1. Considering issues
   of both probability and disutility (harms), the principal existential
   threat to Israel at the present time is a conventional war mounted against
   it by a coalition of Arab states and/or Iran.
    

2. Israel is also
   endangered (presently or
   potentially) by Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), nuclear and/or biological
   weapons that could be used against it either by enemy first-strikes or via
   escalation from conventional war. Israel’s particular vulnerability to
   such weapons is a consequence of its tiny area, its high population
   density and its national infrastructure concentrations. We recommend,
   therefore:

1. Israel do whatever
   possible to prevent an enemy coalition from being formed and from coming
   into possession of WMD. This could include pertinent preemptive strikes
   (conventional) against enemy WMD development, manufacturing, storage,
   control and deployment centers. This recommendation is consistent both with
   longstanding international law regarding “anticipatory self-defense” and
   with the newly-stated defense policy of The United States of America.
    

2. Israel should
   continue with present policy of ambiguity regarding its own nuclear status.
   This would help to prevent any legitimization of WMD in the Middle East. It
   is possible, however, that in the future Israel would be well-advised to
   proceed beyond nuclear ambiguity to certain limited forms of disclosure.
   This would be the case only if enemy (state and/or non-state) nuclearization
   had not been prevented.
    

3. Israel should
   provide all constructive support to the United States-led War Against Terror
   (WAT). It must insist upon aiding the American objective to
   prevent/eliminate WMD among rogue states and terror groups in the Middle
   East. There is a clear coincidence of interest between Israel and the United
   States in matters of security and counter-terrorism.
    

4. Israel
   must do everything within its means to prevent a Middle Eastern rogue state
   or terror group from attaining WMD status. Irrespective of its policy on
   nuclear ambiguity vs. disclosure, Israel will not be able to endure unless
   it continues to maintain a credible, secure and decisive nuclear deterrent
   alongside a multi-layered anti-missile defense. This recognizable
   (second-strike) retaliatory force should be fashioned with the capacity to
   destroy some 15 high-value targets scattered widely over pertinent
   enemy states in the Middle East. The overriding priority of Israel’s nuclear
   deterrent force must always be that it preserves the country’s security
   without ever having to be fired against any target. The primary point of
   Israel’s nuclear forces must always be deterrence ex ante, not
   revenge ex post.

3. If WMD status were attained by any
   Middle Eastern rogue state or coalition of states, the probability of
   joint-enemy conventional attack against Israel would be raised
   considerably. Faced with adversaries who now might believe themselves
   shielded under a WMD “umbrella”, Israel would have to do the following:

1. Maintain its
   conventional forces at full war-waging strength and with a decisive
   qualitative edge. Hopefully this would be accomplished with full
   material support from the United States, whose interests would be
   coincident with Israel’s interests.
    

2. Adapt its planning priorities and
   budgetary requirements to the “paradigm shift” described later in this
   Report. In this connection, Israel is urged to reduce the priority it
   assigns to conventional warfighting without impairing its undisputed
   superiority against any plausible enemy coalition.

4. The Group is aware
   that many of its strategic recommendations are contingent upon adequate
   funding. Should the substantial funds needed by Israel to deal with
   so-called “Low Intensity” and Long-Range WMD threats be sought via
   increased taxation, it could threaten Israel’s economy and (ironically)
   undermine Israel’s security in other ways. To deal purposefully with these
   threats (threats which are delineated in this Report’s following
   presentation of “paradigm shift”), Israel’s government must trim all
   nonproductive costs and seek to encourage dramatic increases in
   productivity. The resultant rise in per capita GNP could allow the needed
   increase for Israel’s national defense.

 

The Existential Threat to Israel

In
an age of Total War, Israel must remain fully aware of threats to its very
continuance as a viable state. With such awareness, Israel has always recognized
an imperative to seek peace through negotiation and diplomatic processes
wherever possible. This imperative, codified at the United Nations Charter and
in multiple authoritative sources of international law, shall always remain the
guiding orientation of Israel’s foreign policy.

When
Israel’s search for peaceful settlement of disputes is not reciprocated,
however, it must be prepared to deal with a wide range of existential threats.
Taken literally, the idea of an existential threat implies harms that portend
complete annihilation or the disappearance of the state. The Group feels,
however, that certain forms of both conventional and unconventional attack
against large Israeli civilian concentrations would constitute an existential
threat. Although such forms of aggression are clearly criminalized by
longstanding rules of Humanitarian International Law, Israel must:

1. Acknowledge that these rules have often been
   ignored by certain Middle Eastern adversaries; and
    

2. Take appropriate protective steps involving
   deterrence, active defenses, passive defenses, and preemption.

Regarding preemption, international law has long allowed for states to initiate
forceful measures when there exists “imminent danger” of aggression. This norm
of “anticipatory self-defense” has been expanded and strongly reinforced by
President Bush’s recent issuance of The National Security Strategy of the
United States of America. Released on September 20, 2002, this document
asserts, inter alia, 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
Israel is substantially less defensible and more vulnerable than the United
States of America, its particular right to resort to anticipatory self-defense
under threat of identifiable existential harm is beyond legal question.
Moreover, as Israel’s ties to the United States are strong and unambiguous, so
too are the strategic interests of the two countries tightly interwoven.


Certain WMD attacks upon Israeli cities could be genuinely existential. For
example, biological or nuclear attacks upon Tel Aviv that would kill many
thousands of Israeli citizens could have profound and dire consequences on the
continued viability of the country.

A
recent report by the Washington-based Heritage Foundation examined the effects
of an Iraqi WMD attack on Tel Aviv.¹ In one scenario, a single Iraqi missile
carrying 500 kilograms of botulinum would kill approximately 50,000 individuals.
In another scenario, an Iraqi missile fitted with 450 kilograms of VX nerve gas
would kill 43,000 people. If left to develop nuclear warheads, Iraqi missiles
could kill hundreds of thousands of Israelis.

The
Group notes three distinct but interrelated existential threats:

1. Biological/Nuclear (BN) threats from states;
   
    

2. BN threats from terror organizations; and
    

3. BN threats from combined efforts of states
   and terror organizations.

To
the extent that certain Arab states and Iran are allowed to develop WMD
capabilities, Israel may have to deal with an anonymous attack scenario; that
is, a situation wherein the attacking state does not identify itself and where
Israeli identification of the perpetrator is problematic. Overall, there is a
“force multiplier” issue for Israel to face, a situation in which multiple
attacks upon Israel from various configurations of state and non-state
adversaries create a pattern of harms that is greater than the sum of its parts.
Regarding effective deterrence of such situations, the Group feels that Israel
must identify explicitly, and early on, all enemy Arab states and Iran, as
subject to massive Israeli reprisal in the event of BN attacks upon Israel. In
doing so, the Israeli deterrent posture would closely mirror that of the United
States towards the Soviet Union during the Cold War. 


