strive for calculable advantage without risking total or near-total destruction. Where one or several adversaries would not be rational, all usual deterrence \u201cbets\u201d would be \u201coff.\u201d Where one or several sides would not be identified as rational, Jerusalem would need to input variously unorthodox sorts of security options.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Still other causes of inadvertent nuclear war involving Israel could include flawed interpretations of computer-generated nuclear attack warnings; an unequal willingness among adversaries to risk catastrophic war; overconfidence in deterrence and\/or defense capabilities on one or several sides (including Israel); adversarial regime changes; outright revolution or coup d\u2019\u00e9tat among adversaries and (among apparent foes) poorly-conceived pre-delegations of nuclear launch authority.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 There is more. Markedly serious problems of overconfidence could be aggravated by successful tests of a nation\u2019s missile defense operations, whether by Israel or any of its relevant adversaries. These problems could be further encouraged by too-optimistic assessments of Trump era alliance guarantees. An example might be intra-crisis judgment in Jerusalem that Washington stands firmly behind its every move during ongoing escalations, up to and including certain forms of reprisal. Similarly, an enemy of Israel could mistake the seriousness and commitment of its own preferred guarantor, whether Russian, Chinese or American.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Going forward, a potential source of inadvertent nuclear war could be the \u201cbackfire\u201d effect from strategies of \u201cpretended irrationality. A rational enemy of Israel that had managed to convince Jerusalem of its decisional irrationality could spark an otherwise avoidable Israeli military preemption. Conversely, an enemy leadership that had begun to take seriously any hint of decisional irrationality in Jerusalem could be frightened into striking first.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Regarding this second scenario, it should be remembered that General Moshe Dayan, at that time Israel\u2019s Minister of Defense, argued \u201cIsrael must be seen as a mad dog, too dangerous to bother.\u201d<\/p>\n Nightmare: New Strategic Meanings<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Nightmare! In all these matters, it is a reasonable metaphor. According to the etymologists, the root is niht mare or niht maere, the \u201cdemon of the night.\u201d Dr. Johnson\u2019s dictionary says this corresponds to Nordic mythology, which regarded nightmare as the product of demons. This would make it a play on or translation of the Greek ephialtes or the Latin incubus. In any event, in all such interpretations of nightmare, the non-rational idea of demonic origin is central.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 But in matters of world politics, the demons of nuclear strategy and nuclear war take different form. For the most part, their mien is not extra-terrestrial, but generally \u201crational\u201d and tangible. If these \u201cdemons\u201d are thought to be sinister, it is not because certain national leaders necessarily crave wanton bloodshed and expanding carnage, but because they seek safety for their own nations amid the cacophony of global chaos.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 There is still more. While the \u201cstate of nations\u201d has always been a \u201cstate of nature,\u201d[41]<\/a> at least since the seventeenth century Peace of Westphalia (1648), current conditions of nuclear capacity and worldwide anarchy portend a uniquely dangerous amalgam of law-violating infringements. Among other things, reasons for such dire portents lie in the indispensability of rational decision-making to viable nuclear deterrence and the subtly interpenetrating fact that rational decision-making may sometime be subject to corrosive modifications or complete disappearance.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0In a world morphing from \u201cmere\u201d anarchy to unmanageable chaos, Israeli decision-makers should prepare for increasingly \u201crough seas.