Avner Cohen proposes in the current issue of Foreign Affairs that Israel should come out of the closet and openly declare its nuclear status, so as to “legitimize” its arsenal. though I have the highest regard for Cohen’s work, I disagree with that conclusion, as stated here in an earlier post. In this connection, I stand accused of neglecting Israel’s singular security concerns and wishing to see it left defenseless. That’s of course not how I see my position.
First, to the question of legitimation: The most puzzling thing about Cohen’s argument to me is his notion that Israel’s open declaration of its nuclear status would ipso facto lead to diplomatic recognition and acceptance of that status. Legally, the only thing that would legitimize its nuclear status would be Israel’s acceptance into the NPT as a nuclear weapons state (recognition that so far is eluding India and Pakistan, even though they not only have openly declared but openly tested). It’s obvious that Israel’s antagonistic neighbors, all of which are NPT parties, would refuse to admit it into the treaty–and it’s likely that their position would be shared by about 95 percent of the other NPT parties.
Instead, open declaration would not only deprive Israel of its cover but–even more importantly–deprive its neighboring countries of their cover as well. Pressures would mount on Middle East governments to go nuclear, and in time, some of those governments would surely succumb. That brings me to the second point.
Israel already confronts one nuclear armed Islamic state in the region, Pakistan. Through several drastic changes of government, starting with Bhutto’s 1974 pledge that Pakistan would acquire nuclear weapons even if its citizens had to eat grass, so that there would be not only a Christian, a Jewish and a Hindu bomb but an Islamic one as well, Pakistan unrelentingly pursued an atomic capability. Now the country–bordering on being a failed state, harboring vast numbers of people who are profoundly hostile to Israel and the West, and largely run by unaccountable military and security services–has the bomb. Of course its exclusive focus right now is India and the war in Afghanistan, but that may not always be the case.
Meanwhile, a second Islamic state, Iran, is showing the same determination to acquire nuclear weapons. Eventually, unless it can be talked out of that goal, it will acquire them. Sanctions and sabotage are slowing it down appreciably, and if worst comes to worst, military action by Israel or the United States may slow it down still more. But the predictable result is that it will only redouble its efforts and, in due course, get what it wants.
Israel’s line has been that it will not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons into the Middle East. That means, in plain English, that it will not be the first to obliterate a Middle Eastern city–but that if another country hits one of its cities, all of that country’s cities will be hit in return.
This kind of deterrence works pretty well, arguably, when one state faces just one other hostile state, like the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War or India and Pakistan today. But as the number of independently acting hostile states proliferates, deterrence weakens. This is because one can only retaliate for an attack if one knows absolutely for certain where the attack originated.
Hence, to my way of thinking, the need for a comprehensive diplomatic solution. Risky? Yes. Improbable? Yes, yes. But less risky perhaps than the regional environment that seems to be ineluctably taking shape around Israel.