Since the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, the US has made it clear that it
reserves the right to use all available weapons in response to any attack upon
its soil by an adversary using Weapons of Mass Destruction. (The Bush
Administration told Congress, on December 11, 2002, that it is now the policy of
the United States to use “overwhelming force”, including nuclear weapons, if
chemical or biological weapons are used against America or its military forces.
The threats are contained in a six-page document identified as National
Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction). Israel, in our view, should
follow a similar policy.


Existential threats to Israel may be exacerbated further by Arab/Iranian leaders
whose actions, by Western standards, might be deemed irrational. Faced with
enemy leaders who do not value national and/or personal self-preservation more
highly than any other preference or combination of preferences, Israeli
deterrence could be immobilized and security could be based largely upon the
success or lack of success of prior preemption efforts.


Under such circumstances, a policy of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) which was
once obtained between the United States and the Soviet Union would not work
between Israel and its Arab/Iranian adversaries. Rather, the Group understands
that Israel must prevent its enemies from acquiring BN status and that any
notion of BN “parity” between Israel and its enemies would be intolerable. The
ratios of physical size 800:1, population 55:1, and political clout 22:1 UN
votes between Israel and its enemies, and some of the latter’s’ utterly zero-sum
concept of conflict with Israel (a concept currently allowing for no possibility
of compromise and reconciliation) means that Israel’s survival is contingent
upon avoiding parity at all costs. With this in mind, we strongly believe that
Israel immediately adopt – with highest priority – a policy of preemption with
respect to enemy existential threats. Such a policy could also enhance Israeli
deterrence to the extent that it would reveal the country’s expressed
willingness and resolve to act as needed.

Recognizing the close
partnership and overlapping interests between Israel and the United States, the
Group fully supports the ongoing American War Against Terror. In this connection
we urge full cooperation and mutuality between Jerusalem and Washington
regarding communication of intentions. If for any reason the United States
should decide against exercising preemption options against certain developing
weapons of mass destruction, Israel must reserve for itself the unhindered
prerogative to undertake its own anticipatory self-defense operations.

The
Group began its deliberations with the following concern: Israel faces the
hazard of a suicide-bomber in macrocosm. Here, in this scenario, an enemy Arab
state and/or Iran would act against Israel without ordinary regard for
retaliatory consequences. In the fashion of the individual suicide bomber who
acts without fear of personal consequences – indeed, who welcomes the most
extreme personal consequence, which is death – an enemy Arab state and/or Iran
would launch WMD attacks against Israel with full knowledge and expectation of
overwhelming Israeli reprisals. The conclusion to be drawn from this scenario is
that deterrence vis-à-vis “suicide states” would have been immobilized by
enemy irrationality and that Israel’s only recourse in such circumstances would
have been appropriate forms of preemption.

The
Group is also concerned about a particular variant of this scenario wherein an
enemy state or combination of states does not actually seek or welcome massive
Israeli reprisals, but – because of the vast demographic advantage over Israel –
is willing to accept huge losses because Israel’s losses would be relatively
even greater. If the enemy state or states were to calculate that it could
afford a 1-to-1 exchange with Israel, it/they could literally compel Israel’s
losses to be in the high existential range. The prospect of such an enemy
calculation underscores Israel’s ultra sensitivity to enemy weapons of mass
destruction and its imperative to adopt a policy of preemption whenever
possible.

 

Rationale

The
Group recognizes a basic asymmetry between Israel and the Arab/Iranian world.
This asymmetry concerns attitudes toward the overall desirability of peace; the
absence of democratic regimes in the Arab/Iranian world; the acceptability of
terror as a legitimate weapon by the Arab/Iranian world; the zero-sum conception
of conflict vis-à-vis Israel held by some states of the Arab/Iranian
world; the overwhelming demographic advantage of the Arab/Iranian world; and the
greater tendency of the Arab/Iranian world to make mistakes in strategic
calculations. Taken as a whole, these asymmetries point toward an intemperate
Arab/Iranian plan for protracted war against Israel that is wedded to an
unquenchable desire by some to develop Weapons of Mass Destruction for use in this war.

In
view of the above-mentioned asymmetries, non-conventional exchanges between
Israel and adversary states in the Middle East must be avoided. It is not in
Israel’s interests ever to engage in WMD warfare with these adversary states.
Therefore; Israel must maintain conventional supremacy in the region. This will
be indispensable to maintaining the threshold of WMD warfare at the highest
possible level.

 

Paradigm Shift

The
classic paradigm of war between national armies is becoming less relevant in the
present Middle East. In time, it can be made more efficient for Israel to
increase the emphasis on high-tech solutions (thereby expending fewer
resources).


Traditionally, short-range threats (terrorism) and long-range threats (ballistic
missiles and WMD) have been under-evaluated.

The
strategic paradigm for Israel must now shift to meet the expanding threats from
terrorism and long-range WMD attacks. In doing so, of course, there must be a
corresponding reduction in the resources Israel can devote to classical
warfighting.


Modern technology should allow Israel to reduce its defense expenditure while
maintaining or even enhancing effectiveness and lethality in classical
warfighting. Critical to this transformation in warfighting doctrine are a
range of new technologies such as a drastic increase in weapons’ lethality (ton
x miles per target destroyed) achieved through increased range, precision,
warhead efficiency; EW and other defenses; reduced IR and RF signatures and on
course + final percussion (data link) feed-back. Efficient use of sophisticated
weapons is only possible if pre- and post-strike, real time intelligence, both
tactical and strategic is available and accurate, and if strike command, control
& communications are computer interfaced with real time intelligence (C4I).


The
Group understands that terror and WMD threats reflect a relative weakness in
both “flanks” of the allocation graph. Resources should be allocated to
technologies against those who conduct terror as well as the infrastructures
that support them. Such effective technologies are already in existence.

The Group recalls the following relevant
technologies against strategic threats: Anti-ballistic missiles; warning
satellites; strike UAVs (BPLI); long-range deployment forces; and “long-arm”
capability (to be discussed in greater detail further on in this Report).

The paradigm shift has worldwide
implications.

As stated above the Group feels that:

1. Israel must do whatever is needed to
   keep the Middle East non-BN, including conventional preemptive strikes
   against enemy facilities for developing and producing BN weapons;
    

2. Israel should not stimulate or
   provoke or in any way legitimize enemy development of BN weapons; it
   should, therefore maintain its current posture of deliberate ambiguity as
   long as possible;
    

3. Israel must strongly support the
   American War Against Terror (WAT), urging
   that destruction and prevention of nonconventional capabilities in the Arab/Iranian
   Middle East
   remain Washington’s overriding objective. In the event of an
   American/Israeli failure to prevent BN deployment in a
   hostile country or
   countries in the Middle East, Israel will have to maintain and declare a
   deterrent nuclear arsenal. This would necessarily involve precise and
   identifiable steps to fully convince enemy states of Israel’s willingness
   and capacity to use its nuclear weapons.

