Prospects for Escalation and Nuclear War in the Middle East ______

PP rroolliiffeerraattiioonn PPaappeerrss ______________________________________________________________________ Strategic Stability Reconsidered: Prospects for Escalation and Nuclear War in the Middle East ______________________________________________________________________ In collaboration with the Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) James A. Russell Spring 2009 . Security Studies Center The Institut Français des Relations Internationales (Ifri) is a research center and a forum for debate on major international political and economic issues. Headed by Thierry de Montbrial since its founding in 1979, Ifri is a non-governmental, non-profit organization. As an independent think tank, Ifri sets its own research agenda, publishing its findings regularly for a global audience. Using an interdisciplinary approach, Ifri brings together political and economic decision-makers, researchers and internationally renowned experts to animate its debate and research activities. With offices in Paris and Brussels, Ifri stands out as one of the rare French think tanks to have positioned itself at the very heart of European debate. The opinions expressed in this text are the responsibility of the author alone. ISBN : 978-2-86592-495-0 © Ifri – 2009 – All rights reserved Ifri Ifri-Bruxelles 27 rue de la Procession Rue Marie-Thérèse, 21 75740 Paris Cedex 15 – FRANCE 1000 – Brussels – BELGIUM Tel : 33 (0)1 40 61 60 00 Tel : 32 (0)2 238 51 10 Fax : 33 (0)1 40 61 60 60 Fax : 32 (0)2 238 51 15 Email : [email protected] Email : [email protected] Website : www.ifri.org Spring 2009 Strategic Stability Reconsidered: Prospects for Escalation and Nuclear War in the Middle East James A. Russell Proliferation Papers Though it has long been a concern for security experts, proliferation has truly become an important political issue with the last decade, marked simultaneously by the nuclearization of South Asia, the weakening of international regimes and the discovery of frauds and traffics, the number and gravity of which have surprised observers and analysts alike (Iraq in 1991, North Korea, Libyan and Iranian programs or the A. Q. Khan networks today). To further the debate on complex issues that involve technical, regional, and strategic aspects, Ifri’s Security Studies Center organizes each year, in collaboration with the Atomic Energy Commission (CEA), a series of closed seminars dealing with WMD proliferation, disarmament, and nonproliferation. Generally held in English, these seminars are structured around the presentation of an international expert. Proliferation Papers is a collection, in the original version, of selected texts from these presentations. An anonymous peer-review procedure ensures the high academic quality of the contributions. Download notifications are sent to an audience of several hundred international subscribers upon publication. Editorial board Editor : Etienne de Durand Deputy Editor : Corentin Brustlein Principal Scientific Adviser: Jean Klein Layout Assistant: Maryse Penny About the Author James A. Russell is managing editor of Strategic Insights, the quarterly e- journal published by the Center for Contemporary Conflict at the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) in Monterey, California. He also serves as senior lecturer in the Department of National Security Affairs at NPS, where he is teaching courses on Middle East security affairs, terrorism, and national security strategy. His articles and commentaries have appeared in a wide variety of journals and other forums. His latest article is “A Tipping Point Realized? Nuclear Proliferation in the Persian Gulf and Middle East”, Contemporary Security Policy 29/3 (December 2008). His latest book (ed., with Daniel Moran) is Energy Security and Global Politics: The Militarization of Resource Management (New York: Routledge, 2009). From 1988-2001, Mr. Russell held a variety of positions in the Office of the Assistant Secretary Defense for International Security Affairs, Near East South Asia, Department of Defense. During this period he traveled extensively in the Persian Gulf and Middle East working on U.S. security policy. He is currently completing his doctoral dissertation for the War Studies Department, King’s College, University of London. The views in this article are the author’s own. He wishes to thank the anonymous reviewers, IFRI staff, Barry Zellen, Dan Moran, Jim Wirtz, Michael Friend, Doug Thies, Bruce Riedel, and Ted Cavin for their helpful comments. Contents Introduction ______________________________________________ 9 The Framework: From Theory to Regional Dynamics ___________ 11 Schelling on Coercion and Escalation: A Primer _______ 11 Regional Coercive Framework ______________________ 13 Strategic Instability _______________________________________ 