by Louis René Beres (March 2015)
Traditionally, successful national strategies of deterrence require enemy rationality. In the absence of such rationality – that is, in those more-or-less residual circumstances where an enemy state would rank order certain values or preferences more highly than “staying alive” as a nation – deterrence is expected to fail. For those potentially more serious situations involving nuclear deterrence, the palpable consequences of any such failure could be starkly catastrophic, or even unprecedented. more>>>
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2 Responses
Most analysis of nuclear doctrine is informed speculation. With the exception of of the closing days of WWII, there’s little data to analyse. If the subject is warfighting, the choices are pretty much limited to counterforce, countervalue, or some combination of the two. By virtue its size, any strike against Israel would have to be countervalue, that is, targeted vs population centers. Any strike vs Persia would likewise have to target population centers as Israel could not possibly have the capability to neutralize military targets alone, Even a limited strike against Iran’s military or nuclear assets would necessarily put Israel’s cities at risk. Sophie’s choice indeed.
If Iran gets the bomb, then Shia and Sunni will race to the bottom as each dares the other to exact another final solution.
Could it be possible that disclosure of the Israeli nuclear capability would make the situation worse, due to Muslims using the weapons as an excuse to see themselves as having to defend against “Zionist nukes” – and therefore an even better excuse to attack Israel?