The Group is concerned about time-lapses in
Arab/Iranian nuclearization. Some current thinking points to short durations
needed for an enemy state to achieve a given level of nuclear capability, thus
creating a sense of real urgency. Others have preferred long estimates, thereby
identifying emergent enemy nuclear threats as still far-off in the future. We
suspect that Arab/Iranian development stages will be rather long (that is,
consistent with parallel processes in other states and regions of the world),
while phases of acquisition and building-up of arsenals after the first pieces
have been put into place will be relatively short. We suggest, therefore, that
Israeli policy not refer to “a period wherein some Arab states possess just a
few nuclear devices”. Such a period would inevitably be rather brief, and Israel
could not dwell productively on having sufficient time, under such
circumstances, for long processes of response.

The Group identifies the following list of
phases with typical expected durations.

Some, but not all of these phases, may be
simultaneous:

• Develop a (laboratory) nuclear fission device – 10
  years
   

• Develop a fusion device (having fission technology) –
  10 years
   

• Prepare strategic materials for a nuclear device – 10
  years
   

• Develop an air bomb (weapon system) – 8 years
   

• Develop a long-range missile – 12 years
   

• Fit a nuclear warhead into a missile – 8 years
   

• Build an arsenal of 100 bombs (after the first) – 4
  years
   

• Build an arsenal of 100 nuclear missiles (after the
  first) – 4 years
   

• Build a distributed system of missile launchers – 5
  years
   

• Operate a fleet of nuclear missile submarines – 12
  years

The above list of phases offers a rough
idea of the amount of time Israel might have for preparations at each declared
and verifiable stage of Arab/Iranian nuclear build-up.

The Group also offers informed judgments
concerning the types of weapons for Israeli preemptive operations. We reject the
argument that nuclear weapons are necessarily required for preemption of enemy
nuclear capability. Conventional means are generally 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.

The Group recognizes there is also the
additional advantage of acting preemptively against enemy BN capabilities
without escalating to a BN war in the Middle East. The tools for preemptive
operations would be novel, diverse and purposeful; for example, long-range
aircraft with appropriate support for derived missions; long-range high-level
intervention ground forces; long-endurance intelligence-collection systems;
long-endurance unmanned air-strike platforms, and so on.

The Group bears in mind that once achieving
BN status, enemy states in the Middle East region could:

1. Launch unconventional war against
   Israel; or
    

2. Launch conventional or low-intensity
   war against Israel under the counter-deterrent “umbrella” of their Weapons
   of Mass Destruction. To prevent such a scenario, wherein Israel could
   presumably be deterred from retaliation by threats of
   unacceptably-damaging enemy counter-retaliations, Israel should maintain
   its “qualitative edge” with assistance from the United States and adapt
   itself to the aforementioned Paradigm Shift. Under these circumstances,
   Israel must have conventional superiority against its Arab/Iranian enemies
   even under cuts recommended by the paradigm shift, and its defense budget
   must consistently support such needed superiority. More than ever before,
   the first Basic Point in Israel’s Security Doctrine needs to be remembered
   and respected: “Israel cannot afford to lose a single war.”

Conceptually, in examining the
persuasiveness of Israeli nuclear deterrence, we must distinguish sharply
between threats of enemy low- intensity/conventional attack and threats of enemy
nuclear/BN attack. But as the most serious enemy conventional attacks would be
launched against Israel by states with a backup BN capability, the
persuasiveness of Israeli nuclear deterrence will always have to be assessed
vis-à-vis enemy BN weapons.

 


Maintaining Israel’s Qualitative Edge

The Group underscores that Israel’s
conventional supremacy over all adversaries and combinations of adversaries must
be maintained. Israel’s qualitative edge is the only means by which it can
compensate for a fixed and irreversible quantitative inferiority. This means,
inter alia, the following expectations for the Israel Air Force (IAF):

• Israel will have to maximize its
  long-range, accurate, real-time strategic intelligence.
   

• Israel will have to maximize the
  credibility of its second-strike capability.
   

• Israel will have to develop, test,
  manufacture and deploy a BPI (Boost Phase Intercept) capability to match
  the operational requirements dictated by enemy ballistic missile
  capacities (performance and numbers.)
   

• Israel must begin to rely heavily on
  recoverable and non-recoverable UAVs, stealthy or otherwise, for such
  tasks as defense suppression, decoys, EW in all of its aspects,
  intelligence gathering and strike. GPS navigation must also be emphasized.
   

• Israel must maximize its traditional
  combat and auxiliary manned force and equip it optimally.
   

• Israel will have to assume
  operational responsibility for a second-strike capability, whether
  deployed on land or at sea, while ensuring an essential unity of command.

 The Group emphasizes that Israel must
remain in a position to win any war conventionally. In order to prevent a
nuclear Middle East, Israel needs an ever-higher level of qualitative edge.
There is, of course, a mutuality of interest here with the United States of
America.

Israel’s needed identification and funding of particular
elements that offer its forces a qualitative edge should be consistent with our
prescribed “Paradigm Shift”. As this objective has been a continuing commitment
of successive American administrations, and is also substantially dependent upon
United States support, the Group recommends that the following key questions be
researched and explored:

1. What steps should be taken to better
   integrate Israel’s capabilities with validated US military requirements?
    

2. What constitutes a healthy industrial
   base for Israel, and what is needed to ensure Israel’s ability to meet
   emerging strategic threats?
    

3. With a declining defense budget
   (expressed as a percentage of GDP), how will Israel be able to finance not
   only its next generation of military systems, but also the ongoing War
   Against Terror (WAT)?
    

4. Is restructuring needed in the
   US-Israel strategic relationship?
    

5. How can Israel make better use of US
   military assistance?
    

6. What can be done to eliminate some of
   the current impediments to US-Israel defense trade?
    

7. How can Israel better assist the
   United States in meeting its requirements in homeland defense,
   counterterrorism and the WMD threat?
    

8. What strategic forces will Israel
   require to meet the long-range threats to its security, and how will the
   country be able to finance these forces? These may include extended-range
   attack aircraft, expanded missile defense, extended aerial refueling,
   long-range special ground intervention forces and enhanced space-based C4I
   capability. In the best of all possible fiscal worlds, Israel would also
   seek to fund a blue ocean naval presence, but this option is presently
   precluded by defense budget constraints.
    

