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Containing and Deterring a Nuclear Iran

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Containing and Deterring a Nuclear Iran CONTAINING AND DETERRING A NUCLEAR I RAN QUESTIONS FOR STRATEGY, REQUIREMENTS FOR MILITARY FORCES THOMAS DONNELLY, DANIELLE PLETKA, AND MASEH ZARIF WITH A FOREWORD BY FREDERICK W. KAGAN A REPORT BY THE AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE CONTAINING AND DETERRING A NUCLEAR I RAN QUESTIONS FOR STRATEGY, REQUIREMENTS FOR MILITARY FORCES THOMAS DONNELLY, DANIELLE PLETKA, AND MASEH ZARIF WITH A FOREWORD BY FREDERICK W. KAGAN December 2011 A REPORT BY THE AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE Acknowledgments his report is the culmination of a project executed with the support Tof numerous individuals, including groups of experts gathered in July and September 2010 at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). Our colleagues at AEI contributed vital assistance, understanding, and analysis in the completion of this report. We are grateful for their sup- port in this endeavor and for their commitment to further our collec- tive efforts to address a key national security challenge facing our country. In particular, we thank Frederick W. Kagan, Michael Rubin, Gary Schmitt, Ali Alfoneh, Ahmad Majidyar, Katherine Faley, Will Fulton, Grant Gibson, Stephen Gailliot, Lazar Berman, Richard Cleary, Laura Shen, and Henry A. Ensher. We would also like to thank the publica- tions staff at AEI for their keen editorial and technical assistance. As always, credit belongs to many, but the contents of this report and any errors and interpretations are the responsibility of the authors alone. iii Contents Foreword . .vii Key Findings . .1 Executive Summary . .3 Introduction . .6 Purposes, Presumptions, and Processes . .8 The Meaning of Containment . .9 Structures of Deterrence . .15 Assessing the Prospects for Deterrence . .19 The Polarity Question 19 The Interest Question 20 The Involvement Question 21 The Risk Question 23 The Dispute-Behavior Question 25 The Nuclear Question 29 The Conventional Forces Order-of-Battle Question 31 The Strategic-Culture Question 35 US Military Requirements for Assured Deterrence . .39 The Costs of Containment . .45 Map 1: The Broader Middle East . .48 Map 2: Problems for Containment: Receding US Force Posture . .49 Notes . .50 About the Authors . .59 Cover image: Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) tests nuclear-capable Shahab-3 missiles during the first phase of military maneuvers in the central desert outside the holy city of Qom, November 2, 2006. (AFP/Getty Images) v Foreword he challenge of a nuclear Iran will be among the The Iranians thus face an opportune policy win- Tmost difficult the United States has faced. Iran dow during which sound strategy would lead them will not soon pose an existential threat to the United to field a nuclear capability if they have the ability to States in the way that the Soviet Union did from the do so. The Obama administration seems certain not 1960s until its collapse—at least, not in the sense to attack. But the outcome of the next American that it will have a nuclear arsenal capable of literally presidential election is entirely uncertain, and the annihilating the United States. But Iran will reach attitudes of some of the Republican candidates— another threshold by acquiring nuclear weapons— particularly, the front-runners—are much less clear. the ability to keep America and its allies in con- Strategically, Iran’s leaders would be foolish to wait stant fear. For a state that has formed its national until after November 2012 to acquire the capability security policy largely around terrorism, that is quite to permanently deter an American attack on their an accomplishment. It will unquestionably change nuclear program. American foreign and national security policy pro- Sound American strategy thus requires assuming foundly for the foreseeable future and introduce a that Iran will have a weaponized nuclear capability source of permanent unease into a region and a world when the next president takes office in January already suffering from more than enough worry 2013. The Iranians may not test a device before and distress. then, depending, perhaps, on the rhetoric of the Many American and international leaders have current president and his possible successor, but we said that Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons is must assume that they will have at least one. unacceptable for these and other reasons. But at this The prospect of an Israeli strike in the interim— moment it seems nearly certain that the inter- the odds of which have increased again in the wake national community, including the United States, of the president’s decision to withdraw all US forces will accept it. Anything is possible, but it is very dif- from Iraq at the end of this year—do not necessarily ficult to imagine the current American administra- alter this calculus much. The Israeli Air