\u201d To avoid being pushed \u201cout to sea,\u201d these leaders will have to prepare capably for unprecedented levels of world-system upheaval and seemingly unfathomable levels of complexity. In some cases, decision-maker calculations will have to assume varying levels of enemy irrationality among state, sub-state or even \u201chybridized\u201d adversaries.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 For Israel, a country smaller than America\u2019s Lake Michigan, ultimate survival tasks will be intellectual ones, and require durable victories of \u201cmind over mind.\u201d[42]<\/a> In turn, these analytic victories will depend on prior capacities to fully understand the many-sided elements of Trump-era alliance reconfigurations. In principle, at least, such capacities could lead Israel to consider assorted preemption options. Final decisions regarding such residual options would be based on (a) expectations of enemy rationality or irrationality; (b) expectations of enemy first-strikes; (c) presumed costs (cumulative \u201cdisutility\u201d) of enemy first-strikes; (d) presumed schedule of enemy nuclear or biological weapons deployments; (e) expected efficiencies of enemy active defenses over time; (f) expected efficiencies of Israel\u2019s active defenses over time; (g) expected efficiencies of Israeli hard-target counterforce operations over time; (h) expected reactions of unaffected regional enemies; and (i) expected US, Russian and world community reactions to Israeli preemptions.[43]<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 There will be \u201chigher-waves\u201d pushing the Israeli ship of state toward greater instabilities, but these forces could still remain subject to sovereign national and law-based control. Among needed qualities, what is most critically required of Israel is a determined national willingness to face the bewildering complexities of world politics with more than just a perfunctory nod to comprehensive theory.[44]<\/a> Looking ahead to increasingly complex elements of international relations and international law, continuously multipolar restructuring will deserve a central pride of place.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Recalling Archilochus\u2019 famous maxim, Israel should strive to know \u201cmany things,\u201d but still understand all seemingly singular factors as components of \u201cone big thing.\u201d In life or death security matters now confronting Jerusalem, it would be better for Israel to act as a \u201chedgehog\u201d than a \u201cfox.\u201d Though such theory-centered suggestions might first be greeted with derision or outright execration, no other theory-based[45]<\/a> stance could be more realistic or law-enforcing.[46]<\/a><\/p>\n [1]<\/a>See:https:\/\/www.jurist.org\/news\/2020\/10\/israel-cabinet-unanimously-approves-uae-peace-agreement\/<\/p>\n [2]<\/a> An intervening factor here (an \u201cintervening variable\u201d) would be the persistence of belligerent Palestinian nationalism and virulent Palestinian terrorism. From the start, it would appear that the UAE and Bahrain agreements only exacerbated Palestinian fears and stoked corollary intentions. See, for example: https:\/\/www.jurist.org\/commentary\/2020\/10\/malwade-mehta-israel-annexation\/<\/p>\n [3]<\/a> See, by this author, Louis Ren\u00e9 Beres, https:\/\/besacenter.org\/perspectives-papers\/israel-nuclear-deterrence\/; and (with Ambassador Zalman Shoval):\u00a0 https:\/\/mwi.usma.edu\/creating-seamless-strategic-deterrent-israel-case-study\/<\/p>\n [4]<\/a> The Palestinian Authority should come specifically to mind, especially because it looks with strong disfavor on the Israel-UAE-Bahrain pacts. All prospective Palestinian terror would have formal roots in the Palestinian National Covenant. Calling officially for sustained Arab violence against Israel, this document was adopted in 1964, three years before the 1967 Six Day War. This means that the PLO\u2019s core guidance on terror was first published \u2013 together with its explicit references to the annihilation of Israel \u2013 three years before there were any \u201coccupied territories.