Correspondence Correspondence Louis René Beres Zeev Maoz Israel and the Bomb

To the Editors:

Israeli strategist Zeev Maoz’s controversial article, “The Mixed Blessing of Israel’s Nu- clear Policy,” calls for Israel to disband its nuclear weapons program and join with Arab states in the region to create a “nuclear weapons–free zone.”1 The article, however, ig- nores the history of Israeli-Arab relations, especially the unending Arab call for Israel’s annihilation and the indisputable record of Arab and Iranian noncompliance with inter- national legal obligations. Most ominously, this record includes Iran’s recently revealed pursuit of nuclear weapons while party to the 1968 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. How little has been learned in some academic quarters. Should Israeli leaders take seriously Maoz’s call to renounce nuclear weapons, they might as well agree to commit national suicide. Deprived of its nuclear deterrent, Israel would be at the mercy of gov- ernments that unambiguously profess genocide against a country half the size of Lake Michigan. Admittedly, it is difªcult to imagine nuclear weapons as anything other than inher- ently evil implements of destruction. Yet there are circumstances wherein possession of such weapons will be all that protects a state from catastrophic war. Moreover, be- cause nuclear weapons may deter international aggression, their possession could also protect neighboring states (friends and foes alike) from war-related or even nuclear- inºicted harm. It follows that not all members of the “nuclear club” need be a menace; rather, some may provide a distinct and indispensable beneªt to world peace and security. An obvious case is the State of Israel. If deprived of its nuclear forces because of mis- conceived hopes for regional cooperation, the Jewish state could become vulnerable to overwhelming attacks. Indeed, even if pertinent Arab states were to abide by the expec- tations of a nuclear weapons–free zone—a presumption unsupported by the region’s history—their combined conventional, chemical, and biological capabilities could even- tually overwhelm the Israeli state. Although Israeli existential vulnerability might be prevented in principle by institut- ing parallel forms of conventional/chemical/biological weapons disarmament among enemy Arab states and Iran, such parallel steps would never occur. As history shows,

Louis René Beres is Professor of Political Science at Purdue University. In addition to being the author of many books and articles dealing with nuclear strategy and nuclear war, Beres is Chair of Project Daniel, a private advisory group to Israel’s prime minister, Ariel Sharon, on existential security matters. The group’s ªnal report, “Israel’s Strategic Future,” was hand-delivered to Prime Minister Sharon in January 2003.

Zeev Maoz is Professor of Political Science at Tel Aviv University and Visiting Professor of Political Science at the University of Michigan.

1. Zeev Maoz, “The Mixed Blessing of Israel’s Nuclear Policy,” International Security, Vol. 28, No. 2 (Fall 2003), pp. 44–77.

International Security, Vol. 29, No. 1 (Summer 2004), pp. 175–180 © 2004 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

