EU NON-PROLIFERATION CONSORTIUM The European network of independent non-proliferation think tanks NON-PROLIFERATION PAPERS No. 38 March 2014 IRAN’S NUCLEAR PROPENSITY: THE PROBABILITY OF NUCLEAR USE thanos dokos I. INTRODUCTION SUMMARY Many experts would agree that Iran’s nuclear If Iran somehow manages to acquire a nuclear capability, it programme appears more like a means than an end would be extremely useful to try to understand the possible for the Iranian leadership in its quest for regional consequences for regional security and especially the ascendancy and regime survival. While Iran would probability of the use of nuclear weapons by Iran. This paper identifies and assesses six risks arising from assumed probably be more interested in having a nuclear nuclear proliferation. In addition, a number of research option than a nuclear arsenal, it may well end up questions are identified, issues of critical importance with assembled nuclear weapons sometime in the regarding Iran’s nuclear propensity that need to be further near future. Whether this happens by default, and examined and analysed by government agencies and not design, will not change the end result and its research institutes as additional information is urgently consequences. required regarding the country’s strategic culture. All the actors involved, including Iran, would benefit Summarizing the speculative analysis presented, if if diplomatic negotiations on Iran’s nuclear programme nuclear weapons were to be used in the Middle East, this were successful (and the latest, positive developments would most likely result from a miscalculation, an are indeed most welcome). If not, it is quite possible accidental detonation or launch of a nuclear device, or an that either Israel or the United States will try to act of desperation. However small the risk of each neutralize the Iranian nuclear programme through individual scenario may be, the cumulative risk of all the the use of military force. However, if neither of the possible dangers arising from assumed nuclear proliferation should also be considered. Although Iran’s above happens and Iran somehow manages to acquire nuclearization would not, at least initially, cause a a nuclear capability, it would be extremely useful to try substantial increase in the probability of nuclear use in the to understand the possible consequences for regional region, it would nevertheless remain an unwelcome security and especially the probability of the use of development as it would probably intensify regional nuclear weapons by Iran. instability, multiply the number of nuclear decision- The crux of the horizontal nuclear proliferation making centres and further complicate strategic problem has always been whether such proliferation calculations. might increase the probability of the use of nuclear weapons, although other consequences, such as the ABOUT THE AUTHOR destabilization of specific regions through costly Thanos Dokos is Director-General of the Hellenic and risk-prone arms races, should not, of course, be Foundation for European & Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP), in underestimated.1 Considerable disagreement has Athens, Greece. His research interests include global occurred between analysts on this issue for more than trends and international security challenges, with an emphasis on the Mediterranean and the Middle East. 1 Krause, J., ‘Proliferation des armes de destruction massive: risques pour l’ Europe’ [Proliferation of weapons of mass destruction: risks for Europe], L’Europe et le Defi de la Proliferation, Chaillot Papers no. 24 (European Union Institute for Security Studies: Paris, May 1996), p. 16. 2 eu non-proliferation consortium four decades.2 The proposed responses range from leadership (despite the harsh rhetoric of both sides); extremely optimistic—that nuclear proliferation will the fact that neither national survival nor territorial result in greater regional and even global stability—to integrity was immediately at stake and that neither extremely pessimistic—that such proliferation power had ever been at war with the other; the lack will bring the world closer to the brink of nuclear of common borders, thereby lessening flashpoints annihilation. for conflict and impeding escalation; and adequate Kenneth Waltz, one of the icons of international technical means to prevent accidental detonation and relations theory, published a short essay suggesting the unauthorized use of nuclear weapons. Without that ‘A nuclear-armed Iran would . most likely these features, mere fear of nuclear destruction, restore stability to the Middle East’. The Waltz although itself important, might not have sufficed to school of thought has argued that ‘Nations that have deter the use of nuclear weapons. nuclear weapons have strong