Israel, Escalation, and a Nuclear War in the Middle East

Israel, Escalation, and a Nuclear War in the Middle East - By Louis Rene Beres - https://www.israeldefense.co.il/en/node/28836#p7wsYjImFJhlAd0g.99

 

Left to themselves, neither suitably deterred nor adequately disarmed, enemies of Israel could one day bring the Jewish State face-to-face with the measureless torments of Dante's Inferno, "Into the eternal darkness, into fire, into ice." It is essential, therefore, that Israel's strategic planners and political leadership now accelerate their basic obligation to strengthen the country's nuclear security posture, and to take all necessary steps to ensure that any conceivable failure of nuclear deterrence could not ignite a nuclear war. Significantly, any such failure would not necessarily be the result of some conspicuous "bolt-from-the-blue" enemy nuclear attack, but could also represent the unanticipated outcome of aggressive crisis escalations.

 

Now is the time for a detailed and precise enumeration of relevant scenarios. Accordingly, among the most plausible paths to nuclear warfighting in the Middle East are: (1) enemy nuclear first-strikes against Israel (not a present possibility, unless one were to include non-Arab Pakistan as an authentic enemy); (2) enemy non-nuclear WMD first-strikes against Israel that would elicit an Israeli nuclear reprisal, either promptly, or as an inadvertent consequence of escalation processes; (3) Israeli nuclear preemptions against pertinent hard targets in selected enemy states with manifestly recognizable nuclear assets (also not a present possibility, unless Pakistan were included as an enemy state); (4) Israeli non-nuclear preemptions against relevant hard targets in enemy states with operational nuclear assets that elicit enemy nuclear reprisals, either promptly, or incrementally via escalation (again, excluding Pakistan, not a present possibility); and (5) Israeli non-nuclear preemptions against military targets in enemy states without nuclear assets, that would elicit substantial enemy biological warfare reprisals, and, reciprocally, Israeli nuclear counter-retaliations.

 

Still, other more-or-less plausible paths to nuclear warfighting in the Middle East include accidental, unintentional, inadvertent, or unauthorized nuclear attacks involving Israel and certain identifiable regional foes. The very last scenario offered here - "unauthorized" enemy nuclear attacks - should bring to Israeli analytic consideration an always-possible Jihadist coup d'�tat in Islamic Pakistan.

 

Jerusalem must also bear in mind the potentially dire and starkly unpredictable prospect of a major escalation arising from any specific instance of WMD terrorism against Israel. In this connection, Israeli strategists will not only need to consider their terrorist adversaries as singular or isolated actors, but also as prospective members of possible "hybrid" combinations, ones fashioned with other sub-state terror organizations, and/or with certain likeminded states.

 

Already, Israel has had to deal with a distinctly unique form of nuclear terrorism in the form of enemy attacks upon its Dimona nuclear reactor. While never given any genuine public attention - most obviously, perhaps, because both attacks were actual operational failures - the significant fact remains that Dimona came under enemy missile or rocket fire in 1991, from Saddam Hussein's Iraq, and again in 2014, from Hamas. It is not at all unreasonable to expect that in the future, a more determined and capable adversary could produce some calculable breach of nuclear reactor containment, and thereby initiate a perilous spiral of potentially lethal escalation.

 

As long as Israel remains determined to survive at all costs, its leaders must be prepared to identify and catalog all those specific circumstances wherein the country could become enmeshed in an actual nuclear exchange, or in nuclear warfighting. These fearful circumstances will obtain as long as (a) pertinent enemy first-strikes against Israel do not destroy Israel's second-strike nuclear capability; (b) enemy retaliations for an Israeli conventional preemption do not destroy Israel's nuclear counter-retaliatory capability; (c) Israeli preemptive strikes involving nuclear weapons do not destroy enemy second-strike nuclear capabilities (not a present concern); and (d) Israeli retaliations for enemy conventional first-strikes do not destroy enemy nuclear counter-retaliatory capabilities (also, not a plausible concern at present).

 

From the plainly vital standpoint of Israel's nuclear security requirements, this all means that Jerusalem must now prepare to do absolutely whatever is needed to ensure the likelihood of (a) and (b) above, and also the corollary unlikelihood of (c) and (d).

