Mideast Security and Policy Studies No. 200
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: In essence, the world of statecraft and strategy is a world of systems. Derivatively, Israeli nuclear deterrence is a system-determined process, one that rests on fixed concepts and principles but varies according to shifts in the global balance of power. In view of world system impacts of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, Israel’s defense planners will need to undertake certain re-calibrations of national nuclear doctrine. The prospective shape and timetable for implementing such more-or-less plausible recalibrations represents the guiding orientation of this article. Emphases will be placed on antecedent reductions of nuclear thresholds, higher-probability nuclear confrontations between the two principal superpowers and Iranian military assistance to Russia’s ongoing aggression. Inter alia, this military assistance will consider generally disregarded links between Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine and Israel’s nuclear strategy.
Louis René Beres is Emeritus Professor of Political Science and International Law at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. Ph.D., Princeton, 1971.