9. What is needed to harden Israel’s
   current defensive and offensive forces to make them sufficiently
   invulnerable to enemy first strikes?
    

10. How can Israel minimize the trade-off
    between operational readiness and force modernization?
     

11. How should Israel readjust its
    defense strategy to take into account the possibilities of an expanded US
    military presence in the Middle East?
     

12. What should Israel conclude about
    growing threats posed by particular enemy State modernizations?
     

13. What should Jerusalem offer
    Washington in support of future US military operations in the Middle East?
     

14. Should there be an enhancement of
    Israel’s major non-NATO status as an ally of the United States?

The group feels that it is essential for
Israel to get US support in ongoing defense projects designed to enhance
Israel’s future overall deterrence:

Israel’s Arrow missile defense system
(prime contractor IAI) involves various arrangements with US Boeing. The IAF,
which operates the Arrow, will likely meet its goal of having 200 interceptors
in inventory on schedule. Arrow managers also hope to sell their product to
certain other States; this would help Israel to reinforce its qualitative edge.
Israeli engineers are taking steps to ensure that Arrow will function alongside
American Patriot systems. The Group feels that IAF should continue working on
external and internal interoperability issues.

In its effort to create multi-layered
missile defense system architecture, it may be that Israel is already working on
an unmanned aircraft that could hunt down and kill an enemy’s mobile ballistic
missile launchers. Israeli military officials have tried to interest the
Pentagon in joining the launcher-attack project, known as boost-phase launcher
intercept (BPLI), but Washington is focused on alternative technologies. The
Group feels that Israel could do BPLI with or without US support, but gaining
such support would allow the project to move forward much more rapidly.
Enlisting US support for BPLI would represent another important step toward
maintaining Israel’s qualitative edge.

The Group believes that the United States
should participate technologically and financially in Israel’s multi-layered 
missile defense efforts as fully as possible. Israel’s priorities and timetables
are especially time-urgent, and the end-product benefits of such American
participation would be shared by both countries. The Group emphasizes the
importance of multi-layered  defenses for Israel – aiming longer-term at
BPI or BPLI – but affirms strongly that Israel should act preemptively before
there is a destabilizing deployment of unconventional enemy assets.

 

War
Against Terror

Further to the Group’s suggestions
concerning Paradigm Shift, we believe in the overriding importance, to Israel’s
security, of the ongoing, US-led War Against Terror (WAT). This War, of course,
must be fought not only at the level of the terrorist organizations directly,
but also against the various “rogue states” that support and sustain these
organizations. From the standpoint of international law, WAT is a clear
expectation and requirement for all civilized states.

In the previously-cited document, The
National Security Strategy of the United States of America (September 20,
2002), President George Bush affirms:


Our priority will be first to disrupt and destroy terrorist
organizations of global reach and attack their leadership; command, control, and
communications; material support; and finances… We will continue to encourage
our regional partners to take up a coordinated effort that isolates the
terrorists. Once the regional campaign localizes the threat to a particular
state, we will help ensure the state has the military, law enforcement,
political and financial tools necessary to finish the task.

The President continues: “While our focus
is protecting America, we know that to defeat terrorism in today’s globalized
world we need support from our allies and friends.” The Group advises that
Israel offer such support to the United States to the fullest extent possible,
and – reciprocally – that Israel seek from the United States whatever assistance
and resources that America can provide. America’s WAT is Israel’s war, and
Israel’s WAT is America’s war. The interests of our two countries in this matter
coincide completely.


Middle East stability in general, and
Israeli security in particular, will be affected by the outcome of the WAT.
Impairment of worldwide terror capabilities and enemy unconventional weapons
capabilities is linked directly to Israeli security. By moving forcefully and preemptively against
pertinent military targets, the United States would help to prevent a WMD
conflagration in the Middle East, one that could spill over outside the region.
It would also inform the world community about the need for, and lawfulness of,
similar defensive actions by the State of Israel. The Group further believes
that any such indirect benefit of the American WAT could reinforce crucial ties
between Washington and Jerusalem, strengthening various patterns of essential
mutual assistance between the two allies.

The Group agrees that victory in the WAT (a
full realization of President Bush’s stated objectives in The National
Security Strategy of the United States of America) would be an optimal
antecedent of subsequent independent actions by Israel. We understand as well
that no clear and verifiable criteria of “victory” are readily identifiable.
Rather, the WAT will necessarily be fought amidst considerable ambiguity of
outcome; therefore, it would be a mistake for Israel to await an American
victory in this theatre before committing itself to needed defensive options. In
effect, such a delaying posture by Israel would likely preclude altogether
actions needed against existential harms.

It is very likely
that after any American-led war against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, accurate
assessments of damage to Saddam’s developing WMD infrastructures and associated
intellectual assets would be problematic. The objective must be to eliminate
these infrastructures and assets entirely, and to prevent any still-planned
Iraqi steps toward WMD manufacture and deployment. Moreover, a principal
objective of any US military action against Iraq must be the removal of Saddam
Hussein, although it is not by any means clear that such removal would
necessarily end all pertinent dangers emanating from that country.
In the best of circumstances for
Israel, US armed forces will succeed in neutralizing both Saddam’s developing WMD
infrastructures/associated intellectual assets and Saddam himself. Here, depending upon:

1. Informed post-war assessments of
   Iraq’s remaining WMD capacities;
    

2. Its remaining capability to develop
   or acquire such capacities, and
    

3. The nature of the successor regime in
   Baghdad, Israel may decide to shift its existential concerns to other
   regional threats. Special attention must be directed in this regard to
   expanding nuclear trade between Russia and Iran; to Egyptian plans to
   build a nuclear power plant near Alexandria, and to recent intelligence
   about Libya’s efforts in the nuclear arena. Israel’s decision here will be
   contingent to some extent upon precise military outcomes of the American
   war on terror.

 


Preemption

Following the Bush Administration’s
September 20th reaffirmation of anticipatory self-defense and its broadened
emphasis on preemption in the War Against Terror, Israel should now adopt a
similar policy. The Group suggests that such policy pertain to WMD/BN threats,
and that – wherever possible – it be entirely conventional in nature. Preemption
may be overt or covert, and range from “decapitation” to full-scale military
operations. Further, decapitation may apply to both enemy leadership elites
(state and non-state) and to various categories of experts who are essential to
the fashioning of enemy WMD/BN arsenals; e.g., scientists.

The National Security Strategy of the
United States of America stipulates that, “We must be prepared to stop rogue
states and their terrorist clients before they are able to threaten or use
weapons of mass destruction against the United States…” Urging “Proactive,
counter-proliferation efforts to deter and defend against the threat before it
is unleashed”, the document makes clear that America no longer has the only
option to rely on reactive postures. “We cannot,” says the President, “let our
enemies strike first.”

