Time for Israel to test nuclear arsenal?

[Mediocrates]

As we have all come to understand WMD have nothing to do with threats of national existance. That is not their purpose. Any country in the 21st Century would have little rationale to use WMD of any kind to insure it's survival because that would not be guaranteed anyway.

No the utility of WMD is the threat of someone else's destruction, not the insuring of one's own. That is a clearly different motive. Think of it more along the lines of multilateral MAD (mutually assured destruction). T

The remaining question then is what political gain is there from the threat? In Iraq's case, any ability to use WMD is a lever by which any other military or political aggression can be accomplished. A nuclear Iraq can invade Kuwait or Turkey or Saudi Arabia precisely because it has demonstrated to use whatever it wants whenever it wants to. The West would not block a nuclear Iraq from invading another country with non nuclear means.

In the case of North Korea the rationale is somewhat more murky for different reasons. The fear from North Korea is the fear theat they will export the technology to whomever pays for it. They have already demonstrated an ability to be the terrorist worlds ballistic missile supplier.

The case of Iran is yet another case. Their senior clerics have publically stated that the day they acquire a nuclear weapon is the last of existance for Israel. They have made clear their intention to use it. And the rest of the world should not underestimate their willingness to do so. A country that would send a million of its own unarmed teenagers against Iraqi tanks and chemical weapons can be taken at face value.

The case for Israel is far different. For one thing, unlike Iraq that signed the NPT and then broke it, Israel has an opaque policy. Not a yes, not a no. There is a great deal of flexibility in such a policy. Since they have not signed the NPT they are not bound by it and clearly no country should be expected to be compelled to sign any treaty. Next what is different is that because of this opacity Israel has never made the claim that they would use WMD or under what circumstances they might. There is a reasonable body of evidence to indicate that as early as pre 67 Israel has an operational nuclear capability. Since then, if that is true they have had ample opportunity to consider their use but did not.

Addtionally one must consider that this decision is extremely complex and there are several different scenarios with different tactical decisions attached to each. There simply is no single 'launch no launch' switch. There are probably dozens as there are probably more than 5 or 6 different political and military scenarios that drive them.

The most troubling problem though doesn't have to do with WMD. It has to do with the defence from WMD. One plausible situation is a launch from Iraq. An optimal case is that Israel has 3-4 minutes advanced time from detectionto respond. By that figure alone clearly the Israelis will be in a situation to shoot down missiles that are over the West Bank or Jordan. Politically, what are the ramifications for them to shoot down a missile that rains Vx or Sarin or phosgene on the West Bank? Damned if they do, damned if they don't.

[Mr. Pumps]

Lets not get haste! the conflict has not reached such a critical mass as to lob nukes at other nations, Israel is just in similar conflicts she has experienced before and emerged victorious in the past, this little mini-conflict with the Palestinians is not the "final war".

Only if some Arab state lobs a mass destruction missiles at you, do I think you have to full right to return the favor. Right now the conventional stuff is manageable I think.

[DeadSquirrel]

I agree with Mr. Pumps. The best policy at this point in time for Israel is to continue to deprive the neighbouring states from having Nuclear weapons. It is the best way of avoiding the need for Israel to use them; and possible a nuclear Holocaust.

By depriving I mean, using political pressure on countries that help the Arab states to acquire such weapons (i.e. Russia, China and France), and if that does not work then a surgical conventional strike to destroy the plant (such as we did in 1982 to Iraq)

[unbiased]

oh...so the entire world should be nuked because the israeli's are so concerned with the current situation?

just sick.

I sincerely hope you are joking.

A teeny weenie nuclear weapon? You are joking right?

You are sounding as evil as any terrorists I have ever heard of.

Please tell me you were only joking.
Unbiased

Originally posted by L@mplighterM
A few itsy bitsy teeny weenie nuclear launched and sent to major military installations somewhere in the ME would make everyone snap to attention.

My vote is for pushing the button.

What’s to be gained by waiting? Put all the facts on the table and study them.