Force can tion going to war with Iran to prevent Tehran from no doubt strike known facilities in Iran, including advancing its nuclear program, whatever reports the enrichment facility at Natanz. It can likely come out of the International Atomic Energy destroy any above-ground structures and verify their Agency (IAEA) or elsewhere. None of America’s destruction. It may be able to destroy known buried allies, apart from Israel, will take military action. structures, such as those at Natanz, but verification There is no reason to imagine that a sanctions may prove much more difficult. The biggest problem regime, or attempts to “isolate” Iran diplomatically, is that the known facilities are primarily those will succeed in the next year or two, having already involved in the enrichment process—creating the failed spectacularly for more than a decade. And nuclear fuel that would go into a weapon. Do the with the US failure to secure a binding relationship Israelis know the locations of all of the facilities in with Iraq, it is much more likely that the sanctions which that fuel might be mated with a warhead? Can regime will steadily erode as Tehran uses Iraq to they hit and destroy them? Can they, or anyone else, bypass it. be certain when the dust has settled that they have vii CONTAINING AND DETERRING A NUCLEAR IRAN gotten them all? If the Iranian leadership pops up the start setting the terms of the discussion about what next day and says, “You missed! We still have a a successful strategy of containing a nuclear Iran will weapon!” then what? The United States will almost look like. certainly be forced to behave as though this is true, Make no mistake—it would be vastly preferable and the following months and years will be spent for the United States and the world to find a way to attempting to prove or disprove the claim—and to prevent Iran from crossing that threshold, and we examine Iran’s almost-inevitable efforts to rebuild its wholeheartedly endorse ongoing efforts that might do program (probably without benefit of IAEA access). so. But some of the effort now focused on how to And all that is to say nothing of the regional and even tighten the sanctions screws must shift to the problem global consequences of an Israeli strike and an Iran- of how to deal with the consequences when sanctions ian response. fail. That is the aim of this paper, and we hope it will The next American president is very likely to find become the aim of a significant portion of the Iran himself or herself willy-nilly pursuing a policy of policy community sooner rather than later. containing a nuclear Iran—or, at least, an Iran sus- Note: I was a part of this discussion and this proj- pected of having nuclear weapons rather than sim- ect from the outset, but circumstances required me ply of having a program that could produce them. to spend the period during which it was written in Yet there is no such policy now under development Afghanistan. I was not able, therefore, to take part in (since no world leader can explicitly discuss a possi- writing it, as I and my colleagues had originally bility he has dismissed as “unacceptable”), and little expected, leaving them to carry the burden alone. thought has been given to what such a policy might They have done so brilliantly, and I proudly associate look like. When the project that produced this myself with the work they have produced. report began, we believed it was important to com- pare the costs and challenges of a containment strat- —Frederick W. Kagan egy against other possible courses of action aimed at preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Frederick W. Kagan is a resident scholar in defense and security But the situation has changed. Our task is now to policy studies and director of the Critical Threats Project at AEI. viii Key Findings • Many have suggested that containing a of Iranian influence, including Iranian “soft nuclear Iran is a reasonable option, possi- power”; and to work toward a political— bly more desirable than confrontation. if not a physical—transformation of the The United States may choose the con- Tehran regime. tainment of Iran as the least-worst option. Alternatively, containment may be thrust • A further essential characteristic of Cold upon us at the moment Iran becomes a War containment applicable to Iran is nuclear state, a moment that has been dif- that such a policy demands a compre- ficult to predict in the past. hensive, whole-of-government approach driven by consistent diplomacy. Contain- • Containment is hardly a cost-free policy, ing Iran requires effecting the isolation of but aside from a small handful of policy the Iranian regime, disconnecting it from sketches proffered heretofore, little great power patrons, limiting its ability to thought has gone into what an effective peel off neighbors and regional players to containment and deterrent regime will serve its agenda, limiting its use of prox- require of the United States and its allies.
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