The preemption imperative applies even more
strongly to Israel. More than any other state, Israel’s failure to shift
purposefully to codified counter-proliferation policies could have fully
existential consequences. This shift must be immediate. The Group suggests
strongly and unequivocally that conventional Israeli preemption against selected
enemy nuclear infrastructures now in development be executed as early as
possible, and – wherever possible – in collaboration with the United States.
Where America may be unable or unwilling to act proactively against these
infrastructures, it is essential that Israel be able and willing to act alone.

The Group reminds its readers that
prevention or delay of enemy nuclear deployment would be profoundly different
from preemption of an already-existing enemy BN force. Such issues as time
horizon; target types; operation concurrence; disclosure and certain others must
be analyzed separately for the two contexts. Attempts at preemption against an
enemy that has been allowed to go nuclear may be too risky and may invite an
existential retaliation.

The group distinguishes between two types
of preemptions:

1. Preemption against nuclear
   installations capable of eventually producing nuclear weapons, and
    

2. Preemption in the battlefield (In
   most cases before hostilities start).

It is understood that both types of
preemptions be carried out by conventional high precision weapons, not only
because these weapons are more effective than nuclear weapons, but because
preemption with nuclear weapons could be considered as Israeli nuclear first
strikes. If not successful, these strikes could elicit an enemy’s counter-value
second strike with all its existential ramifications.

 


Tactical Weapons and Other Warfighting Considerations

The Group believes that development of a
nuclear warfighting capacity for Israel (counterforce-targeting) should be
avoided as far as possible. There is no operational need for low-yield nuclear
weapons geared for actual battlefield use. There is no point in spreading (and
raising costs) Israel’s effort on low-yield, tactical nuclear weapons given the
multifaceted asymmetry between Israel and its adversaries.
Overall, the most efficient yield for
Israeli deterrence, counterstrike 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.
The Group urges that
Israel make every effort to avoid using nuclear weapons in support of
conventional war operations. These weapons could also create a seamless web of
conventional and nuclear battlefields that Israel should avoid.

The Group opposes the creation of “Red
Lines” concerning use of tactical nuclear weapons. These Red Lines could be
eroded by a political establishment encouraged to use the “easy” nuclear way out
of military dilemma, thus occasioning premature escalation to nuclear war. Red
Lines might also be eroded within the military itself, if IDF elements were to
prompt any unauthorized use of the weapons at their disposal. In our judgment
tactical nuclear weapons and doctrine would increase instability without
offering Israel any real strategic advantage.

Consistent with the basic presumption of
enemy rationality, the Group considers it gainful for Israel to plan for
regime-targeting in certain instances and circumstances. With direct threats
employed against individual enemy leaders and possible others, costs to Israel
(and to the Arab populations oppressed by the targeted regimes) could be very
substantially lower than alternative forms of warfare. Simultaneously, threats
of regime targeting could be even more compelling than threats to destroy enemy
hard targets, but only if the prospective victims were made to feel sufficiently
at risk. We understand that regime-targeting by Israel is unlikely unless a
pattern will first be established by the United States in the expanding War
Against Terror.

The Group offers a final set of suggestions
concerning anticipatory self-defense. Israel must be empowered with a “Long Arm”
to meet its preemption objectives. This means long-range fighter aircraft with
capability to penetrate deep, heavily-defended areas and to survive. It means
air-refueling tankers; communications satellites; surveillance satellites;
long-range UAVs. More generally, it means survivable precision weapons with high
lethality; it also means substantially refined EW and stealth capabilities.
Individually, the need for these assets is already well-known. What is new and
important here in the Group’s suggestion is the recommended configuration of
these assets.

 


Deterrence

Operational deterrence is essential to
Israeli security in all situations and circumstances. If, for whatever reason,
Israel fails to meet its preemption goals and enemy states acquire nuclear
capacity, it will have to reconceptualize deterrence to conform to the vastly
more dangerous geostrategic context. The Group affirms, again, that Israel’s
primary objective must always be to prevent enemy nuclear weapons in the Middle
East, but if this mission is unrealized it suggests the following: Israel should
immediately end its posture of nuclear ambiguity and take steps toward
purposeful disclosure of its own nuclear assets and doctrine. Such disclosure,
of course, would be limited to those aspects needed to underscore the
survivability and penetration-capability of its nuclear forces and the political
will to launch these forces in retaliation for certain forms of enemy
aggression.

The Group understands that Israel must
always do whatever it can to ensure a secure second-strike nuclear capability
that is recognized by all pertinent enemy states. This means that once nuclear
ambiguity is brought to an end, nuclear disclosure would play a crucial
communicative role. The essence of deterrence lies in the communication of
capacity and will to those who would do Israel great harm. The actual
retaliatory use of nuclear weapons by Israel would signify the failure of
deterrence. Recalling Clausewitz and Sun-Tzu, the very highest form of military
success is achieved when one’s objectives can be met without an actual use of
force.

To meet its “ultimate” deterrence
objectives – that is, to deter the most overwhelmingly destructive enemy
first-strikes, Israel must seek and achieve a visible second-strike capability
to target approximately 15 enemy cities.
The Group notes again that where nuclear
targeting is concerned, Israel should focus its resources on counter-value
warheads, targeting between 10 and 20 city assets of crucial importance to the
enemy, but excluding religious assets wherever possible.

The Group points out that all of its
suggestions regarding nuclear weapons are fully consistent with authoritative
international law. On July 8, 1996, the International Court of Justice at The
Hague handed down its Advisory Opinion on The Legality of the Threat or Use
of Nuclear Weapons (pursuant to request made by the General Assembly of the
United Nations). The final paragraph of the Opinion concludes, inter alia:


The threat or use of nuclear weapons would generally be contrary
to the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict, and in
particular the principles and rules of humanitarian law. However, in view of the
current state of international law, and of the elements of fact at its disposal,
the Court cannot 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.²

The Group maintains that Israel must
display flexibility in its nuclear deterrence posture in order to contend with
future adversarial expansions of nuclear weapon assets. It may become necessary
under certain circumstances that Israel field a full triad of strategic nuclear
forces. For the moment, however, we believe that Israel can manage without
nuclear missile-bearing submarines. This belief holds only as long as it remains
highly improbable that any enemy or combination of enemies could destroy
Israel’s land-based and airborne-based nuclear missiles on a first-strike
attack. The Group recognizes that these circumstances could change in the
future.

To meet its deterrence needs, Israel must
be prepared to:

1. Fully operationalize an efficient,
   multi-layered  antiballistic missile system to intercept and destroy
   a finite number of enemy warheads with the highest possible probability of
   success and with a reliable capacity to distinguish between incoming
   warheads and decoys.
    