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veriªcation of compliance in these matters is exceedingly difªcult and would be espe- cially problematic where several enemy states were involved. Nuclear weapons are not the problem per se. In the Middle East, the problem is a far-reaching and essentially unreconstructed Arab-Iranian commitment to the destruc- tion of the Jewish state. The Palestinian Authority, for example, has never modiªed its 1974 “phased plan” to replace all of Israel with a Palestinian state, nor has it ever com- plied with any of its codiªed legal obligations to Israel concerning the incitement and extradition of terrorists. Faced with this commitment, the Israeli government must al- ready understand that the so-called peace process has never been more than a tempo- rary strategem designed to weaken Israel to the point where it can no longer defend itself. Signiªcantly, this strategem, whether it is called “the Oslo process” or the “road map,” could soon succeed beyond the wildest dreams of Israel’s enemies. Should the “peace process” be augmented by Israeli nuclear disarmament, as recommended by Maoz, and at a time when enemy states (i.e., Iran, Egypt, Syria, and Saudi Arabia) are continuing to expand their own conventional and unconventional weapons activities, Israel’s survival could be placed in doubt. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, at least one Arab state that has signed a formal peace treaty with Israel remains effectively at war with it. There can be little doubt that Egypt, should tactical opportunities arise, would quickly revert to its traditional stance and participate in joint Arab attacks against Israel. Syria, should it one day sign a com- parable peace agreement with Israel, would not hesitate to abrogate that agreement if Damascus perceived an opening for attack. It is important in this regard also to note the growing cooperation between Syria and Iran, which could soon imperil Israel with for- midable combinations of conventional and unconventional threats, including nuclear weapons. With nuclear weapons, Israel could deter enemy unconventional attacks and most large conventional forms of aggression. Moreover, with such weapons, it could launch nonnuclear preemptive strikes against enemy-state hard targets that threaten Israel’s annihilation. Without these weapons, such strikes would likely represent the onset of a much wider war because there would be no compelling threat of Israeli counter- retaliation. Israel’s nuclear weapons therefore represent an impediment to their actual use and to the commencement of regional nuclear war. No examination of Israeli nuclear deterrence and preemption options would be com- plete without consideration of the issue of disclosure. From the beginning, Israel has maintained a policy of nuclear ambiguity. For the future, however, it is unclear whether this policy will continue to meet Israel’s existential security goals, or whether Israel should declare its nuclear capability. Thus, contrary to Maoz’s argument, Israel not only needs its nuclear weapons, but it may even have to jettison its policy of nuclear ambiguity. At ªrst glance, the issue of whether Israel has nuclear weapons may appear con- trived or inconsequential. After all, everyone knows that Israel possesses a nuclear de- terrent. Why, then, belabor the obvious? Before answering this question, it must be understood that the purpose of Israeli nuclear disclosure would not be to reveal the ob- vious. Rather, it would be to heighten prospective enemy perceptions that Israel’s nu-

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clear forces are fully capable and that Israel would be willing to use these nuclear forces in reprisal for certain ªrst-strike attacks. Although not widely recognized, there are distinct and plausible connections between an openly declared Israeli nuclear weapons capacity and prospective enemy perceptions of Israeli nuclear deterrence. To the extent that an Israeli declaration of nuclear capability would encourage pro- spective enemy views of an Israeli force that is sufªciently invulnerable to ªrst-strike attacks or is capable of piercing enemy active-defense systems, or both, disclosure could represent a rational and prudent option for the Jewish state. Here the operational beneªts of disclosure would derive from deliberate ºows of information about the dis- persion, multiplication, hardening, speed, and evasiveness of Israel’s nuclear weapon systems and infrastructures, and about some relevant technical features of certain nu- clear weapons. Most important, such ºows, which could also refer to command, con- trol, communication, and intelligence invulnerability and possible predelegations of launch authority, could serve to erase prospective enemy doubts about Israel’s nuclear force capabilities. Left unchallenged, these doubts could surely undermine Israeli nuclear deterrence. Israel’s public acknowledgment of a nuclear capability could also heighten enemy perceptions of Israel’s willingness to follow through on speciªed retaliatory threats. For example, by releasing information about its nuclear forces that would identify distinctly usable weapons—weapons, inter alia, that are counterforce rather than countervalue targeted—Israel could reduce or eliminate doubts about its nuclear resolve. Here a pro- spective attacker, newly aware that Israel could retaliate without necessarily generating intolerably high levels of civilian casualties (possibly because of enhanced radiation or subkiloton nuclear weapons), would be more likely to take seriously Israel’s nuclear threats. This also raises the essential connection between doctrine and deterrence. To the extent that Israel’s strategic doctrine were to identify nuanced and graduated forms of nuclear reprisal—forms calibrating Israeli retaliatory strikes to speciªc enemy actions— disclosure of such a doctrine could contribute mightily to Israel’s nuclear deterrence posture. In this case, of course, Israel’s doctrinal disclosure would be executed in a broad and nonspeciªc fashion. Without such disclosure, Israel’s prospective enemies would be kept guessing about Israel’s probable responses to various attack scenarios, a condition of protracted uncertainty that could perhaps serve Israeli security for a while longer, but without any reasonable assurances of longer-term viability. Moreover, at some point, sustained Israeli nuclear ambiguity could fail altogether. In sum, Maoz’s proposal that Israel give up its nuclear capability is a splendid exam- ple of what international lawyers deservedly call “naive legalism.” Left to depend on the security guarantees of Israel’s mortal enemies, the Jewish state, denuclearized and incrementally dismembered by a so-called peace process, would not endure for long. But by maintaining identiªable, secure, and usable nuclear power in a relentlessly hos- tile and increasingly anarchic region, Israel—which has no interest in the destruction of any other state—could best guarantee both its own survival and (however unwittingly) the safety of other states in the region. Of course, in the best of possible worlds, all un- conventional weapons would be eliminated. But as we still do not live in such a world,

