Assessments of Reliability or Trustworthiness
Israel's strategic approach to degrading Iran's nuclear threat and establishing credible nuclear deterrence in the Middle East is a delicate balance between military actions, diplomatic signalling, and nuclear posture management.
**1. Degrading Iran's Nuclear Program**
Israel has carried out military strikes against Iran's nuclear and military infrastructure to slow down its nuclear weapons capability. These strikes aim to prevent Iran from advancing towards nuclear weaponisation, but they risk hardening Iran's resolve to pursue nuclear weapons as a form of deterrence and regime survival.
**2. Strategic Calculus and the Risks of Escalation**
Military action alone may not suffice and could paradoxically incentivise Iran to rush its nuclear weapons development. Israel must weigh the immediate benefit of slowing Iran against the long-term risk of spurring a regional nuclear arms race.
**3. Diplomatic and Political Dimensions**
Israel's strikes have disrupted diplomatic efforts between Iran and other stakeholders, potentially closing paths to peaceful resolution and inspections enforcement. The ceasefire and any potential detente are fragile, and Iran may respond by further clandestine nuclear development or by seeking to bolster its deterrence through nuclear weapons.
**4. Nuclear Deterrence Posture: Selective Disclosure vs. Ambiguity**
Israel's long-standing strategy involves deliberate nuclear ambiguity to maximise strategic deterrence by uncertainty. However, amid rising threats and attacks on its security, Israel may consider selective nuclear disclosure to strengthen deterrence explicitly by signalling a credible second-strike capability or willingness to use nuclear weapons if existentially threatened.
**5. Balancing the Approach**
Israel's strategic considerations include continuing precision strikes and covert operations to degrade Iran's nuclear infrastructure while avoiding escalation that might accelerate Iran's weapons program. Leveraging US strategic support and diplomatic maneuvers to isolate Iran politically and reduce its nuclear ambitions is also crucial.
Maintaining nuclear ambiguity to preserve deterrence and avoid triggering a regional nuclear arms race, while selectively calibrating disclosure if deterrence needs to be strengthened in response to heightened Iranian threats, is another key factor. Evaluating political efforts aimed at regime destabilisation as an indirect method to reduce Iran’s capacity and will to develop nukes is also important.
Preparing for various scenarios, including increased proxy conflicts and missile attacks, while ensuring credible nuclear deterrence remains operational, is another vital aspect.
**6. The Role of Perceptions of Credibility**
In nuclear strategic thinking, deterrence depends on "perceptions of credibility." Herman Kahn, a seminal American nuclear strategist, emphasised this in 1984, stating that deterrence is not just about military capabilities, but also perceptions of credibility. Louis René Beres, a scholar who has published on nuclear warfare matters, has emphasised the need for Israel to ensure "escalation dominance" in all realistic conflict scenarios to keep Iran non-nuclear.
**7. The Iranian Nuclear Threat**
The Iranian nuclear threat to Israel has been degraded, but it's not obliterated. Israel will need to consider once speculative but no longer inconceivable scenarios regarding future war with Iran, including the possibility of North Korea and/or Pakistan becoming nuclear proxies. Until now, Iran's hyperbolic threats against Israel have been contrived, and Israel could always "call Iran's bluff" if its non-nuclear forces were recognizably superior or if Jerusalem had previously made more explicit Israel's plausible nuclear options.
North Korea, a geographically distant and non-Islamic state, has a history of belligerent interactions with Israel and could potentially be seen as a nuclear proxy by Iran. Pakistan has reaffirmed its solidarity with Iran and threatened direct nuclear retaliation against Israel if Iran were to face a nuclear attack from Jerusalem.
In conclusion, Israel must carefully balance military pressure, diplomatic engagement, and its nuclear posture, weighing the benefits and risks of selective nuclear disclosure against the traditional strategy of deliberate ambiguity to deter Iran’s nuclear threat and maintain regional stability. This balancing act is central to avoiding a nuclear-armed Middle East while safeguarding Israel’s security interests.
- Policymakers and legislators around the world, following the tensions over Iran's nuclear program, are closely examining Israel's approach as a case study in policy-and-legislation, particularly in regards to the delicate balance between military actions, diplomatic signaling, and nuclear posture management.
- In the realm of general-news, discussions about Israel's strategic maneuvers towards Iran often intersect with the broader political landscape, as the international community closely watches whether Israel's degradation of Iran's nuclear program will inadvertently trigger a dangerous acceleration in the arms race or provide a model for restraint and diplomatic resolution.
