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The Day After Iran Goes Nuclear: Implications for NATO

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The Day After Iran Goes Nuclear: Implications for NATO RESEA R CH PA P E R Research Division - NATO Defense College, Rome - No. 71 – January 2012 The day after Iran goes nuclear: Implications for NATO by Jean-Loup Samaan 1 n 8 November 2011 a new International Atomic Energy Agency report on nuclear verification in Iran was circulated to the Agency’s Board of OGovernors and the UN Security Council. In a 12-page appendix, the IAEA gave information with an unprecedented level of detail on the military Contents dimensions of Iran’s nuclear program, including projects that have been under way for more than a decade now 2. The road toward a nuclear Iran 2 As the likelihood of a nuclear-armed Iran grows, so does the need for NATO to Subconventional conflicts under the have a comprehensive appraisal of the implications of such a scenario for the nuclear threshold 4 Atlantic Alliance, and more particularly for its posture towards the Middle East region. Of course, exploring the scenario of a nuclear-armed Iran should not The chain reaction in the Middle induce fatalism. This is not to discount the ongoing diplomatic process conducted East 5 by the United Nations Security Council and the related investigations by the Implications for NATO 6 International Atomic Energy Agency. However, the dramatic consequences behind this “alternative future” make it worth analyzing and planning for. In a nutshell, the day after Iran becomes a nuclear-armed country, the Middle East will face a situation where at least two local actors (Iran and Israel) and five external powers (France, Pakistan, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States) have a nuclear deterrent capability. Several others could be poised to invest in their own arsenal (Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey), and small states (Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and the United Arab Emirates) would look for reinforced security guarantees, multilaterally from NATO and bilaterally from Western powers. Research Paper The issue of a nuclear Iran matters for NATO for five main reasons: first, because ISSN 2076 - 0949 (Res. Div. NATO Def. Coll., Print) Iran borders the territory of the Atlantic Alliance through Turkey, making a ISSN 2076 - 0957 nuclear Iran a close and immediate threat for NATO; second, combined with its (Res. Div. NATO Def. Coll., Online) ballistic missile arsenal, a nuclear Iran would have the capability to strike targets in continental Europe; third, some NATO members (France, the United Kingdom NATO Defense College Research Division and the United States) maintain a military presence in the region that could Via Giorgio Pelosi, 1 be at stake; fourth, NATO partners in the Middle East and the Gulf have been 00143 Rome – Italy expressing growing concerns to NATO over their security in an environment web site: www.ndc.nato.int e-mail: [email protected] 1 Jean-Loup Samaan is a researcher and a lecturer in the Middle East Department of the NATO Imprimerie Deltamedia Group Defense College. The views expressed in this article are the author’s only, and do not necessarily Via Portuense 1555, 00148 Rome, Italy reflect those of the NATO Defense College or the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The author www.deltamediagroup.it would like to thank Florence Gaub, Karl-Heinz Kamp, Pierre Razoux and David Yost for their com- ments on earlier drafts of this paper. © NDC 2011 all rights reserved 2 International Atomic Energy Agency, Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement and relevant provisions of Security Council resolutions in the Islamic Republic of Iran, GOV/2011/65, 8 November 2011. 1 Research Paper No. 71 - January 2012 with a nuclear Iran; and fifth, the regional chain reaction that • experiments involving the explosive compression such a scenario entails could endanger the Middle East’s of uranium deuteride to produce a short burst of neutrons; strategic stability, putting NATO missions in the area directly • uranium conversion and metallurgy to produce at risk (e.g. the NATO Training Mission in Iraq). uranium metal from fluoride compounds, and its From this perspective, the biggest challenge both for the manufacture into components relevant to a nuclear region and NATO the day after Iran goes nuclear is not explosive device; the potential for nuclear warfare per se but the risks of • development, manufacturing and testing of increasing subconventional confrontations and of “nuclear explosive components suitable for the initiation of high hedging” among NATO partners in the region. As a result, explosives in a converging spherical geometry; a nuclear Iran would represent a major test for NATO: it would challenge the raison d’être of its partnerships (the • multipoint explosive initiation and hemispherical Mediterranean Dialogue and the Istanbul Cooperation detonation studies involving highly instrumented Initiative) and raise key decisions on the future of NATO experiments 4. nuclear and missile defense means. All in all, there is circumstantial evidence to support the view that Iran could reach breakout capability within the THE ROAD T OWARD A NUCLEAR IRAN next