\u201d For the Palestinian Authority, the underlying acceptance of protracted war was part of its broader strategy of incorporating Israel into \u201cPalestine.\u201d This irredentist incorporation is already codified on PA maps. The most unambiguous Palestinian call for the removal of Israel remains the PLO\u2019s \u201cPhased Plan\u201d of June 9, 1974. Under the authoritative laws of war, this Plan represents an unhidden commitment to carry out crimes against humanity.<\/p>\n [5]<\/a> Ultimately, as I have written in other places, the prospective success of Israeli nuclear deterrence vis-\u00e0-vispertinent enemy aggressions, whether nuclear or non-nuclear, remains contingent on the core assumption of enemy rationality. At the same time, as an intriguing corollary, it could prove useful for Israel (on selective occasions) to pretend or feign irrationality. See, for example, by this writer:\u00a0 https:\/\/www.usnews.com\/opinion\/blogs\/world-report\/articles\/2016-03-31\/case-for-irrationality-in-israels-nuclear-deterrence-and-defense-strategy See also, coauthored with General (USAF\/ret) John T. Chain:http:\/\/besacenter.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/Loius-Rene-Beres-and-General-John-T-Chain-Living-with-Iran-PP249-May-28.pdf General Chain was Commander-in-Chief, US Strategic Air Command (CINCSAC).<\/p>\n [6]<\/a> Israel\u2019s anti-missile defense shield likely has four basic layers: The Iron Dome and Iron Beam systems for intercepting drones and short-range rockets; David\u2019s Sling middle-tier air defense system; Arrow-2 for use against intermediate-range ballistic missiles; and Arrow-3 for intercepting ICBMs and (potentially) satellites.<\/p>\n [7]<\/a> It should be continuously borne in mind that Israel\u2019s nuclear security includes both its capacity to threaten or use nuclear weapons offensively and to fend off nuclear threats and attacks by others. These capacities are always more-or-less interdependent and sometimes synergistic.<\/p>\n [8]<\/a> Dialectical thinking originated in Fifth Century BCE Athens, as Zeno, author of the Paradoxes, had been acknowledged by Aristotle as its inventor. In the middle dialogues of Plato, dialectic emerges as the supreme form of philosophic\/analytic method. The dialectician, says Plato, is the special one who knows how to ask and then answer vital questions. From the standpoint of necessary refinements in Israeli strategic planning, this knowledge should never be taken for granted.<\/p>\n [9]<\/a>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.\u00a0\u00a0 This \u201cWestphalian\u201d 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).<\/p>\n [10]<\/a> Historically, the idea of a balance of power \u2013 an idea of which the nuclear-age balance of terror is a current variant \u2013 has never really been more than a facile metaphor. In fact, it has never had anything to do with ascertaining any true equilibrium. As such a balance is always a matter of individual and more-or-less subjective perceptions, adversary states can never be sufficiently confident that identifiable strategic circumstances are \u201cbalanced\u201d in their favor. In consequence, as each side perpetually fears that it will be left behind, the continual search for balance produces ever- wider patterns of insecurity and disequilibrium.<\/p>\n [11]<\/a> See, by this author: Louis Ren\u00e9 Beres, https:\/\/mwi.usma.edu\/threat-convergence-adversarial-whole-greater-sum-parts\/<\/p>\n [12]<\/a> According to Article 53 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties: \u201c\u2026a peremptory norm of general international law is a norm accepted and recognized by the international community of states as a whole as a norm from which no derogation is permitted and which can be modified only by a subsequent norm of general international law having the same character.\u201d See: Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, Done at Vienna, May 23, 1969. Entered into force, Jan. 27, 1980. U.N. Doc. A\/CONF. 39\/27 at 289 (1969), 1155 U.N.T.S. 331, reprinted in 8 I.L.M.\u00a0 679 (1969).