Israel is systematically being destroyed it’s citizens are slowly being murdered, economy is suffering, etc…

[richcrassus]

Do u people realise what nuclear weapons do and how they work?
Do u realise people realise the distances in the israel area, do u people realise that Israel cannot nuke ANY of its neighbours as they are all very close, and if israel did it would mean catastrophic repercussions and side effects for israel.
Do u people realise if a nuke was dropped on damascus, amman, cairo or beirut than many thousands of people is israel will die because the radiation from the nuke will come over Israel in CLOUDS.
Yes, clouds normal rain clouds carry radiation and other bad stuff, have u ever heard of acid rain, that stuff happens after a nuclear explosion as well. Well, ok if israel wants to nuke a country close to it fine, just EXPECT israels hospitals to be filled with cancer patients in the months and years following.

Israel could nuke Libya, Iran,Iran,pakistan with a small 1-5ktkt micro nuke and maybe not get any radiation back in clouds that come over israel, anycloser and the word for the day, every day in israel will be chemotherapy. But you never know, considering how secretive the region and israel is, maybe israel has already developed a cure for cancer and may nuke every country around it than cure its own people when they get cancer.

[IlyaFurman]

Originally posted by richcrassus
Do u people realise what nuclear weapons do and how they work?
Do u realise people realise the distances in the israel area, do u people realise that Israel cannot nuke ANY of its neighbours as they are all very close, and if israel did it would mean catastrophic repercussions and side effects for israel.
Do u people realise if a nuke was dropped on damascus, amman, cairo or beirut than many thousands of people is israel will die because the radiation from the nuke will come over Israel in CLOUDS.
Yes, clouds normal rain clouds carry radiation and other bad stuff, have u ever heard of acid rain, that stuff happens after a nuclear explosion as well. Well, ok if israel wants to nuke a country close to it fine, just EXPECT israels hospitals to be filled with cancer patients in the months and years following.

Israel could nuke Libya, Iran,Iran,pakistan with a small 1-5ktkt micro nuke and maybe not get any radiation back in clouds that come over israel, anycloser and the word for the day, every day in israel will be chemotherapy. But you never know, considering how secretive the region and israel is, maybe israel has already developed a cure for cancer and may nuke every country around it than cure its own people when they get cancer.

very good post, thats true, even if israel nukes a country like syria, there will be mass reprecustions in Israel, people dont realzie this, they just talk out of anger and haste.

[IlyaFurman]

Originally posted by ibrodsky
It is inevitable that a country like Iran will get nukes. Thus, perhaps Israel must develop sub-based nukes to counter the Iranian threat, and put its cards on the table.

The problem there is size, Iran is a huge country whearas Israel is small. Iran can afford a nuclear strike or two, israel cannot.

[ibrodsky]

Originally posted by RedLine
Oh come on guys! Saying that you want to Nuke surrounding Arab nations un-provoked makes you as bad as them. I agree with Danholo there should be no talk of using Nuclear arms.

I want to clear something up. I started this thread to discuss whether Israel should admit that it has nukes.

The question is a legitimate one and was not meant to suggest that Israel should start lobbing nuclear weapons at anyone.

In fact, I became concerned after an Iranian leader publicly suggested that the Islamic world should develop nukes, and then wipe Israel off the face of the earth -- taking Israel's nuclear retaliation as the price of attaining that goal.

The assumption of the Iranian leader, assuming the news report was accurate, was that Israel might succeed in killing 100 million people in a retaliatory attack, but that's OK because there would still be more than one billion Muslims left and no Israel.

Here is the quote from the Iran Press Service:

===========================================

RAFSANJANI SAYS MUSLIMS SHOULD USE NUCLEAR WEAPON AGAINST ISRAEL

TEHRAN 14 Dec. (IPS) One of Iran’s most influential ruling cleric called Friday on the Muslim states to use nuclear weapon against Israel, assuring them that while such an attack would annihilate Israel, it would cost them "damages only".

"If a day comes when the world of Islam is duly equipped with the arms Israel has in possession, the strategy of colonialism would face a stalemate because application of an atomic bomb would not leave any thing in Israel but the same thing would just produce damages in the Muslim world", Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani told the crowd at the traditional Friday prayers in Tehran.