incentives to use them This author’s view is that, although a number responsibly. Because they do, the measured spread of of general principles apply, each potential nuclear nuclear weapons is more to be welcomed than feared.’3 weapon state (NWS) presents a distinct case and In response, British scholar Hedley Bull commented generalizing about potential nuclear proliferators that, taken to its logical extreme, this argument implies without considering their particularities might be the best way to keep death off the roads is to put a risky and misleading. The specific characteristics small amount of nitroglycerine on every car bumper. of each region and country, together with a large Everybody would drive infinitely more carefully, but number of continuously changing variables, make any accidents would occur—people being human and cars attempt to derive a norm extremely difficult and largely breaking down—and the results would be far nastier. inaccurate. At least six major variables have been Waltz replied that ‘If Iran goes nuclear, Israel and Iran identified in the specialized literature: a( ) the scope will deter each other, as nuclear powers always have. and extent of proliferation; (b) the quality or sufficiency There has never been a full scale war between two of forces; (c) the nature and intensity of the regional nuclear armed states’.4 However, this conclusion seems rivalries; (d) the seriousness and awareness of decision to ignore the Cuban missile crisis, when the Soviet makers; (e) the local criteria of unacceptable damage; Union and the United States apparently came close to a and (f ) the evolution of the international system. nuclear confrontation.5 Indeed, it has been argued that the ‘proliferation At the heart of the views of the Waltz school is a of weapons of mass destruction, though morally simple extrapolation from the non-use of nuclear disturbing (for developing and developed countries weapons in the Soviet–US context to the future non- alike), has no definite or foreordained linear effects, use of those weapons in other regions. This analogy but rather contains within it both stabilizing and overlooks the unique combination of circumstances destabilizing elements’. The present author largely that has helped to ensure nuclear peace over the past agrees with the argument that it is the way in which decades. The non-use of nuclear weapons has rested on these weapons are used and the political and military particular geopolitical and technical factors: cautious strategy they serve that defines the nature of the consequences of proliferation.6 2 According to Wallace Thies, ‘despite years of research and a Looking at the case of Iran, the key question is rousing scholarly controversy, a consensus on the question of whether the impact of its acquisition of a nuclear weapon proliferation increases the risk of war between new nuclear powers remains elusive. Disagreements between proliferation optimists and capability on international and regional security. At the pessimists have proven so intractable that representatives of both global level, there should be little doubt that further schools have recently suggested that “it is time to advance beyond the proliferation would make the strategic chessboard ultimately irreconcilable ‘optimism vs. pessimism’ debate and into a series of inquiries explaining . the actual behaviour of states that more complex, while at the same time multiplying risks develop nuclear weapons”’. Thies, W., ‘Proliferation and critical risk’, and complicating strategic decision making. Concern is Journal of Strategic Studies, vol. 23, no. 4 (Dec. 2000), p. 51. growing that the open nuclearization of Iran could, in 3 Waltz, K., The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: More May Be Better, combination with other negative developments, deal a Adelphi Papers no. 171 (International Institute for Strategic Studies: London, 1981). 4 Waltz, K. N., ‘Why Iran should get the bomb’, Foreign Affairs, vol. 91, no. 4 (2012), pp. 2–4. 6 King, J. K. (ed.), International Political Effects of the Spread of 5 Dokos, T., ‘Why Kenneth Waltz is both right and wrong’, ELIAMEP Nuclear Weapons (University Press of the Pacific: Honolulu, HI, 2002), Thesis, Sep. 2012, p. 2. pp. 47–48. iran’s nuclear propensity 3 serious–even deadly, some analysts would argue–blow radical elements in Iran and to affect its behaviour in to the 1968 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) regime.7 the region. Shahram Chubin expects drastic changes The probability of a nuclear ‘domino effect’ has often should Iran acquire nuclear weapon status: such a been emphasized, whereby the presence of nuclear development would tilt the regional balance away weapons in Iran may well motivate other countries in from the Sunni Arab states, challenge