five years. The characteristics of an Iranian nuclear deterrent, once Added to these developments in nuclear technology, the the military domain effectively benefits from its nuclear IAEA and other organizations have expressed concern with program, will depend first and foremost on whether Iran regard to delivery systems, since Iran has for a long time manufactures deliverable or only unassembled nuclear been making efforts to acquire a robust arsenal of ballistic weapons; and second, on the quantity and quality of its missiles. In its May 2011 report, the IAEA underlined the delivery systems. As of today, there is no irrefutable evidence troubling correlation between Tehran’s nuclear program that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons but there are many and its missile re-entry vehicle redesign activities for a new plausible signs that its program is not serving solely civilian payload “assessed as being nuclear in nature” (concerning purposes. 5 the modification of the Shahab-3 missile) . As early as 2009, First, although Iran has consistently claimed that it wants to Dennis Blair, then the US Director of National Intelligence, build nuclear power plants to diversify its energy portfolio, declared to the American Congress that “Iran continues to the program is unnecessarily costly in this regard, and deploy and improve ballistic missiles inherently capable Iranian gas reserves are still sufficient for the country’s use of delivering nuclear weapons” 6. As a matter of fact, of electricity for several decades. One could argue that since the beginning of the Islamic Revolution in 1979, Iran energy policy remains a sovereign decision, but the clear has been developing an indigenous missile production contradiction in Iranian official statements on the subject is capability. For instance, Iran is reported to have launched undeniable. more than 600 ballistic missiles during its war with Iraq in the 1980s 7 . Starting in the late 1990s, the US intelligence Second, Iran has not provided the IAEA with sufficient community assessed that Iran was on the path to acquiring and convincing information regarding its program. In its 8 Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs ) by 2015. However, September 2011 report, the Agency concluded that it “is the Iranian ICBM program might need foreign technology. unable to provide credible assurance about the absence Some observers have identified a program called the of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran, and Shahab-6, derived from North Korean technology. But the therefore to conclude that all nuclear material in Iran is in 3 arsenal could also benefit from the Iranian space program (a peaceful activities” . In its previous report in May 2011, the space-launch vehicle program could be converted into an IAEA already provided a detailed list of worrying signs of a ICBM program). militarization of Iran’s nuclear program: 3 International Atomic Energy Agency, Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement and relevant provisions of Security Council resolutions in the Islamic Republic of Iran, GOV/2011/54, 2 September 2011, p. 9. 4 International Atomic Energy Agency, Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement and relevant provisions of Security Council resolutions in the Islamic Republic of Iran, GOV/2011/29, 24 May 2011, p. 7. 5 IAEA, op. cit., p. 7. 6 Dennis Blair, Written testimony on the Annual Threat Assessment of the Intelligence Community before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Washington DC, 12 February 2009. 7 Steven Hildreth, Iran’s Ballistic Missile Programs: An Overview, Washington, Congressional Research Service, February 2009, p. 1. 8 ICBMs are traditionally missiles capable of ranges greater than 5 500 kilometers (about 3 400 miles). 2 No. 71 - January 2012 Research Paper Considered as a whole, these data make it plausible to argue war against the Arabs under the nuclear threshold13. that Iran will be equipped with a small number of short- These precedents illustrate how the status quo analysis to medium-range ballistic missiles loaded with nuclear misses what stands at the intersection between nuclear warheads in the near future; their potential targets could be and conventional warfare. In fact, the common belief that the capitals of Gulf and Middle Eastern NATO partners, and/ a country would never dare to use nuclear weapons on the or NATO members’ troops stationed in the region. But what battlefield creates what scholars call a “stability-instability would be the potential Iranian nuclear doctrine and, more paradox”. The paradox states that, because States are particularly, how might the national strategic culture shape rational actors, there is a low likelihood that conventional this doctrine? war will escalate to the nuclear level, hence the notion of As a starting point on this issue, we need to avoid the strategic or nuclear stability. By the same token, however, conventional wisdom that in a general context of nuclear the improbability of an escalation beyond the nuclear proliferation, and more particularly in the Iranian case, threshold reduces the danger for the aggressor of launching nuclear weapons provide first and foremost a deterrent a conventional war.
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