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it is vital to recognize that the weapons themselves are not the real problem, and that Israeli nuclear weapons—quite convincingly no longer ambiguous—are necessary to preserve regional peace and to prevent catastrophic war. —Louis René Beres West Lafayette, Indiana

The Author Replies:

I would like to thank Louis Beres for his comments on one aspect of my article: the pro- posal in the last section for the establishment of a weapons of mass destruction (WMD)–free zone in the Middle East.1 I agree with Beres that “there are circumstances wherein possession of [nuclear] weapons will be all that protects a state from catastrophic war.” There are at least three reasons, however, why this does not apply to Israel’s nuclear policy. First, there is no evidence that the Arab states have invested the ªnancial and human resources required for such a war. Second, there is no evidence that Israeli nuclear policy has deterred the Arab states from initiating more limited wars. And third, there is no evidence that Is- raeli nuclear weapons affected Arab inclinations to make peace. There is ample evi- dence, however, that Israeli nuclear policy failed to deter when put to the test (the 1973 war and the 1991 Persian Gulf War being cases in point). Moreover, textual and statistical evidence suggests that Israeli nuclear policy was instrumental in fomenting the nonconventional arms race in the region.2 For example, it had a marked effect on the pursuit of chemical and biological weapons as well as surface-to-surface missiles by Egypt and Syria and on the Iraqi WMD program. Israeli nuclear policy had only marginally affected Iran’s quest for nuclear weapons. Yet it had a magnifying effect on this program due to repeated attempts to deter it. Unfortunately, Beres does not really address this issue. Rather, he offers a series of unsubstantiated and one-sided arguments about the roots of the Arab-Israeli conºict. In the interest of some scientiªc rigor, let me address a few points. Beres claims that the Palestinian Authority has never abandoned its phased plan of 1974, calling for the destruction of Israel. In a letter to President Bill Clinton on January 13, 1998, however, Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat wrote: “The Palestine National Coun- cil’s resolution [of April 22–25, 1996] ...isacomprehensive amendment of the Cove- nant. All of the provisions of the Covenant which are inconsistent with the PLO commitment to recognize and live in peace side by side with Israel are no longer in ef- fect....Icanassure you on behalf of the PLO and the Palestinian Authority that all the provisions of the Covenant that were inconsistent with the commitments of September

1. Zeev Maoz, “The Mixed Blessing of Israel’s Nuclear Policy,” International Security, Vol. 28, No. 2 (Fall 2003), pp. 44–77. 2. For more details, see Zeev Maoz, Defending the Holy Land? A Critical Assessment of Israel’s Security and Foreign Policy, 1949–2004 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, forthcoming).