2. Fully operationalize a robust
   second-strike capability, sufficiently hardened and dispersed, and
   optimized to inflict a decisive retaliatory salvo against high-value
   targets.
    

3. Continue energetic R&D, service
   trials, eventual production/deployment of Boost Phase/Boost Phase Launcher
   Intercept systems to add to multi-layered  defense.
    

4. Enhance real-time intelligence
   acquisition, interpretation and  transmission for instant response.
    

5. Provide for accurate, real-time
   post-strike reconnaissance and assessment.
    

6. Provide the required C4I system to
   handle all above and ground-damage control.
    

7. Take all necessary measures to
   connect the north and south of Israel, bypassing metropolitan Tel Aviv
   (roads, railways, gas and oil pipelines, water, electricity, telephones,
   etc); and
    

8. Provide population dispersal for an
   early-warned Tel Aviv.

As a rule Israel will do its utmost never
to escalate from the conventional or chemical to the BN. It will do so only as
retaliation against an existential attack/first strike by an enemy. Israeli
nuclear counterforce first strikes (even for preemption purposes) would be
precarious and should be avoided at all costs. For the reasons stated above
Israel should also attempt to have very strong conventional, chemical, and
biological deterrence capabilities. It should not ever be forced to escalate to
the nuclear level for lack of proper response options in lesser capabilities.

Finally, Israel’s deterrence posture must
always be founded upon genuine capabilities. In this connection, the Group
suggests that Israel always avoid any intended gap (IG) between actual and
alleged military capacities. An effort to maintain any IG would be unnecessary
and would likely be unsustainable. Moreover, the consequences of any enemy
discovery of an Israeli IG would be very destabilizing. If, for example, the IG
had been presumed essential to Israeli deterrence, its exposure by an enemy
state or states could provoke overreaction by the enemy. Here, the enemy might
launch an all-out attack upon Israel under the false presumption that other
declared Israeli capabilities were probably fabricated.

From the standpoint of deterrence, there is
a deep and meaningful consistency between actual and alleged capabilities. In
every aspect of nuclear capability, the declared level, by Israel, should be
neither less nor more than the real one. This does not mean, however, that
Israeli declarations need to be very specific. Nor does it mean that merely
having a nuclear force automatically implies having a credible nuclear
deterrence posture. Such a force must always be secure, appropriately
destructive and presumptively capable of penetrating any would-be aggressor’s
active defenses. 

 


Conclusion

A policy paper published by ACPR (Ariel
Center for Policy Research) in March 2002 raised important concerns about
Israel’s deterrent capacities vis-à-vis Iraq or Iran.³
Here, one of our team,
Yoash Tsiddon-Chatto
linked Israeli security to the US War Against Terror (WAT). At the same time,
another member of our group –
Louis René Beres
– urged the creation of a special ad-hoc effort to advise the Prime Minister of
Israel on the growing threat of enemy state and/or terror organization
acquisition of WMD. Professor Beres, who has been the Chair of Project
Daniel, was initially most concerned about Middle Eastern enemy states who might
act as “suicide bombers” writ large; that is, as countries armed with
operational biological and/or nuclear weapons. Such states might be willing in
certain circumstances to accept collective national “martyrdom” in order to
annihilate or bring great destruction to Israel. Although
the Group agrees that such a prospect is conceivable, we have concluded that the
principal existential threats to Israel are still more likely to come from
rational adversaries and that Israel should plan accordingly.

International law is not a suicide pact.
Every state has an established right under international law to protect itself
from enemy acts of aggression. This right is all the more obvious today, when
Weapons of Mass Destruction can inflict existential harms and where aggressors
could calculate, correctly or incorrectly, that they can strike without
incurring unacceptably damaging retaliations.

The United States of America now recognizes
that even the world’s remaining superpower must augment deterrence and defense
options with up-to-date expansions of anticipatory self-defense. Following Bush
Administration codifications of preemption as doctrine, Israel – a country that
is vastly more vulnerable than the United States – should do no less. Seeking,
always, to implement peaceful and diplomatic remedies wherever possible, Israel
must remain fully aware that its adversaries have very different orientations
toward these remedies and that, in certain situations, even threats of
overwhelming retaliatory destruction could fail to deter enemy aggression. What
we are suggesting here is not merely that Israel remain committed to
anticipatory self-defense wherever necessary – after all, such a commitment is
already understood – but that Israel now make fully doctrinal commitments to
conventional forms of preemption in regard to WMD threats. These unambiguous
commitments would be unthreatening and law-enforcing, announcing in advance that
Israel, like the United States, has an inherent right to defend itself without
first absorbing Biological and/or Nuclear aggressions.

American defense policy under President
George W. Bush gathers into one comprehensive whole several interrelated
doctrines for deterrence, defense and preemption. Codified during 2002 in The
National Security Strategy of the United States of America (September 20,
2002) and National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction
(December 11, 2002) this policy offers a coherent doctrine from which specific
tactical and strategic options may be suitably derived and implemented.
Notwithstanding substantial security differences between our two countries, and
the distinct possibility that there will be certain conceptual/operational
errors and failures in America’s actual execution of the Bush Doctrine in
particular venues, a similarly institutionalized doctrine could now serve to
enhance Israel’s defense posture.


Israel’s strategic future is always a work
in progress. This Report has identified various existential threats to this
future and appropriate policy responses. The Members of Project Daniel stand
ready to offer whatever additional counsel might best serve the security
interests of the State of Israel. With this in mind, we respectfully offer this
Report to the Honorable Ariel Sharon, Prime Minister.

---


ISRAEL’S STRATEGIC FUTURE


The Final Report of
Project Daniel


Addendum

Israel’s unchanging imperative is to
survive in a very hostile neighborhood. Facing both state and non-state enemies in
the Arab/Islamic world some of whom remain relentlessly genocidal toward Israel, the
Jewish state must now prepare to systematically harness all resources needed to
endure. Above all, this means constructing the optimal conceptual foundations for national
strategic survival. With this in mind, and with particular attention to the
still-growing dangers of Arab/Islamic nuclearization, the members of Project
Daniel offer Israel’s Strategic Future.

When Project Daniel presented its basic
document to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on January 16, 2003, Operation Iraqi
Freedom had not yet commenced. Today, in April 2004, the war – in one form or
another – is more than one-year old and (however one might wish to judge the
strategic accomplishments of the conflict) the specific WMD
dangers once associated with Iraq are for now, evidently irrelevant.
Nevertheless, from the standpoint of Israel’s overall strategic doctrine, the
recommendations expressed in Israel’s Strategic Future remain entirely
meaningful and timely. Indeed, conceptually, these recommendations are now more
important than ever before. We refer here especially to the critically enduring
expectations of deterrence, defense, warfighting and preemption doctrine – expectations
carefully discussed in the main body of the Report.