19 Escalation and Strategic Stability ____________________ 19 Deterrence, Escalation, and the Coercive Framework ___ 21 Communications, Actor Intent and the Rhetoric of War __ 25 Escalation and the “Window of Opportunity” __________ 27 Nuclear Use in the Middle East ? ____________________________ 33 Near-Term Nuclear Use Scenarios ___________________ 33 Longer-Term Use Scenarios ________________________ 37 Conclusion ______________________________________________ 41 Introduction his paper addresses the prospect that nuclear weapons could be used T in the Middle East – breaking the so-called “taboo” against the use of these weapons since the United States dropped a nuclear bomb on Nagasaki on August 9, 1945 and which remained unbroken throughout the Cold War and continues to endure. It argues that unstable dynamics of the coercive bargaining framework surrounding Iran’s nuclear program may be pushing the world closer toward the use of nuclear weapons than is generally realized – perhaps closer than any time since the Cuban missile crisis1 – and proposes a number of near- and longer-term scenarios to illustrate the ways in which structural uncertainties in the regional interstate bargaining framework could result in the use of nuclear weapons. In itself, the “taboo” against nuclear use is unlikely to prevent regional states and/or non-state actors from using these weapons to protect themselves and to secure their vital interests. While the very use of the word “taboo” in connection with nuclear weapons offers an attractive metaphor, it has little use as a meaningful term to describe the policies and attitudes of states’ and non-state actors toward the use of nuclear weapons. It is difficult to argue that any country has ever obtained nuclear weapons with the idea that the weapons would not be used.2 A case in 1 A compelling case can also be made that the world came close to seeing the use of nuclear weapons during the India-Pakistan standoff over Kashmir, a crisis that lasted from December 2001 through October 2002. See Polly Nayak and Michael Krepon, “U.S. Crisis Management in South Asia’s ‘Twin Peaks’ Crisis”, Report 57, The Stimson Center, Washington DC, September 2006, http://www.stimson.org/southasia/pdf/USCrisisManagementFull.pdf. There also remains considerable debate about our proximity to nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis. As Robert S. McNamara recalled in his 2005 Foreign Policy article, “Apocalypse Soon”, “The Cuban Missile Crisis demonstrated that the United States and the Soviet Union—and indeed the rest of the world—came within a hair’s breadth of nuclear disaster in October 1962. Indeed, according to former Soviet military leaders, at the height of the crisis, Soviet forces in Cuba possessed 162 nuclear warheads, including at least 90 tactical warheads. At about the same time, Cuban President Fidel Castro asked the Soviet ambassador to Cuba to send a cable to Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev stating that Castro urged him to counter a U.S. attack with a nuclear response. Clearly, there was a high risk that in the face of a U.S. attack, which many in the U.S. government were prepared to recommend to President Kennedy, the Soviet forces in Cuba would have decided to use their nuclear weapons rather than lose them.” Cf. Robert S. McNamara, “Apocalypse Soon”, Foreign Policy (May/June 2005), pp. 3- 4,http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=2829&page=0 2 No non-state actor is reported to possess a nuclear weapon at this point – though the logic of the statement would apply equally to non-state actors as well. J. Russell / Strategic Stability Reconsidered point is the United States, for example, which, while embracing the concept of nuclear deterrence, has made a point of not foreswearing the first use of nuclear weapons, and has repeatedly articulated a range of plausible conditions under which the weapons would be used.3 The paper agrees with political scientist Michael Mandelbaum, who declared more than a decade ago that: “…like all taboos, this one will be violated under necessity. Individuals will eat forbidden foods, even one another, if the alternative is starvation; nations will acquire and use forbidden weapons if they deem it necessary for survival.”4 The paper first draws upon Thomas Schelling’s ideas to assess the regional strategic framework, and finds systemic uncertainties which suggest that escalation by various parties – state and non-state actors – is a possible outcome. Both near-term and long-term scenarios are considered. The near-term nuclear use scenarios are all predicated on the assumption that nuclear use will occur within the context of escalation to or within war. As dangerous as these circumstances are, longer-term scenarios for nuclear use will also be proposed,

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