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9/10, 1993 to [Israeli] Prime Minister [Yitzhak] Rabin, have been nulliªed.”3 Whether the PLO actually stands behind this letter is something that Beres and I can disagree on. But the argument that the Palestinian Authority has never abandoned its phased plan is refuted by a formal resolution of the Palestinian National Council and by Arafat’s letter. However, even if the Palestinian Authority were indeed committed to the destruc- tion of Israel, how can nuclear weapons deter such a plan? Would Israel drop nuclear weapons on Nablus, Qalqiliya, Tul Karm, Jerusalem, Hebron, or Gaza? Just how effec- tive were Israeli nuclear weapons in curbing two intifadas and in dealing with suicide bombings in Israel’s major cities? If Beres can come up with a strategy linking nuclear weapons to deterrence of low-intensity conºict and terrorism, he will make a substan- tial contribution to strategic literature. I, for one, doubt that such a linkage is possible. Beres argues that “there can be little doubt that Egypt, should tactical opportunities arise, would quickly revert to its traditional stance and participate in joint Arab attacks against Israel. Syria, should it one day sign a comparable peace agreement with Israel, would not hesitate to abrogate that agreement if Damascus perceived an opening for at- tack.” History casts more than a little doubt on these claims. Egypt did not violate its peace treaty with Israel when the latter launched an unprovoked attack on Syria and Lebanon in 1982. Syria itself did not violate the May 1974 disengagement agreement with Israel even when its forces were under Israeli attack. Nor did Egypt, Jordan, and Syria violate their treaty commitments when the al-Aqsa intifada broke out in Septem- ber 2000. So contrary to Beres’s unconventional wisdom, the record of Arab compliance with treaty obligations has been quite remarkable thus far. Certainly, as a legal scholar, Beres needs to account for that record rather than ignore it. Since its 1979 peace treaty with Israel, Egypt has reduced its defense burden from a high of 22 percent in 1974 to a low of 2.75 percent in 2002. Syria’s defense burden is roughly 6.7 percent of its gross domestic product in 2002 (down from 26 percent in 1986). Israel, on the other hand bears a burden approaching 10 percent of its GDP. The combined defense expenditures of Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon (the four contigu- ous states to Israel) amounts to only 58 percent of Israel’s defense expenditures.4 Cou- pled with Israeli nuclear weapons, if anyone should be more concerned about security, it is the leaders of these Arab states. These ªgures also suggest that Israeli nuclear weapons did not play an important role in reducing its defense burden. Thus, even in this respect, it may make sense to consider disarmament. If Beres were to read my article closely, he would realize that he is barging through an open door when he suggests that Israel should forgo its ambiguous nuclear posture. I agree that the policy of nuclear ambiguity is counterproductive in terms of deterrence. An ambiguous posture is inherently destabilizing because it imposes on the opponent a calculus based on worst-case scenarios that entail a threat of a nuclear strike as part of an aggressive war, or the use of tactical nuclear weapons in battle. From a democratic

3. See http://www.miftah.org/PrinterF.cfm?DocIdϭ428. 4. Ephraim Kam and Yiftah Shapir, eds., The Middle East Military Balance, 2002–2003 (Tel Aviv: Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, 2003), http://www.tau.ac.il/jcss/balance/toc.html#Charts.

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perspective, abandoning ambiguity may increase the political oversight of nuclear weapons and improve coordination between doctrinal needs and weapons develop- ment and maintenance. If Israeli nuclear weapons were an effective deterrent, it would make sense to keep them as long as an existential threat to Israel persists. Evidence suggests, however, that these weapons have done more harm than good to Israel’s security. The recommenda- tion to trade them for a regional security regime rests on purely utilitarian grounds. In no place in my article did I argue that Israel must “depend on the security guarantees of Israel’s mortal enemies.” Thus, I am not sure where Beres inferred this idea. Yet his- torical evidence does suggest that continued reliance on the use and threat of force has brought Israel little beneªt over the years. As I pointed out, “The willingness of the Israeli leadership to pay the territorial price for peace...mayhave been a decisive fac- tor in rendering the peace process successful.”5 Those who believe that weapons— particularly nuclear weapons—bring peace had better take a hard look at the al-Aqsa intifada and rethink this argument. —Zeev Maoz Ann Arbor, Michigan

5. Maoz, “The Mixed Blessing of Israel’s Nuclear Policy,” p. 69.

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