<\/p>\n [13]<\/a>See Professor Louis Ren\u00e9 Beres, Oxford University Press, Global Community Yearbook on International Law:\u00a0<\/p>\n https:\/\/academic.oup.com\/book\/55768\/chapter-abstract\/434255464?redirectedFrom=fulltext<\/a>\u00a0 See also by Professor Beres at Modern Diplomacy:\u00a0 https:\/\/moderndiplomacy.eu\/2025\/07\/19\/preparing-for-the-next-war-the-infinite-lethality-of-world-politics\/<\/p>\n [14]<\/a> One core issue here would concern Israeli reliance upon the US for \u201cextended deterrence.\u201d See:Louis Ren\u00e9 Beres, \u201cStaying Strong: Enhancing Israel\u2019s Essential Strategic Options,\u201d Harvard National Security Journal, Harvard Law School, June 13, 2014.<\/p>\n [15]<\/a> The critical importance of Reason to all legal judgment was prefigured in ancient Israel, which prominently accommodated the core concept within its special system of revealed law. Jewish theory of law, insofar as it displays the evident markings of a foundational Higher Law, offers a transcending order revealed by the divine word as interpreted by human reason.\u00a0 In the words of Ecclesiastes 32.23, 37.16, 13-14:\u00a0 \u201cLet reason go before every enterprise and counsel before any action\u2026And let the counsel of thine own heart stand\u2026For a man\u2019s mind is sometimes wont to tell him more than seven watchmen that sit above in a high tower\u2026.\u201d<\/p>\n [16]<\/a> This statement refers to the unpredictable effects of errors in knowledge and information concerning intra-Israel (IDF\/MOD) strategic uncertainties; on Israeli and Iranian under-estimations or over-estimations of relative power position; and on the unalterably vast and largely irremediable differences between theories of deterrence, and enemy intent \u201cas it actually is.\u201d See: Carl von Clausewitz, \u201cUber das Leben und den Charakter von Scharnhorst,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n [17]<\/a> For the specific crime of aggression under international law, see: Resolution on the Definition of Aggression, adopted by the U.N. General Assembly, 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).<\/p>\n [18]<\/a> In such jurisprudential matters, attention should be paid to long-standing ideas of a \u201chigher law.\u201d Under international law, these ideas, drawn originally from the ancient Greeks and ancient Hebrews, are contained within the principle of jus cogens or peremptory norms. In the language of Article 53 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (1969: \u201cA peremptory norm of general international law\u2026.is a norm accepted and recognized by the international community of States as a whole, as a norm from which no derogation is permitted, and which can be modified only by a subsequent norm of general international law having the same character.\u201d<\/p>\n [19]<\/a> In this connection, notes Sigmund Freud: \u201cWars will only be prevented with certainty if mankind unites in setting up a central legal authority to which the right of giving judgment upon all shall be handed over. There are clearly two separate requirements involved in this: the creation of a supreme agency and its endowment with the necessary power. One without the other would be useless.\u201d (See: Sigmund Freud, Collected Papers, cited in Louis Ren\u00e9 Beres, The Management of World Power: A Theoretical Analysis, University of Denver, Monograph Series in World Affairs, Vol. 10 (1973-73), p, 27.)<\/p>\n [20]<\/a> See, by this writer, Louis Ren\u00e9 Beres, at INSS Tel-Aviv:\u00a0 https:\/\/www.inss.org.il\/publication\/changing-direction-updating-israels-nuclear-doctrine\/<\/p>\n [21]<\/a> A great deal has been written on questions of \u201cstrategic depth.\u201d\u00a0 The heart of this 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. \u00a0The 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n [22]<\/a> The writer, Professor Louis Ren\u00e9 Beres, is author of one of the earliest books on this theme: Security of Armageddon: Israel\u2019s Nuclear Strategy (Lexington Books; 1986).<\/p>\n [23]<\/a> In scientific terms, there are no reliably accurate ways to appraise these unprecedented prospects as ascertainable probabilities. This is because true probabilities are always derived from the determinable frequency of relevant past events.