Since the presentation of our original
document, there have been a few relatively minor “victories” in the
indispensable effort to control
WMD proliferation among Israel’s
enemies. The most obvious case in point is Libya. At the same time, the
circumstances in North Korea (which had already participated in a war against
Israel, deploying some Mig-21 squadrons to Egypt in the October 1973 “Yom Kippur
War”), Iran and Pakistan remain highly volatile and dangerous.
At the level of terrorist groups, which are of course sustained by several
Arab/Islamic states, new alignments are being fashioned between various
Palestinian organizations and
al-Qai`dah. The precise
configurations of these alignments are complex and multifaceted, to be sure, but
the net effect for Israel is unmistakably serious.

We, the members of Project Daniel, are
aware as well, that a movement for nuclear “equity” is currently gaining strength
in the Arab/Islamic world and even in parts of Europe. The main argument of this
carefully orchestrated movement is that nonproliferation burdens should be borne
“fairly and equally” by all states in the region, and that Israel cannot be an
exception. If this carefully contrived movement should gather strength and
adherents in the coming months and years, it could place Israel’s nuclear
options in some peril. Without these options, Israel’s genocidal enemies would
quickly understand what classical military thinking has incorporated from Karl
von Clausewitz
(On War), and what was learned long ago by the ancient Greek King Pyrrhus:
There comes a time when mass counts. In this connection
it is important for friends of Israel to understand that our reference to
“genocidal enemies” is altogether literal and precise. Even by the strict
jurisprudential standards defined at the 1948 Convention on the Prevention
and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, the language and actions of
Israel’s state and non-state enemies qualify fully as egregious crimes against
humanity.⁴

The Arab world is comprised of 22 states
of nearly 5,000,000 square miles and 144,000,000 people. Soon, if Israel is
forced to accede to the idea of a Palestinian state, there will be a 23rd
Arab state, one with particular territorial and tactical advantages in the
accelerating genocidal struggle against Israel. The Islamic world overall
contains 44 states with more than one billion people. These Islamic states
comprise an area that is 672 times the size of Israel. The Jewish state, with a
population of about 5,000,000 Jews – is – together with Judea, Samaria and Gaza
– less than half the size of San Bernardino County in California.

We the authors of Israel’s Strategic
Future have reaffirmed Israel’s long-honored commitment to collective
security and “peaceful settlement of disputes” whenever possible. But it will be
immediately evident to all who consider the United Nations that this world body
has regularly been openly biased against Israel, and that it can never be
counted upon to halt or even impede the genocidal ambitions of Israel’s enemies.
Indeed, at a time when the uniquely barbarous terror of
Hamas
and related Palestinian groups openly defies every constraint of humanitarian
international law (the law of armed conflict is binding upon all combatants,
insurgents as well a states), the UN chooses to condemn not the Arab terror but
Israel’s efforts at counter-terror. In a fashion that seems to resemble the
literary genre of the “Theatre of the Absurd” more than the sober deliberations
of international diplomacy, the Security Council debates Israel’s security
fence, but not the Arab mutilations and murders that make the fence necessary.
Similarly, the world body is quick to condemn Israel’s policy of “targeted
killings” while ignoring the bloody pogroms organized by such
Hamas
leaders as the late Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and the late Abdel Aziz
al-Rantisi.
We might also recall that the UN Security Council, including the United States
of America, voted to condemn Israel’s destruction of Iraq’s Osiraq
nuclear reactor on June 7, 1981⁵ – an expression of anticipatory self-defense⁶
that was the reason Saddam Hussein did not have nuclear weapons during the 1991
Gulf War or during the past year in Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Israel’s Strategic Future is
founded on the presumption that current threats of war, terrorism and genocide
derive from a very clear “clash of civilizations”, and not merely from narrow geostrategic
differences. Both Israel and the United States are unambiguously in the
cross-hairs of a worldwide Arab/Islamic “Jihad”
that is fundamentally cultural/theological in nature, and that will not concede
an inch to conventional norms of “coexistence” or “peaceful settlement”. This
situation of ongoing danger to “unbelievers” is hardly a pleasing one for
Jerusalem and Washington, but it is one that must now be acknowledged
forthrightly and dealt with intelligently. Moreover, it is a situation that
could combine an eighth century view of the world with 21st century weapons of mass
destruction.

Very early on in our deliberations, the
Group considered a coincident danger; that is, the special strategic risks to
Israel of irrational adversaries (state and non-state) armed with nuclear and/or
biological weapons. Although we concluded that preeminent risks are far more
likely to be associated with fully rational enemies, there may be residual
circumstances in which Israel could be faced with a “suicide bomber in
macrocosm” – enemy state leaders/decision-makers who are actually willing to
absorb overwhelmingly destructive Israeli nuclear reprisals in order to
eliminate the “Zionist cancer”. For this reason, as well as for other specific
circumstances in which Israel’s nuclear deterrent might be eviscerated or
immobilized, we have devoted much of our argument to codification of a credible
and capable preemption doctrine.

We may learn two persistently important
truths from Thucydides’
account of the Peloponnesian War in ancient Greece: (1) that “war is a violent
preceptor,” and (2) that human nature is dreadfully constant. Today, Israel’s
strategic future is poised precariously on a knife’s edge, and the wisdom of Thucydides
can be disregarded only at great peril. It would be a mistake to conclude that
inter-Arab or inter-Islamic dissension at any level, including open warfare,
would substantially reduce risks of violence to Israel, or that Israel can
presently draw any true measure of security from formal peace agreements with
its enemies. Ultimately, President Bush is correct in his view that Arab/Islamic
democratization is necessarily antecedent to regional peace, but it is just as
apparent that this remedy is still many years away. In the interim, therefore,
both Israel and the United States must maintain steady momentum in their War
Against Terror (WAT)
and in the absolutely imperative control (including, if necessary, appropriate
preemptions) of nuclear proliferation. Building upon the solid foundations of
Libya’s recent nuclear renunciation, attention must now be directed especially
to scale down the nuclear programs not only of Iran, but also of Algeria and
even Egypt.

As a “violent preceptor”, Operation
Iraqi Freedom yields several important lessons. In its initial combat phases,
“Gulf War II” has been a war of high-precision ordnance, in contrast to
Operation Desert Storm, which had been a “war of platforms”. The overwhelming
majority of bombs and missiles fired in Operation Iraqi Freedom were accurate
enough to permit about 600 strike aircraft – deployed farther away from their
targets than in Operation Desert Storm – to achieve primary offensive objectives
in some 24 days. From the standpoint of these objectives, it follows that what
“counts” in such offensive operations is not missions per se, but rather
number of ordnance per target hit or destroyed.⁷
Nonetheless, even where this “lesson” has been learned by Israel and the United
States, it must remain obvious that an initial offensive operational victory in
wars against rogue regimes and corollary wars against terror is only the
beginning of much wider forms of struggle.