 

Among other things, Israel needs its presumptive nuclear weapons to preempt enemy nuclear attacks. This does not mean that Israeli preemptions of such obviously intolerable attacks would necessarily be nuclear themselves - more than likely, they would be entirely non-nuclear - but only that they could conceivably be nuclear. Moreover, both Israeli nuclear and non-nuclear preemptions of unconventional enemy attacks could, at least in principle (and also in the future) produce some form or other of nuclear weapons exchange.

 

The actual outcome here would depend, in large part, upon the effectiveness and breadth of Israeli targeting, the surviving number of enemy nuclear weapons, and the demonstrated willingness of enemy leaders to risk an Israeli nuclear counter-retaliation. Arguably, especially in reference to a still-nuclearizing Iran, the actual likelihood of some nuclear exchange would be greatest wherever Israel's relevant foe were allowed to continue its overt or covert nuclear weapons development without suffering any preemptive military interference. Still, over time, and the July 2015 Vienna Pact on Iran notwithstanding, a truly nuclear Iran is perhaps already a fait accompli. Israel, therefore, will need to figure on how best to live with a nuclear Iran.

 

Leaving tactical details aside, this suggests prudent Israeli preparations for long-term nuclear deterrence, buttressed by increasingly advanced forms of cyber-warfare and ballistic missile defense. Always, for Israel, recognizable preparations for strategic dissuasion must be augmented by similarly observable preparations for denial.

 

For Israel, the sole military alternative at this point, an eleventh-hour defensive first strike against Iranian nuclear assets, would almost certainly carry unacceptable risks, both physical and political. Moreover, at this late operational date, it would prove exceedingly difficult for Jerusalem to make the necessarily supportive jurisprudential argument that its utterly massive preemption was a proper expression of "anticipatory self-defense." All things considered, Israel will have to forego any last-minute preemption against Iran, and rely, however reluctantly, upon some still-promising forms of protracted deterrence and mutual coexistence.

 

In the final analysis, Israel's most significant risks of a nuclear exchange or nuclear war will arise from certain predictable kinds of crisis escalation. These are "locked-in" competitions wherein Israel's core national obligation to avoid recklessness could be rapidly and irremediably overtaken by the presumed imperatives of "winning" through "escalation dominance."

 

Israeli air strikes in Syria - Reprisal threatened - http://www.debka.com/article/25971/Israeli-air-strikes-in-Syria-Reprisal-threatened

 

The Israeli military said its fighter jets had struck several targets in Syria early Friday, March 17, and were back in Israeli-controlled airspace, when Syria launched several anti-aircraft missiles toward the Israeli jets. Israel's Arrow air defense missile intercepted one of the missiles, the army said, but would not elaborate on whether any other hostile missiles had struck Israeli territory. The safety of Israeli civilians and the safety of the Israeli aircraft "were not compromised," the IDF spokesman stressed.

 

debkafile's military sources: The official IDF communiqué raises questions. It does not make sense for Israeli Arrow missiles to be aimed at Syrian ground-to-air rockets fired against the Israeli warplanes. The Arrow would only be used to intercept an incoming Syrian or Hezbollah ground-to-ground missile heading for a target in Israel.

 

That too would explain the huge blast that resounded from the eastern Jordan Valley as far as Jerusalem, 150km away in the small hours of Friday.

 

This explanation gained credibility from the Syrian army account: "A total of four Israeli jets breached Syrian airspace on Friday morning. They hit a "military target" near Palmyra. In retaliation the jets were targeted by Syrian anti-aircraft missiles, which shot down on Israeli plane over "occupied ground." Following the breach of the country's airspace, the Syrian Army warned Israel of "direct" retaliation "with all means at its disposal,"

 

The Israeli Army stressed that none of the IAE planes was harmed. "At no point was the safety of Israeli civilians or the IAF [Israeli Air Force] aircraft compromised," an Israeli military spokesman said.

 

debkafile's military sources add: The big T4 Syrian air base is located near Palmyra. If that was indeed the target of the Israeli raid, it would have been the northernmost point in Syria ever attacked by Israeli warplanes.