<\/p>\n [24]<\/a>This permissible option can be found not in conventional law (art. 51 of the UN Charter supports only post-attack expressions of individual or collective self-defense), but in customary international law. The precise origins of anticipatory self-defense in customary law lie in The Caroline, a case that concerned the unsuccessful rebellion of 1837 in Upper Canada against British rule. Following this case, the serious threat of armed attack has generally justified certain militarily defensive actions. In an exchange of diplomatic notes between the governments of the United States and Great Britain, then U.S. Secretary of State Daniel Webster outlined a framework for self-defense that did not require an antecedent attack. Here, the jurisprudential framework permitted a military response to a threat so long as the danger posed was \u201cinstant, overwhelming, leaving no choice of means, and no moment for deliberation.\u201d See: Beth M. Polebaum, \u201cNational Self-defense in International Law: An Emerging Standard for a Nuclear Age,\u201d 59 N.Y.U.L. Rev. 187, 190-91 (1984) (noting that the Caroline case had transformed the right of self-defense from an excuse for armed intervention into a legal doctrine). Still earlier, see: Hugo Grotius, Of the Causes of War, and First of Self-Defense, and Defense of Our Property, reprinted in 2 Classics of International Law, 168-75 (Carnegie Endowment Trust, 1925) (1625); and Emmerich de Vattel, The Right of Self-Protection and the Effects of the Sovereignty and Independence of Nations, reprinted in 3 Classics of International Law, 130 (Carnegie Endowment Trust, 1916) (1758). Also, Samuel Pufendorf, The Two Books on the Duty of Man and Citizen According to Natural Law, 32 (Frank Gardner Moore., tr., 1927 (1682).<\/p>\n [25]<\/a> See Ehud Eilam, https:\/\/www.ebooks.com\/en-us\/book\/96178545\/israel-s-military-doctrine\/ehud-eilam\/<\/p>\n [26]<\/a> No state on earth, including Israel, is under any per se legal obligation to renounce access to nuclear weapons; in certain residual circumstances, moreover, the actual resort to such weapons could still be lawful. To wit, on July 8, 1996, the International Court of Justice at The Hague handed down its Advisory Opinion on \u201cThe Legality of the Threat or Use of Force of Nuclear Weapons.\u201d The final paragraph of this Opinion, concludes, inter alia: \u201cThe threat or use of nuclear weapons would generally be contrary to the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict, and in particular the principles and rules of humanitarian law. However, in view of the current state of international law, and of the elements of fact at its disposal, the Court cannot conclude definitively whether the threat or use of nuclear weapons would be lawful or unlawful in an extreme circumstance of self-defense, in which the very survival of a State would be at stake.\u201d<\/p>\n [27]<\/a> This was a major conclusion of this author\u2019s Project Daniel Report (2003) to then Prime Minister Sharon. It was titled Israel\u2019s Strategic Future. http:\/\/www.acpr.org.il\/ENGLISH-NATIV\/03-ISSUE\/daniel-3.htm<\/p>\n [28]<\/a> There could also be attendant and possibly unprecedented crimes of war. Moreover, criminal responsibility of leaders under international law is not limited to direct personal action or limited by official position. On this peremptory principle of \u201ccommand responsibility,\u201d or respondeat superior, see: In re Yamashita, 327 U.S. 1 (1945); The High Command Case (The Trial of Wilhelm von Leeb), 12 Law Reports of Trials of War Criminals 1 (United Nations War Crimes Commission Comp., 1949); see Parks, Command Responsibility for War Crimes, 62 MIL.L. REV. 1 (1973); O\u2019Brien, The Law of War, Command Responsibility and Vietnam, 60 GEO. L.J. 605 (1972); U.S. Dept. Of The Army, Army Subject Schedule No. 27 \u2013 1 (Geneva Conventions of 1949 and Hague Convention No. IV of 1907), 10 (1970). The direct individual responsibility of leaders is also unambiguous in view of the London Agreement, which denies defendants the protection of the act of state defense. See AGREEMENT FOR THE PROSECUTION AND PUNISHMENT OF THE MAJOR WAR CRIMINALS OF THE EUROPEAN AXIS, Aug. 8, 1945, 59 Stat. 1544, E.A.S. No. 472, 82 U.N.T.S. 279, art. 7.