===========================================

Now, does anyone have a better understanding of why I started this thread?

[ibrodsky]

Originally posted by Mediocrates

The case of Iran is yet another case. Their senior clerics have publically stated that the day they acquire a nuclear weapon is the last of existance for Israel. They have made clear their intention to use it. And the rest of the world should not underestimate their willingness to do so. A country that would send a million of its own unarmed teenagers against Iraqi tanks and chemical weapons can be taken at face value.

The case for Israel is far different. For one thing, unlike Iraq that signed the NPT and then broke it, Israel has an opaque policy. Not a yes, not a no. There is a great deal of flexibility in such a policy. Since they have not signed the NPT they are not bound by it and clearly no country should be expected to be compelled to sign any treaty. Next what is different is that because of this opacity Israel has never made the claim that they would use WMD or under what circumstances they might. There is a reasonable body of evidence to indicate that as early as pre 67 Israel has an operational nuclear capability. Since then, if that is true they have had ample opportunity to consider their use but did not.

Yes, there is a great deal of flexibility in Israel's opaque policy. But the question now is... does it give Israel's enemies something to worry about without giving them an excuse to develop their own nukes?

Would Israel be better off if she and the Muslim world were facing mutually assured destruction?

When I see a thread on a Muslim site about smiles on the faces of dead "martyrs" (implying that suicide operations lead to eternal bliss), and people eager to believe such nonsense, then I realize there are a substantial number of Islamists (= followers of militant Islam) who would consider the deaths of 100 million Muslims as not the "price" for destroying Israel, but an added bonus.

[Barak]

Todays nuclear weapons do not need to produce the sort of cloud of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The nukes today are smaller and are neutron bombs, which produces mainly high, but sort lasting radiation.

So Israel can nuke neighbouring Arab countries, but it must calculate the seize of the nuke (kt) and which type of bomb it will use.

[Outsider]

Has Israel even thought of any forsaken places for its test? There are so few of them that the whole idea should be dropped without more ado. Besides, how would Israel benefit from any test?

[Mediocrates]

Originally posted by ibrodsky
Yes, there is a great deal of flexibility in Israel's opaque policy. But the question now is... does it give Israel's enemies something to worry about without giving them an excuse to develop their own nukes?

Would Israel be better off if she and the Muslim world were facing mutually assured destruction?

I not would say MAD applies. Not in the same sense. Other countries do not yet have the ability to strike in the same way against Israel. That's one. Two is, none of those other countries have or could have anything resembling what we would call an escalation doctrine'; the steps leading up to launch. Just like we have political constraints around DEFCON, the Israelis have a bunch of plausible scenarios that gate the use of such weapons. Moreover they have a clear and tested failsafe process to gates accidental use. It's not obvious how Iran or Iraq or any of them have a similar process and instead rely on their leaders' cry to launch. That is I can't imagine any of them agreeing to a failsafe process that limits their use in any way. They are absolute rulers with absolute power.

So for Israel it comes down to understanding a few basic strategies that dictate operational use of WMD. Most of them I can imagine break down into the following categories:

Asymmetric - nuclear vs. chemical/bio
Parity - nuclear vs. nuclear
2nd strike

In my mind the first category is the hardest to deal with and the last category is the most lethal worst case scenario. We understand the second category and I suppose this is what most people refer to. But it is not clear how anyone deals with the first category. If Vx or Tabun or Q Fever is unleased in Israel, what is the response? And what is the second response? The critical shaping aspect of this is time. 3-4 minutes from Iraq tops. Now if the first inbound missile does 'something' then what is the response? Probably little. But then 20 minutes later it's known to be chemical attack and 10,000 Israelis are dead. Then what? Then the next inbound missile comes in. And so on. I'm not sure the Saddam really cares all that much if Baghdad is destroyed. So does the IDF hit a large number of missile launch sites, purely defensively? Or does it hit back at civilians.

