Doomsday: What could drive Israel and Iran to start launching nukes?

Israel's war in Gaza is clearly being waged against Hamas, but its ultimate enemy is Iran. If Israel's counterterrorism efforts one day lead to a direct confrontation with Iran, the result could be immediate escalation between these two hostile states.

In such a plausible scenario, even a pre-nuclear Iran could trigger a “limited” Israeli nuclear retaliation. The main escalation risks would be Iran's use of radiological dispersal weapons or an Iranian rocket attack on Israel's Dimona nuclear reactor.

For Israel, a nation smaller than Lake Michigan, nuclear weapons and strategy remain essential to national survival. Israel's traditional policy of deliberate nuclear ambiguity, or “basement bombs,” dates back to its earliest days. In the 1950s, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion understood the need for dramatic “equalization” against his larger and more populous regional opponents.

Now faced with a defiant and soon-to-be nuclear Iran, Israel needs to update and refine its policy of deliberate nuclear ambiguity. A key objective of such necessary changes is a reliable nuclear deterrent, a goal that requires selective nuclear disclosure. Ironically and counterintuitively, Iran will need to be convinced that Israel's nuclear weapons are not too destructive for practical use.

There will be complex nuances. For Israel to formulate a nuclear policy based on rationality, Iran must be considered rational. However, it is also possible that Iran may act irrationally, perhaps in conjunction with other countries (such as Syria and North Korea) or co-terrorist groups (such as Hamas, Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the Houthis).

Unless Jerusalem considers Pakistan to be its true enemy, Israel currently has no existing nuclear enemies. Still, as an unstable Islamic state, Pakistan is a potential target for coups by various jihadist elements and is closely aligned with Saudi Arabia. With Shiite Iran's nuclear program steadily accelerating, the Sunni Saudi kingdom may one day decide to go nuclear itself.

For Israel's nuclear deterrent to function in the long term, Iran will need to be sufficiently informed about Israel's nuclear targeting doctrine and the invincibility of Israel's nuclear forces. In response to these changes, Jerusalem will need to clarify its still-murky “Samsonian option.” The important thing is not to “die with the Philistines” (According to the Bible book of Judges), but in order to strengthen the “high-destruction” option of the nuclear deterrent posture.

Although the only useful purpose of Israel's nuclear arsenal should be deterrence at various levels of military destruction, there will still be situations in which Israel's nuclear deterrence may fail. How can such an intolerable situation arise? Four different scenarios emerge, with consequences ranging from highly destructive to catastrophic.

First, if Iran launched “only'' a large-scale conventional attack against Israel, Jerusalem could respond with limited nuclear retaliation.If Iran's first strike involved chemical or biological weapons, Israel would There is also a possibility that China may decide to launch a cautious nuclear retaliation.

This decision will depend primarily on Jerusalem's expectations regarding Iran's follow-up attacks and relative damage limitation calculations. Israeli nuclear retaliation could be definitively ruled out if an Iranian invasion were entirely conventional and “hard target” oriented, i.e. directed against Israeli weapons and military infrastructure rather than Israeli civilians. only in certain situations.

The second scenario would be that Israel would feel compelled to preempt an Iranian invasion with conventional weapons. In that case, the reaction of that enemy country will greatly influence Israel's next actions. If this response were to be nuclear in some form, including “merely” radiological weapons, Israel would likely turn to some kind of controlled form of nuclear counterattack. If Iran's retaliation involves other weapons of mass destruction other than nuclear weapons, Israel could still be pressured to take an escalatory initiative. This decision would depend on Jerusalem's thoughtful judgment of the enemy's intentions and the resulting damage limitation calculations.

If Iran's response to an Israeli first strike had been limited to a powerful, targeted conventional attack, it is unlikely that Israeli decision-makers would go nuclear-armed. However, if Iran's conventional retaliation is “full-scale” and partially directed against Israeli civilians, Israeli nuclear counter-retaliation cannot be ruled out. This kind of counter-retaliation Traditional Iranian retaliation is precluded only if it is proportionate to Israel's first strike. Limited to Israeli military targets. It is limited by the legal limits of “proportionality” and “military necessity” and comes with verifiable guarantees that the intent is non-escalation.

A third (and highly unlikely) scenario involves Israel launching a pre-emptive nuclear strike against Iran. Although circumstances may arise where such an attack would be reasonable and permissible under international law, it is difficult to imagine that Israel would allow itself to reach such a breaking point. A nuclear first strike by Israel would mean that Iran has already acquired nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction, has threatened to use them, and has begun a countdown to launch, and a conventional first strike alone will not save the Jewish state from destruction. can only be reasonably expected if Jerusalem believed that.

The fourth scenario is a nuclear war scenario. This could occur if Iran's nuclear first strike or retaliation to Israel's conventional first strike fails to destroy Israel's second-strike nuclear capability, or vice versa.

Of course, for the time being Iran's nuclear capabilities will be limited to radiation dispersal weapons.

Louis René Berres is Professor Emeritus of International Law at Purdue University and “Surviving in chaos: Israel's nuclear strategy(2018).