<\/p>\n [29]<\/a> On \u201cvictory\u201d in a nuclear war, see, by this author:\u00a0 https:\/\/blog.oup.com\/2016\/04\/war-political-victories\/ See also:\u00a0 https:\/\/www.israeldefense.co.il\/en\/node\/28931<\/p>\n [30]<\/a> Recalling the Roman Stoic philosopher and statesman Cicero, in The Letters to His Friends: \u201cFor what can be done against force, without force?\u201d During the nuclear age, the traditional term, \u201cbalance of power\u201d has sometimes been replaced with a more technologically appropriate \u201cbalance of terror.\u201d For the conceptual origins of this historic replacement, se Albert Wohlstetter, \u201cThe Delicate Balance of Terror,\u201d Foreign Affairs, Vol. 37, No.2., January 1959, pp. 211-234.<\/p>\n [31]<\/a> In this connection, Jerusalem should always ensure that it does not enter into agreements that could threaten its physical survival. Thomas Jefferson, third president of the United States, wrote about this core obligation as generic for all nations. Writing in his Opinion on the French Treaties (April 28, 1793), Jefferson opined: \u201cThe nation itself, bound necessarily to whatever it\u2019s preservation and safety require, cannot enter into engagements contrary to its indispensable obligations.\u201d See: Merrill D. Peterson, The Political Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Monticello Monograph Series, Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation, 1993, p. 115.<\/p>\n [32]<\/a> Several of this author\u2019s earlier books deal expressly with pertinent distinctions. See, for example, by Louis Ren\u00e9 Beres: The Management of World Power: A Theoretical Analysis; Apocalypse: Nuclear Catastrophe in World Politics; Reason and Realpolitik: US Foreign Policy and World Order; Mimicking Sisyphus: America\u2019s Countervailing Nuclear Strategy; Security or Armageddon: Israel\u2019s Nuclear Strategy; and Israel\u2019s Nuclear Strategy and US National Security (Tel Aviv), a 2016 monograph with special postscript by General (USA\/ret.) Barry McCaffrey.<\/p>\n [33]<\/a> The underlying idea here of some palpable apocalypse seems to have been born in ancient Iran (Persia), specifically, with the Manichaeism of the Zoroastrians. Interestingly, at least one of these documents, The War of the Sons of Light Against the Sons of Darkness, found in a Qumran cave, is a comprehensive description of Jewish military tactics and regulations at the end of the Second Commonwealth. In essence, the \u201cSons of Light\u201d were expected to prevail in battle against the \u201cSons of Darkness\u201d before the \u201cend of days,\u201d and the later fight at Masada was widely interpreted as an apocalyptic struggle between a saintly few and the wicked many.<\/p>\n [34]<\/a>The law of armed conflict, or the law of war, is comprised of: (1) rules on weapons; (2) rules on warfare; and (3) humanitarian rules. Codified primarily at The Hagueand Geneva Conventions, these norms attempt to bring discrimination, proportionality and military necessity into all belligerent calculations.<\/p>\n [35]<\/a> Regarding preemption, the obvious Israeli precedents for any such defensive moves would be Operation Opera directed against the Osiraq (Iraqi) nuclear reactor on June 7, 1981, and, later (though lesser known) Operation Orchard against Syria on September 6, 2007. In April 2011, the U.N.\u2019s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirmed that he bombed Syrian site in the Deir ez-Zoe region of Syria had indeed been a developing nuclear reactor. In this writer\u2019s judgment, both preemptions were lawful assertions of Israel\u2019s \u201cBegin Doctrine.\u201d<\/p>\n [36]<\/a>https:\/\/jewishbusinessnews.com\/2019\/01\/30\/assassination-and-targeted-killing-a-timely-jurisprudential-brief\/ This paper was first published at The Brown Journal of World Affairs.<\/p>\n [37]<\/a> See by this writer, Louis Ren\u00e9 Beres, at Jurist: https:\/\/www.jurist.org\/commentary\/2020\/06\/louis-beres-winning-war\/<\/p>\n [38]<\/a>Regarding Iran, see Louis Ren\u00e9 Beres and John T. Chain (General\/USAF\/ret.), \u201cCould Israel Safely Deter a Nuclear Iran\u201d, The Atlantic, August, 2012; and also: Professor Louis Ren\u00e9 Beres and General Chain, \u201cIsrael and Iran at the Eleventh Hour,\u201d Oxford University Press (OUP Blog), February 23, 2012. General Chain was Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Strategic Air Command (CINCSAC).