This is the nightmare 2nd strike scenario. When everyone is splashing around in the abattoir, then what. Israel probably has a sophisticated 2nd strike capability and it would be under enormous pressure to use it. I think they would. But I can also imagine that they would strike at the productive capacity of the arab world - its oil and not necessarily its people.

[Mediocrates]

Originally posted by Outsider
Has Israel even thought of any forsaken places for its test? There are so few of them that the whole idea should be dropped without more ado. Besides, how would Israel benefit from any test?

The Indian ocean was used for a probable test in conjunction with the South Africans in the late 70's. But under the CTBT (comprehensive test ban treaty) that kind of thing is frowned upon anyway.

Most testing goes in in simulations running inside the huge compute centers at Livermore, Sandia and other DoE labs in the US. I wouldn't be shocked if we've run simulations for them already.

Clearly the Indians wanted to make a statement when they live tested. And that drove the Pakistanis to make their own test which some say was actually failure so it's not definitive what capabilities the Pakistanis have. I think it's a mistake to live test it diviluges too much information and forces some poor decision making.

[ibrodsky]

Originally posted by Mediocrates
I not would say MAD applies. Not in the same sense. Other countries do not yet have the ability to strike in the same way against Israel. That's one. Two is, none of those other countries have or could have anything resembling what we would call an escalation doctrine'; the steps leading up to launch. Just like we have political constraints around DEFCON, the Israelis have a bunch of plausible scenarios that gate the use of such weapons. Moreover they have a clear and tested failsafe process to gates accidental use. It's not obvious how Iran or Iraq or any of them have a similar process and instead rely on their leaders' cry to launch. That is I can't imagine any of them agreeing to a failsafe process that limits their use in any way. They are absolute rulers with absolute power.

Actually, you have just described why the US is right to demand Iraq disarms but not Israel.

I would say that if Israel has sufficient nuclear weapons and the necessary delivery system MAD does apply. Where things get out of kilter is the scenario fantasized by Iran's Rafsanjavi; namely, some of Israel's enemies are willing to see an entire Muslim country (or the equivalent number of lives) sacrificed in order to destroy Israel. So in that sense, the deterrence MAD represents when dealing with enemies who are at least semi-rational does not apply. Israel needs the ability (and a certain plan in place) to completely destroy all of the countries truly committed to her destruction in order for her nuclear weapons to serve as a deterrent.

And I am beginning to think Israel should reveal that she has this ability. If her enemies imagine they can destroy her and only lose 100 million people, which they seem almost eager to do, then Israel's current policy seems of little value.

As for the rest, I believe we have entered a new era technologically in which it becomes necessary for democracies to disarm all terrorist states that acquire WMD. No leader in the USSR ever suggested that they should nuke us and simply accept horrific loss of life on their side as the "price" of getting rid of us. Yet this is arguably what Israel now faces and what the US could be facing down the road.

[L@mplighterM]

It’s not known whether low yield nuclear weapons exist or not even though they are theoretically possible they may not have been developed.

There’s no doubt in my mind whatsoever that the Arabs will keep on fighting lost battles until they win. Israel and the west have aging populations whereas India, China and the Muslim world have a population base that’s significantly younger.

The writing is on the wall we’re an aging society and Islam isn’t. Turn the clock ahead (perhaps not even that far) some 20 years into the future and you’ll see the west full of geriatrics whereas Islam’s population will most likely have a mean age of about 35.

Islamic Fundamentalism wont disappear it’ll grow and foster like a bacteria in Petri dish nourished by a hatred of Jews and the west. In the end it’ll come down to nuclear weapons I wish that it wasn’t so but it should be evident to most reasonable people that it will unfold like that.

Pakistan has already threatened to use nuclear weapons as a fist strike against India. Iran will develop nuclear technology and one well placed nuclear bomb in Israel and its game over. Israel will be left with no option but to retaliate and somewhere deep beneath the surface launch sequences will be punched into a keyboard and it’ll be anchors away.

Nuclear winter!

It’s not time to use nuclear weapons against the Palestinians yet but at some point in time Islamic Fundamentalists will commit an act that’ll shake the very foundation of civilization.