Israel's Strategic Nuclear Doctrine: Ambiguity Versus Openness
1 June 2001


No more than a small handful of people on Earth know anything about Israel's strategic nuclear doctrine. From the standpoint of Israel's national command authority, this situation would appear to be just fine. Indeed, beginning with the country's longstanding policy of "deliberate ambiguity" concerning nuclear weapons and nuclear warfare, every element of pertinent Israeli doctrine remains securely in the "basement." Is such pervasive secrecy in the best survival interests of the State of Israel? In the military structures of virtually all countries, doctrine describes how national forces will fight in various combat operations. The literal definition of doctrine derives from Middle English, from the Latin DOCTRINA, meaning teaching, learning, instruction. The importance of doctrine lies not only in the way it can animate, unify and optimize national military forces, but also in the way it can transmit desired "messages" to an enemy state. Understood in terms of Israel's strategic nuclear policy, purposeful across-the-board ambiguity -contrary to the conventional wisdom - can be injurious to national security. This is the case because effective deterrence and defense sometimes require doctrine that is at least partially recognizable by an adversary state.

In Jerusalem and Tel-Aviv, Israel's political and military leaders have yet to appreciate this critical aspect of strategic nuclear doctrine. For example, total ambiguity over Israel's strategic targeting doctrine could cause an enemy state to underestimate Israeli retaliatory resolve. Similarly, complete ambiguity over Israel's nuclear arsenal could lead enemy states to reach the same conclusion. This is because Israel's willingness to make good on nuclear retaliation could be seen, widely, as inversely related to weapon system destructiveness.

There is also the matter of doctrine and Israeli strategic nuclear capability. A continuing policy of total ambiguity could cause an enemy state to overestimate the vulnerability to its first-strike attack of Israel's nuclear forces. This could be the result of too-complete a silence concerning Israeli measures of protection for nuclear weapons. Or it could be the product of Israeli silence on its defense potential, a silence that could be understood - by enemy states - as an indication of inadequate Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD).

To fully understand the question of Israeli strategic nuclear doctrine, we must first recall the foundations of Israeli nuclear deterrence. These foundations concern prospective attackers' perceptions of Israel's nuclear capability and Israel's willingness to use this capability. Selective telegraphing of Israel's strategic nuclear doctrine, therefore, could enhance Israel's nuclear deterrence posture. It would do this by heightening enemy state perceptions of both Israel's capable nuclear forces and its willingness to use these forces in reprisal for certain stipulated first-strike and retaliatory attacks.

To deter an enemy attack or post-preemption retaliation, Israel must prevent an aggressor, by threat of an unacceptably damaging reprisal or counter-retaliation, from deciding to strike. Here, security is sought by convincing the potential Arab/Islamic attacker (irrational state enemies are an altogether different problem) that the costs of a considered attack will exceed the expected benefits. Assuming that Israel's state enemies: (1) value self-preservation most highly; and (2) always choose rationally between alternative options, they will always refrain from an attack on an Israel that is believed willing and able to deliver an appropriately destructive response. These enemy states might also be deterred by the prospect of a more limited Israeli attack that is directed at national leaders as such; that is, by plausible threats of "regime targeting." Two factors must communicate such a belief. First, in terms of CAPABILITY, there are two essential components: PAYLOAD and DELIVERY SYSTEM. It must be successfully communicated to the prospective attacker that Israel's firepower and its means of delivering that firepower are capable of inflicting unacceptable levels of destruction. This means that Israel's retaliatory or counter-retaliatory forces must appear sufficiently invulernable and sufficiently elusive to penetrate the prospective attacker's active and civil defenses. It MAY OR MAY NOT need to be communicated to a potential attacker that such firepower and delivery vehicles are superior. The capacity to deter MAY OR MAY NOT need to be as great as the capacity to "win."

With Israel's strategic nuclear doctrine kept silently in the "basement," enemy Arab/Islamic states could conclude, rightly or wrongly, that a first-strike attack or post-preemption reprisal would be cost-effective. Were relevant doctrine made more plainly obvious to enemy states contemplating an attack that Israel's nuclear assets met both payload and delivery system objectives, Israel's nuclear forces could better serve their existential security functions.

The second factor of nuclear doctrine for Israel concerns WILLINGNESS. How may Israel convince potential attackers that it possesses the resolve to deliver an immensely destructive retaliation and/or counterretaliation? The answer to this question lies largely in DOCTRINE, in Israel's demonstrated strength of commitment to carry out such an attack and in the nuclear ordnance that would be available. Here, too, continued ambiguity over nuclear doctrine could create the impression of an UNWILLING Israel. Conversely, doctrinal movement toward some as-yet-undetermined level of disclosure could heighten the impression of an Israel that is in fact willing to follow-through on its nuclear threats. There are, then, persuasive connections between a more open strategic nuclear doctrine and enemy state perceptions of Israeli nuclear deterrence. One such connection centers on the relation between openness and perceived vulnerability of Israeli strategic nuclear forces from preemptive destruction. Another such connection concerns the relation between openness and the perceived capacity of Israel's nuclear forces to penetrate the offending state's active defenses.

Doctrinal openness, carefully articulated, could represent a rational and prudent option for Israel to the extent that enemy states were made appropriately aware of Israel's relevant nuclear capabilities. The operational benefits of doctrinal openness would accrue from deliberate flows of information about such matters as dispersion, multiplication and hardening of strategic nuclear systems and about some other technical features of certain strategic nuclear weapon systems. Above all, meticulously-controlled doctrinal flows of information could serve to remove enemy state doubts about Israel's strategic nuclear force capabilities, doubts which could, if left unchallenged, undermine Israeli nuclear deterrence.

One last observation: A key problem in developing Israeli strategic nuclear doctrine has to do with what Clausewitz calls "friction." No doctrine can ever fully anticipate the pace of combat activity or the precise reactions of human comanders under fire. It follows from this that Israel's nuclear doctrine must always be allowed a certain flexibility at the same time that it requires selectively greater openness. Understanding how such competing objectives can be appropriately reconciled is now part of the overrall strategic challenge to the increasingly imperilled State of Israel.