Rethinking the Samson Option: Abandoning Israeli Nuclear Ambiguity

The October 7 attacks provided a poignant reminder of Israel's insecurity vis-a-vis Iran and its proxies. In response, some have suggested revisiting Israel's longstanding policy of nuclear ambiguity. This would be a mistake.  

Their logic has intuitive appeal. Israel's current nuclear posture was spectacularly incapable of deterring the Hamas attacks on October 7, as well as subsequent aggression by the Houthis and Hezbollah. Iran's terror axis evidently believes the threshold for Israeli nuclear use is sufficiently high as to permit large-scale (but non-existential) attacks to be carried out against the Jewish State without fear of significant reprisal. Israel's nuclear threshold is thought to be high due to its unwillingness to "be the first to introduce nuclear weapons to the Middle East". And non-nuclear reprisals are not always a viable alternative: Israel's capacity for conventional retaliation is limited, particularly when political priorities and resource constraints demand a primary allocation of combat power to Gaza, rather than the northern, southern, and potentially eastern theaters. This is not to mention the international political constraints on Israeli military action, particularly should it be preemptive in nature. Ultimately, then, those advocating for a change in Israeli nuclear doctrine are motivated by the concern that Iranian aggression is insufficiently deterred by Israel's current nuclear posture. An alternative nuclear strategy, they argue––one in which Israel makes explicit its capabilities, particularly with lower-yield weapons––could provide Israel with viable options short of mutually assured destruction. 

 

This alternative nuclear strategy would entail “selective disclosures” of Israel’s nuclear capabilities, and is intended to address three scenarios: 1) Iranian nuclear breakout, 2) escalation of aggression by Tehran’s proxies, and 3) an overall increase in regional instability if Iran succeeds in its nuclear ambitions. 

 

Scenario 1: 

Should Iran attempt to breakout to a nuclear weapon, Israel would have less than two weeks to detect this effort and attempt to intervene. Any preemptive strike on Iran's nuclear infrastructure would almost certainly be met with devastating reprisals, either against Israel's population centers or Israel's own nuclear facilities at Dimona. The problem, therefore, is simple: How can Israel deter an Iranian counter-strike against a preemptive Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear infrastructure? 

 

The current nuclear posture is not up to the task. As Professor Louis René Beres writes, “[the threat of an all-out nuclear response] is not apt to deter any Iranian aggressions short of nuclear and/or massively large-scale conventional (including biological) first strikes.” This is because Israeli nuclear threats are all-or-nothing––that is, due to Israel’s nuclear ambiguity, it is assumed that their arsenal is primarily composed of large, city-destroying, strategic weapons––and Israel could not credibly threaten to use such weapons unless its very existence were at stake.  

 

Yet Beres’ proposed solution falls short. The suggestion that developing and publicizing a more varied and capable nuclear arsenal––with more weapons of various yields, more delivery mechanisms, and a lower threshold for nuclear use––would reduce expectations of unacceptably destructive enemy retaliation is folly. By the author’s own admission, it relies on “relatively optimistic” assumptions about:

a) prior Israeli decisions concerning nuclear disclosure; b) Israeli perceptions of the effects of such disclosure on enemy retaliatory intentions; c) Israeli judgments about enemy perceptions of Israeli weapons vulnerability; and d) presumed Iranian awareness of Israel’s counter-city force posture.

 

Even assuming these assumptions hold, it is difficult to see how this novel nuclear strategy would aid in non-existential deterrence. Although counter-value threats can be credible in the face of counter-force strikes (for instance, Russia’s recently-publicized doctrine to initiate nuclear strikes against NATO cities should 20% of their nuclear-armed submarines be sunk), such threats are not credible in this scenario. The Russian example is comparable to a scenario where Tehran, unprompted, attacks Dimona and attempts to degrade Israel’s other nuclear assets. Yet our hypothetical involves an Israeli preemptive strike on Tehran’s nuclear assets, and only then contemplates an Iranian response against Israel’s nuclear facilities. The obvious reciprocity of the Iranian response renders the threat of an Israeli nuclear counter-strike somewhat difficult to believe, especially if it would be directed against Iranian cities.[1]

 

Scenario 2:

The same is true for deterrence of Iranian proxies. An Israeli nuclear response to conventional terror attacks, rocket barrages, and even limited incursions onto Israeli territory would be blatantly disproportionate and is therefore not very credible. Though Israel could embrace some degree of intentional irrationality (akin to Nixon’s Madman Strategy) to lend credibility to such threats, the historical record has demonstrated the inefficacy of that approach.[2]

 

Scenario 3: 

Finally, an updated Israeli nuclear doctrine is intended to better position the Jewish state should Iran acquire nuclear weaponry. A nuclear Iran would be emboldened to dramatically scale its proxy attacks (and perhaps aggressive behavior of its own), correctly assuming that Israel would now be far more hesitant to strike Iran directly for fear of inciting a nuclear exchange. A more robust Israeli nuclear policy, it is argued, would effectively deter Iranian aggression in this brave new world. But this is merely asserted; even a basic analysis reveals this to be an overoptimistic assessment. This is discussed in more detail below. 

