Israel’s nuclear capability is tentative in a sense. The problem is not only just the Jewish cowardice which precludes the government from using effective weapons. The problem is, we do not know if the weapons are effective. No fewer than five to six tests are required to perfect a bomb’s design, but Israel conducted a single test only, decades ago. All the newer designs are completely untested and might produce a negligible explosion only. Israel does not want to risk her deterrence by revealing a faulty design. The claims of an unnecessarily large number of nuclear weapons (around 200) suggest doubts about their operational capacity.
Compared to Israel, other nations are highly successful. Encouraged by Pakistani nuclear proliferation, scores of countries are racing toward the bomb. Nuclear proliferation is unstoppable because the sixty-year-old technology is simple. Two hundred years ago, no one could have imagined terrorists owning Stinger missiles. Decades from now, no one will be able to imagine terrorists without nuclear bombs.
The price tag for nuclear weapons is within the reach of terrorists and poor states. With Pakistan’s still-growing arsenal of fifty nuclear weapons, someone like A.Q. Khan wouldn’t charge more than $50 million for a weapon. Khan got paid even less for transferring major nuclear know-how to Libya, knowledge which would cost it billions of dollars to develop in-house.
Deterrence can only work on the basis of numbers: a country with 200 bombs deters a country with five weapons. Deterrence only works if practiced consistently: nuclear attacks on the enemies’ nuclear sites are a must, and they must be a routine event rather than a mind-boggling exception.
The difference between terrorists and large rogue states in terms of deterrence is insignificant: just like terrorists, North Korea—and to a large degree, Iran—don’t fear nuclear retaliation. They lost millions of people in previous wars and wouldn’t lose larger number in a nuclear strike.
Nuclear damage is not apocalyptic. The weapon cannot be carried into Israel by a missile: even if Iran improves its ballistic missiles, risking a precious weapon to Israeli air defenses would be reckless. Besides, a ballistic missile attack would reveal the aggressor and subject it to considerable retaliation. Instead, nuclear weapons will be delivered into Israel on board a commercial aircraft or in a sea container. The suicide bomber aircraft, probably a private jet, would detonate shortly before landing in an Israeli airport. A sea container can be detonated at the port before inspection. Especially in the later case of a ground-level explosion, the damage wouldn’t be great; it would be less than Israel’s losses in the Yom Kippur War.
Nuclear proliferation makes annexing Judea and Samaria feasible. Significant numbers of Arabs in Israeli towns might discourage terrorists from nuclear attacks. True, Arabs are a nuisance just marginally more tolerable than a nuclear explosion, but they can be molded into acceptable citizens by a heavily nationalist French-type policy: Arabs who served in the IDF, are banned from commemorating Nakba, are denied contacts with the enemy states, and other things ina similar vein would make acceptable neighbors. The annexation would also allow dispersal of the Jewish population from large cities to make nuclear attacks unfeasible—at least as long as the terrorists have more tempting targets in the United States, whose porous border allows for much simpler logistics than Israel’s.
In several months of his unfortunate presidency, Obama has managed to destroy the fragile understanding the Bush administration reached with North Korea over the years. With senseless rhetoric against North Korea’s missile test, Obama gave the communists the sought-after pretext for a nuclear test. By failing to aid them according to the agreement, Obama made nuclearization a no-lose gamble for the communists: their situation vis-à-vis America could not become any worse.
In the short term, Obama’s failure to deal with North Korea increases the regional allies’ reliance on America for protection. In the long term, they will develop their own nuclear shields and start ignoring America.