Posted on 10/12/2004 8:08:09 AM PDT by SJackson
Iranian Nuclearization And Israel`s `Arrow`: Implications For Preemption Option Part I
LOUIS RENE BERES
9/28/04
Israel`s security from enemy state aggression depends upon a carefully conceived mix of deterrence, preemption and war-fighting postures. It also requires an integrated and capable system of active defenses. The current core of Israel`s active defense system is the Arrow anti-ballistic missile program. An Israel Air Force (IAF) operational undertaking, the Arrow was developed jointly by Israel and the United States and is managed by the Israel Missile Defense Organization (IMDO) in close cooperation with the US Missile Defense Agency (MDA). The prime contractor for the Arrow ABM is Israel Aircraft Industries/MLM Division.
On July 29, 2004, as part of the ongoing Arrow System Improvement Program (ASIP) which is carried out jointly by Israel and the United States, an Arrow ABM successfully intercepted and destroyed its target at the Point Mugu Sea Range in California. This was the 12th Arrow intercept test and the seventh test of the complete Arrow system. According to a statement issued by Israel`s Ministry of Defense (MOD) on that same day: "The target trajectory demonstrated an operational scenario and all the Arrow system components performed successfully in their full operational configuration."
From the standpoint of Israel`s security, these test results are very significant. They indicate not only continuing close cooperation between Washington (DOD) and Tel-Aviv (MOD), but also the intrinsic technical promise of Israel`s ballistic missile defense. But now, serious decisions need to be made. Still faced with a steadily nuclearizing Iran, Israel must quickly consider carefully whether it can rely upon a suitable combination of deterrence and active defenses or whether it must also prepare energetically for an appropriate form of preemption.
On its face, it would appear that with a successfully operating system of ballistic missile defense, Israel`s preemption option is now substantially less urgent. Indeed, if the Arrow is truly efficient in its reliability of intercept, it would seem that even an irrational Iranian adversary armed with nuclear and/or biological weapons could be dealt with effectively by Israeli active defenses. This means that even if Israel`s nuclear deterrent were immobilized by an enemy state willing to risk a massive "countervalue" Israeli reprisal, that state`s ensuing first-strike would still be blocked by Arrow. Hence, why preempt?
But this argument would rest upon altogether untenable assumptions. Ballistic missile defense systems cannot be appraised dichotomously; that is, as either "reliable" or "unreliable." Here, Operational Reliability of Intercept is a continuous variable, and any BMD system — however successful in its tests — will always have "leakage." Whether or not such leakage would fall within acceptable levels would depend, primarily, upon the kinds of warheads fitted upon the enemy`s incoming missiles. Moreover, the Arrow`s recent success in intercepting a Scud might not be as easily replicated with more advanced targets. Iran`s newest missile — the Shahab-3 — travels almost three times as fast as the Scud.
In evaluating its preemption option via-a-vis Iran, Israeli planners will need to consider the expected "leakage rate" of the Arrow. Expressed as a percentage, a very small number of enemy missiles penetrating Arrow defenses could be acceptable if the associated warheads contained only conventional high explosive or even chemical high explosive. But if the incoming warheads were nuclear and/or biological, even an extremely low rate of leakage would almost certainly be unacceptable. A fully zero leakage-rate would be necessary to adequately protect Israel against nuclear and/or biological warheads, and such a zero leakage-rate is unattainable. It follows, given intrinsic limitations of deterrence, that Israel can not depend entirely upon its anti-ballistic missiles to defend against any future WMD attack from Iran, and that even a very promising Arrow system would not obviate Israel`s preemption option.
At the same time, a rational adversary will need to calculate that Israel`s second-strike forces are substantially invulnerable to first- strike aggressions. Additionally, this adversary will now require many more missiles for an assuredly destructive first-strike against Israel than would be the case without Arrow. This means that Israel`s Arrow will at least compel a rational adversary such as Iran to delay any intended first- strike attack until such time as this adversary can deploy a fully robust nuclear and/or biological offensive missile force.
In this way, ballistic missile defense — while not permitting Israel to reject the preemption option altogether — does offer Israel two distinct and complementary levels of protection: (1) protection afforded by Arrow`s demonstrated capacity for physical interception of incoming ballistic missiles; and (2) protection afforded by Arrow`s allowing Israel to "buy time" until a nuclearizing adversary is able to deploy a more or less substantial number of offensive ballistic missiles. By definition, of course, Arrow will have no deterrent effect upon any irrational adversary, but it could still have some consequential damage-limiting benefit in the event of an enemy attack by such an adversary.