 

The Logic of Israeli Nuclear Strategy

 

Israeli nuclear weapons acquisition was both logical and necessary. Although the United States has long been friendly to Israel, it was initially reticent to extend security guarantees to the nascent Jewish state. Accordingly, given Israel’s precarious geographical position (its territory is only 11 miles wide in some areas, and is thus easily bisected by an invading army) and the hostility of its neighbors, Israeli leadership determined that nuclear acquisition was worth the risks. And there are risks. As Alexandre Debs and Nuno Monteiro write in Nuclear Politics, there is a paradox in the game theory of nuclear proliferation. Only those states who are conventionally weak vis-à-vis their adversaries (as Israel was) will strive to acquire a nuclear weapon (Debs and Monteiro term this the “demand-side” of nuclear proliferation). Yet once these states begin to pursue a nuclear capability, they are at their weakest: if they are discovered, their conventional inferiority makes them incredibly vulnerable to preemptive strikes against their nuclear facilities. In other words, states with the highest demand for nuclear weapons inherently face structural constraints on the supply-side––their ability to acquire nuclear weapons without them being preemptively destroyed. Israel weathered this tenuous phase via extreme secrecy, and managed to develop a nuclear program with only one (alleged and plausibly deniable) test. 

 

Following successful nuclear acquisition, Israel maintained nuclear secrecy for two related reasons. First is to avoid a regional proliferation cascade. Israel’s neighbors rightly fear the power imbalance presented by a nuclear Israel, and should Israel publicly broadcast its capabilities, they would face immense pressure from both their security establishments and the general public to develop a similar capability. Even absent such a public declaration, there have been recurring proliferation attempts by Israel’s neighbors: Iraq, Syria, Iran, and Saudi Arabia have all tried at least once. It is therefore more than plausible that a revocation of Israeli nuclear ambiguity in favor of a more aggressive nuclear posture would be met with regional outcry and a re-ignition of regional nuclear proliferation efforts. 

 

Precisely in order to prevent this scenario, the United States secured commitments from Israel to refrain from “introducing nuclear weapons to the Middle East”. Though it is unclear exactly what this language means, it has been understood to restrict any Israeli actions that would provide irrefutable evidence of their nuclear capability (such as a nuclear test).  Israeli nuclear use would obviously fall under this category. 

 

However, this commitment also lent Israel a significant degree of leverage over its great power sponsor, the United States. Generally speaking, great powers use nuclear weapons as deterrent tools[3], in order to dissuade adversaries from large-scale conventional attacks and the use of WMDs. Yet great powers also rely on their robust conventional capabilities to deter less catastrophic attacks. For example, carrier strike groups and expeditionary force projection capabilities enable the United States and its allies to credibly deter attacks on commercial shipping, energy infrastructure, and other key national interests––globally. Though the Houthis’ recent attacks in the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea seem to undermine this logic, the United States’ and allied response to these attacks has been decidedly non-nuclear, exemplifying the importance of conventional power in deterring (or, should deterrence fail, reducing the severity of) a broad spectrum of non-existential threats.  

 

As a minor power (though a major player in its region) Israel does not have the conventional prowess to both (1) secure its own borders, and (2) deter a wide range of non-existential threats. Israel makes up for this shortfall by leveraging its nuclear weapons to compel the United States to use its vast conventional power to Israel’s benefit. Israel accomplishes this by making specific nuclear threats against adversaries in times of crisis, but with the intended audience being the United States, rather than the adversary. Case in point is the nuclear crisis during the Yom Kippur war. As Israel’s conventional forces were being overwhelmed, Prime Minister Golda Meir ordered Israeli forces to make preparations for over a dozen nuclear weapons to be armed and prepared for use on missiles and military aircraft.  This was deliberately done (1) without typical nuclear secrecy procedures, and (2) while American satellites were directly overhead, to make it clear to the Americans that Israel indeed perceived the situation as sufficiently dire to warrant nuclear use. The gambit worked: Nixon swiftly approved American support for Israel and began airlifting much-needed supplies to the beleaguered nation.

 

Abandoning nuclear ambiguity would put this tried and tested strategy at risk. It relies on the optimistic assumption that American support would remain unwavering in the face of Israel’s now-public ability to defend itself from existential threats and the wave of regional instability and proliferation attempts likely to follow. The decision to abandon nuclear ambiguity could cause a deep rift in Israeli-American relations, since it is explicitly against American interests. A Middle East rife with instability, attempts at proliferation, and perceived Israeli aggression (because, let’s be honest––that’s how abandoning nuclear ambiguity would be seen by Israel’s neighbors) is far less favorable to American interests than the status quo. Should Israel be the one to take the first step down this treacherous road, it is far from inconceivable that the United States would rethink its strategic alignments in the region. There would certainly be domestic political pressure to do so: a large and growing segment of the American public is decidedly anti-Israel, and the remainder are deeply skeptical of overseas commitments and costly foreign wars. These groups are likely to be far more vocal in questioning the billions in annual military support the United States provides to Israel once Israel publicly reveals its broad array of nuclear capabilities under the new doctrine. In short, abandoning nuclear ambiguity would risk eliminating the substantial benefits Israel receives as a result of nuclear coercion vis-à-vis the United States, while simultaneously emboldening rivals to proliferate and alienating its allies. Absent a compelling reason––such as Iranian acquisition of a nuclear weapon––these are not risks worth taking.  

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[1] With that said, Iranian targeting of Israeli cities or civilian infrastructure would render Israeli counter-value threats far more credible. Precisely because of this, though, one might expect Iran to keep civilian targeting minimal.  

[2] Nixon’s Madman strategy famously failed in Vietnam, when his threats to use tactical nuclear weapons against the North Vietnamese failed to deter the Soviets from continuing to arm and supply the North. 

[3] The literature is replete with justified skepticism about the utility of nuclear weapons for compellence. Although some nuclear weapons states have attempted to use nuclear threats in this manner, few have succeeded, and in those few instances, much hinges on the classification of a particular threat as “deterrent” or “coercive”: the delineation between them is not often clear. Notably, however, the foregoing only applies to compellence against adversaries. Nuclear compellence between allies has proven far more effective.