In the main body of our Final Report, we
note a recommended “Paradigm Shift”, and identify associated changes to Israel’s
defense expenditures. Optimally, a satisfactory level of conventional
deterrence/war-winning capacity can be maintained by Israel without substantial
budgetary expansions. By definition, this would require a reduction in
weapon-carrying platforms (e.g., tanks, aircraft) and a corresponding reduction
in manpower, training and maintenance costs without diminishing the desired
level of overall combat effectiveness. In essence, the budgeted paradigm-shift
must allow the IDF
to maintain a needed level of potential “ton x miles of targets destroyed” over
a pertinent span of time – a goal that will require sophisticated, “intelligent”
weapons; lighter, more lethal, with longer-ranges and – very importantly –
possessing precise day/night, independent (fire and forget) unjammable
guidance systems. The recommended paradigm shift will also require additional
deterrence/war-winning capabilities in both the Terror and WMD
sectors. Although there is a certain overlap of operational requirements between
sectors, the slightly-reduced
budget allocations for
conventional deterrence will not suffice to sustain the vastly-increased needs
for anti-terror and (especially) WMD-warfare
requirements.



⁸ Israel’s FY 2004 defense budget
eliminates a substantial part of the funding for new R&D initiatives as a direct consequence of an
overall cut of NIS 3 billion (US$680 million) in military expenditure.
Innovation in weapons technology is the lifeblood of the country’s military
establishment and has been responsible for ensuring that its armed forces can
prevail over any combination of numerically superior enemy states. It also is
the engine for the country’s high technology economy. Reducing
investment in new military technology leaves Israel vulnerable to its enemies
who are acquiring new and improved weapons systems at a prodigious rate.



Third,
with rare exception, Israel’s military leaders are being forced to cut back on
the acquisition of new, state-of-the-art war fighting platforms.


To be sure, Israel’s strategic future
will be substantially contingent upon the strength of its economy. It is also
clear that expending too high a percentage of GDP on defense would have a
debilitating effect on Israel’s overall economic health. Increasing the defense burden
above seven percent of the GDP could produce such an injurious effect.⁹
This means, we suggest, that (a) Israel’s defense burden not exceed this
particular threshold percentage of GDP and – assuming no significant increases
in support coming from the United States – that (b) Israel now strive in
organized fashion to raise its GDP and reach per capita levels commonly expressed in
parts of Western Europe.

Once undertaken and identified, Israel’s
suggested Paradigm Shift will itself impact the way other state and certain nonstate
actors behave in world politics. It is recommended, therefore, that Israel
continuously monitor the “validity” of its Paradigm Shift internationally.

Just as inter-Arab and inter-Islamic
conflict will do little to blunt overreaching Arab/Islamic war-preparations
against Israel, so too will American and/or Israeli destruction of particular
terrorist bases not necessarily eliminate the safe-havens provided by terrorist
patron states. We have already witnessed the apparent ability of
al-Qai`dah
to shift operations from one state to another, and it is altogether likely that
alternative patrons would be discovered readily and expeditiously by other
terror groups. We recommend, therefore,
not
that the War Against Terror in any way reduce its operations against known
terror bases, but rather that it also include in its primary tactical arsenal
some meaningful disincentives to all prospective terrorist patron states.

For the moment, Iraq has been eliminated
from Israel’s “strategic equation”. This means that Israel can allocate energies
and resources toward other sources of WMD
danger, although it is conceivable that Iraq may still remain a potential source
of anti-Israel terror. It is in Israel’s short and long-term
strategic interest to assure a complete American-led victory in post-Saddam
Iraq.

The ongoing war in Iraq has demonstrated
the evident weaknesses of national intelligence agencies in providing certain
critical warnings and in enhancing strategic stability throughout certain
regions. Israel, itself, is not without a history of serious intelligence
failure, and Israel’s strategic future will require,
inter alia,
an enhanced intelligence infrastructure and highly-refined “backup systems”.

We recognize that – for many different
reasons – Israel now faces increasing isolation in the world community. More
than ever before, Israel will need to fend for its own security, and to depend,
in the final analysis, upon its own skills and resources. As clear examples, the
ongoing expansion of the European Community (EU)
and NATO will provide various security guarantees to member states and will
leave Israel more and more alone. In the end, Israel’s strategic future will
depend upon plans and postures of its own making, and these plans and postures
will themselves require a more comprehensive and creative pattern of strategic
studies as a disciplined field of inquiry.¹⁰


Optimally, a steadily-improving field of
Israeli strategic studies will now construct a generalized body of advanced
theory from which particular policy prescriptions can be suitably extrapolated
and implemented. In building such important theory, it will be vital to consider
a number of issues that might not ordinarily seem to “fit” directly into our
present range of concern. For example, Israel’s strategic future will assuredly
be impacted by such diverse factors as (1) the growing anarchy in world affairs;
(2) the prospect of nuclear weapons use on the Korean Peninsula or in Southwest
Asia (India/Pakistan); (3) the ironically emerging prospect of the United States
ally as a simultaneous guarantor of basic security for “Palestine”; (4) the
probable incapacity of the United States to bring democracy to Iraq or to any
other Arab state in the Middle East; (5) the likely emergence of mega-terror in
different parts of the world, and its conceptual effects on the meaning of
“existential threat” for Israel; and (6) the palpable worldwide growth of
anti-Semitism and its still-unexamined influence on Israel’s capacity to
function diplomatically, economically and militarily.

Israel’s security
is fraught with risk and danger, and it is contingent upon a great many complex
variables, but it is also an arena of opportunity. Recognizing a
compelling obligation to tackle existential threats systematically,
comprehensively and coherently – not merely as ad hoc singular events or
concerns – Israel’s decision-makers should soon take certain additional informed
steps to enhance national survival. Taking nothing for granted, and drawing
fully upon Israel’s Strategic Future, these leaders could build firmly
upon the understanding that Israel’s most fundamental strategic asset is,
immutably, the intellectual power of reasoned analysis.


This can now
be best accomplished by taking certain concrete steps to implement the principal
and detailed
recommendations of

Israel’s Strategic Future
concerning deterrence, defense,
warfighting and
preemption options; by exploring precise ways for Israel to more
effectively finance substantially increased military
expenditures; and by examining new possibilities for US-Israel cooperation
in the face of mounting mega-threats to regional and
international peace.

---


Endnotes