In the best of all possible worlds, Israel would not need to make any of these complex strategic calculations, and could rely instead upon those codified norms of international law associated with methods of peaceful dispute settlement. But we surely do not yet live in the best of all possible worlds, and Israel surely still faces a number of state enemies in the Middle East whose undisguised preparations for the Jewish State are authentically genocidal. Jurisprudentially and strategically, war and genocide need not be mutually exclusive, and certain ongoing enemy state preparations for war against Israel are fully consistent with the definition of genocide found in the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
Iranian Nuclearization And Israel`s `Arrow` Implications For A Preemption Option: Part 2
Posted 10/11/2004
By LOUIS RENE BERES
Nowhere is it written that Israel must sit back passively and simply respond after a nuclear and/or biological attack has been inflicted upon its civilian populations. On the contrary, Israel has the same right accorded to all states in world politics to act preemptively when facing certain forms of existential assault. Known formally in long-established customary international law as the norm of "anticipatory self-defense," this right is strongly affirmed in The National Security Strategy Of The United States Of America — a document issued by President George W. Bush on September 20, 2002.
Since the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, the United States has made it plain that traditional concepts of deterrence will not work against an enemy "whose avowed tactics are wanton destruction and the targeting of innocents....," and that "We must adapt the concept of imminent threat to the capabilities and objectives of today`s adversaries."
This "adaptation" means nothing less than striking first where an emergent threat to the United States is judged to be sufficiently unacceptable. As the State of Israel is less than half the size of America`s Lake Michigan, its particular right to resort to anticipatory self-defense under threat of identifiable existential harms is beyond legal question. Moreover, the International Court of Justice at the Hague — a United Nations tribunal not especially well-known for its concern for the lives of Israelis — ruled on July 8, 1996 that it could not "conclude definitively whether the threat or use of nuclear weapons would be lawful or unlawful in an extreme circumstance of self-defense, in which the very survival of a State would be at stake."
It would follow from this Advisory Opinion on The Legality Of The Threat Or Use Of Nuclear Weapons that the legal right of self-defense under international law could even include — in starkly residual circumstances — the use of nuclear weapons.
In its published report (May 2004) titled Israel`s Strategic Future, however, the Project Daniel Group rejected any preemptive Israeli resort to nuclear weapons, even though — as indicated in the Advisory Opinion of the ICJ — such an expression of anticipatory self-defense could be construed as permissible. Instead, we rejected the argument that nuclear weapons would be desirable for preemption of enemy nuclear capability, and concluded that conventional means would generally be much more effective than nuclear devices for this purpose: "Even if nuclear weapons are fully available for preemption, and even if their use would be consistent with authoritative international law, conventional weapons would be preferable wherever possible against emergent enemy nuclear capabilities."
In the final analysis, Israel must continue to develop, test and implement an interception capability to match the growing threat dictated by enemy ballistic missile capabilities. Simultaneously, it must continue to prepare for possible preemptions and to enhance the credibility of its nuclear deterrent. Regarding such enhanced credibility, Israel must fully operationalize a robust second-strike force, sufficiently hardened and dispersed, and optimized to inflict a decisive retaliatory salvo against high-value targets.
As stated in the Project Daniel Report, Israel`s Strategic Future, "Overall, the most efficient yield for Israeli deterrence, counter-strike and deployment purposes is a countervalue-targeted warhead at a level sufficient to hit the aggressor`s principal population centers and fully compromise that aggressor`s national viability." Furthermore, we recommended emphatically that "development of a nuclear warfighting capacity for Israeli counterforce-targeting be avoided as far as possible" and that Israel consider promptly ending its tacit doctrine of nuclear ambiguity if for any reason enemy nuclearization had not been prevented.
We may learn from all of the above that the Arrow is absolutely necessary for Israeli security, but that it is also not sufficient. To achieve a maximum level of security, Israel will also have to: (1) develop boost-phase stage interception to complement Arrow, and (2) take the particular steps recommended by Project Daniel concerning preparations for preemption and deterrence. In this connection, my readers should recall the recent special ten-part series on these pages dealing with Project Daniel.
Together with the United States of America, Israel exists in the cross-hairs of a far-reaching Arab/Islamic "Jihad" that is profoundly theological and will not predictably conform to relevant rules of international law. Under no circumstances can Israel and the United States now afford to allow this seventh century view of the world to be combined with 21st-century weapons of mass destruction. Consequently, it must be a matter of very highest priority for the President of the United States to fully recognize and reaffirm this country`s fully overlapping security interest with the State of Israel, and to act accordingly.
Contrary to the well-publicized advice given in a recent report issued by the Council on Foreign Relations (Robert Gates, et.al, Iran: Time For A New Approach; July 2004), this presidential imperative should certainly extend to any lawful and presumptively effective acts of anticipatory self-defense that Israel would need to undertake for national self preservation. Such plainly defensive acts would be made necessary by unassailably informed judgments that deterrence and ballistic missile defense could no longer safeguard Israel`s populations from existential aggressions. ◙
LOUIS RENE BERES (Ph.D., Princeton, 1971), Professor of International Law at Purdue University and Strategic and Military Affairs columnist for The Jewish Press, is Chair of "Project Daniel."
Preemption is the only rational defense against an irrational adversary.
BUMP!
BUMP2
A long read, but very interesting. I agree that preemption is the right way to go. It is however very disheartening that the U.S. has armed many of Israels adversaries and made her job of keeping her population safe that much harder. I know....its the oil stupid!!!
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