<\/p>\n [39]<\/a> See most recently by this author, Louis Ren\u00e9 Beres, at War Room, US Army War College, Pentagon:\u00a0 https:\/\/warroom.armywarcollege.edu\/author\/louis-rene-beres\/<\/a><\/p>\n [40]<\/a> \u201cIt must not be forgotten,\u201d writes French poet Guillaume Apollinaire in \u201cThe New Spirit and the Poets\u201d (1917), \u201cthat it is perhaps more dangerous for a nation to allow itself to be conquered intellectually than by arms.\u201d<\/p>\n [41]<\/a> Says Thomas Hobbes: \u201cBut though there had never been any time wherein particular men were in a condition of war one against another, yet in all times, Kings and Persons of Sovereign Authority, because of their Independency, are in continual jealousies, and in the state and posture of Gladiators, having their weapons pointing and their eyes fixed on one another\u2026(Leviathan).<\/p>\n [42]<\/a> For this term I am indebted to F.E. Adcock, The Greek and Macedonian Art of War (1957)<\/p>\n [43]<\/a>For early scholarly commentary by this author on anticipatory self-defense under international law, with special reference to Israel, see:\u00a0 Louis Ren\u00e9 Beres and (COL.\/IDF\/Res.) Yoash Tsiddon Chatto, \u201cReconsidering Israel\u2019s Destruction of Iraq\u2019s Osiraq Nuclear Reactor,\u201d TEMPLE INTERNATIONAL AND COMPARATIVE LAW JOURNAL, Vol. 9., No. 2., 1995, pp. 437 \u2013 449; Louis Ren\u00e9 Beres, \u201cPreserving the Third Temple: Israel\u2019s Right of Anticipatory Self-Defense Under International Law,\u201d\u00a0 VANDERBILT JOURNAL OF TRANSNATIONAL LAW, Vol. 26, No. 1.,\u00a0 April 1993, pp. 111- 148;\u00a0 Louis Ren\u00e9 Beres,\u00a0 \u201cAfter the Gulf War: Israel, Preemption and Anticipatory Self-Defense,\u201d\u00a0 HOUSTON JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL LAW,\u00a0 Vol. 13, No. 2.,\u00a0 Spring 1991,\u00a0 pp. 259 \u2013 280;\u00a0 Louis Ren\u00e9 Beres,\u00a0 \u201cStriking `First:\u2019\u00a0 Israel\u2019s Post-Gulf War Options Under International Law,\u201d\u00a0 LOYOLA OF LOS ANGELES INTERNATIONAL AND COMPARATIVE LAW JOURNAL,\u00a0 Vol. 14,\u00a0 Nov. 1991,\u00a0 No. 1.,\u00a0 pp. 1 \u2013 24;\u00a0 Louis Ren\u00e9 Beres,\u00a0 \u201cIsrael and Anticipatory Self-Defense,\u201d\u00a0 ARIZONA JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL AND COMPARATIVE LAW,\u00a0 Vol. 8, 1991,\u00a0 pp. 89 \u2013 99;\u00a0 and Louis Ren\u00e9 Beres,\u00a0 \u201cAfter the SCUD Attacks:\u00a0 Israel, `Palestine,\u2019 and Anticipatory Self-Defense,\u201d\u00a0 EMORY INTERNATIONAL LAW REVIEW,\u00a0 Vol. 6,\u00a0 No. 1.,\u00a0 Spring 1992,\u00a0 pp. 71 \u2013 104.\u00a0 For an examination of assassination as a permissible form of anticipatory self-defense by Israel, see, Louis Ren\u00e9 Beres, \u201cOn Assassination as Anticipatory Self-Defense: The Case of Israel,\u201d HOFSTRA LAW REVIEW, Vol. 20, No. 2., Winter 1991, pp.\u00a0 321 \u2013 340.\u00a0 For more general assessments of assassination as anticipatory self-defense under international law by this author, see:\u00a0 Louis Ren\u00e9 Beres, \u201cThe Permissibility of State-Sponsored Assassination During Peace and War,\u201d TEMPLE INTERNATIONAL AND COMPARATIVE LAW JOURNAL, Vol. 5, No. 2, 1991, pp. 231 \u2013 249; and Louis Ren\u00e9 Beres, \u201cVictims and Executioners:\u00a0 Atrocity, Assassination and International Law,\u201d CAMBRIDGE REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS, Winter\/Spring, 1993.<\/p>\n [44]<\/a> A long-studied passage in Francis Bacon\u2019s The Advancement of Learning explains that earlier Scholastics were like spiders, weaving webs out of their own heads without any consideration of surrounding facts. While these webs were inherently admirable on account of their workmanship and \u201cfineness of thread,\u201d they were nonetheless lacking in any true explanatory substance. (I, iv., 5). Presently, in explaining Israel\u2019s nuclear doctrine amid historical structural anarchy, it is important to construct dialectical arguments upon well-reasoned analytic foundations, and not on any diaphanous constructions of modern-day Scholastics.<\/p>\n