 

The fact that fragments of the Arrow missile landed in the north Jordanian village of Anbata in the Irbid district, as revealed by social media, is added evidence that it was launched against a missile fired into Israel. Had the Arrow intercepted anti-air missiles in northern Syria, the fragments falling from the interception would not have reached Jordan or alerted rocket sirens close by in the Jordan Valley on the Israeli side of the border.

 

Furthermore, it is time to abandon the routine official attribution of any Israeli air strike over Syria as targeting an advanced weapons convoy heading for Hezbollah in Lebanon. It is no longer credible. Following its intervention in the Syrian war, Hezbollah maintains many military facilities, stationary and mobile, on Syria soil, geared ready for attacking Israel. The pro-Iranian Shiite group no longer needs to send convoys into Lebanon.  Its advanced weaponry is housed in permanent bases in the western Syrian towns of Zabadani and Quseir.

 

In recent weeks, in fact, Hezbollah is busy digging deep underground storage pits to hold those advanced weapons systems outside those towns. According to some reports, they are also digging vast tunnels to funnel troops and hardware linking those pits to Lebanon.

 

The fog of battle still hangs over Friday's episode. But it was serious enough to mark an escalation in Israel's military involvement in Syria. This in turn exacerbates the risk for Israel of impending clashes with the Syrian army and Hezbollah, under the direction of Iran.

 

Will the Israel, Syria missile flare-up set a new precedent? - ByYossi Melman  - http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Analysis-Will-the-Israel-Syria-missile-flare-up-set-a-new-precedent-484473

 

The incident showed the explosiveness that is threatening Israeli-Syrian relations, with the presence of Iran and Hezbollah, who are attempting to reach Israel's borders.

 

In the most serious border incident since the start of the Syrian civil war six years ago, Arrow defense system intercepted a Syrian Missile fired at an IAF fighter jet, just after midnight on Thursday night.

 

The incident showed the explosiveness that is threatening Israeli-Syrian relations, with the presence of Iran and Hezbollah, who are attempting to reach Israel's borders

 

Sponsored by the Syrian military regime under President Bashar Assad, the forces are looking to open a new front in addition to the Lebanese border.

 

Thursday night's incident was similar to about 15 events that had been reported by foreign media over the past six years.

 

One can estimate that Israel's intelligence gathered accurate information which enabled the IAF to target what is considered "Strategic weapons," or in other words, accurate, long-range missiles.

 

After completing the mission, while on their way back to Israel, Syria's anti-aircraft missile defense system was activated. However, the fired missile missed the IAF planes.

 

Syria's response to the IAF's fire forced the IAF to use it's own Arrow battery, to shoot down at least one Syrian missile.

 

It would be the first time that the Arrow defense system, which was built to intercept ground-to-ground and ballistic missiles, was successfully used to shoot down an anti-aircraft missile.

 

Israel presumably did not intend to report the attack, wanting to continue with its ambiguous policy of neither confirming nor denying its actions in Syria. Such attacks are usually reported by foreign media and official statements from the Syrian army. This time, however, the IDF spokesperson confirmed the attacks in the early morning hours, a result of the fact that alert systems were activated in the Jordan Valley and Jerusalem area. Residents claimed to have heard and seen the launch.

 

An IDF source told The Jerusalem Post that Israel has no plans to escalate or intensify tension with the Syrian army; however, Israel will continue to operate according it's red lines, working to stop transfer of weapons, mainly accurate long-range missiles being transferred from Iran, through Syria, to Hezbollah.

 

Syria, Iran and Hezbollah also have no interest in an escalation, especially with Syria's civil war raging on with no end in sight.

 

This issue was a focal point in talks last week with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow.

 

Netanyahu sought to intensify Putin's understanding of Israel's interests in Syria as well as its red lines. Netanyahu stressed that Israel will not allow any attempts by Iran or Hezbollah to send their forces to Israel's border with Syria in the Golan Heights.

 

However, it seems that even though Putin may understand Israel's interests, Russia's influence on Assad and his army is not absolute.