U.S. Extended Deterrence to Israel

According to Fox News and Haaretz, the coming Barack Obama administration may offer Israel a nuclear guarantee vis-à-vis Iran. The proposal amounts to the offer of "extended deterrence" to Tel Aviv, and a key problem with such guarantees is the credibility of commitment: Would the U.S. go to war over an Iranian first-strike nuclear attack on Israel? If so, the outbreak of hostilities in a localized Middle East conflict would turn into a global one. Other nuclear powers, such as Russia and China, would move to full battle readiness, particularly Moscow which may see its vital national interests threatened by the real-time extension of U.S. strategic power in his geopolitical backyard.

Richard Fernandez offers an interesting analysis as to rational motivations behind a potential U.S.-Israel nuclear allliance:

From a certain point of view the only thing worse than an Iran with nuclear weapons is the prospect of an Israeli retaliation to an attack, which however justified, could only create eternal enmity with its neighbors. But if the retaliation could be left to America, that might have the virtue of preventing Israel from retaliating, thereby preventing other regional nuclear powers (who presumably emerge in response to a nuclear Iran) from explaining to their outraged populations why they ought not punish the Jews for using atomic bombs. Maybe there is the belief that an American retaliation to an Iranian strike would be more politically acceptable than an Israeli one. With an American deterrent in play Israel could be cut out of the deterrent process — and this would be desirable from a political point of view.

But does it make strategic sense? The downside to this reported proposal is that America undertakes to automatically involve itself in a regional nuclear exchange between atomic powers; thereby creating the risk of going straight from a regional nuclear war to a global one. If an attack on Israel is automatically followed by retaliation from America, what role do Israeli nukes play? From a certain point of view the proposal may actually increase the risk of nuclear war in the Middle East. A combination of tacitly accepting an nuclear-armed Iran and reposing deterrence in Washington could make the Ayatollahs more willing to run the risk. What are the odds that the West can bring itself to enter into a nuclear exchange with Iran if it could not muster the will to prevent Teheran’s acquisition of those weapons in the first place? The Ayatollahs may interpret this proposal as meaning that the West will be a party to any Israeli decision to retaliate for an nuclear attack on its soil, undertaking to attack in lieu or veto the retaliation. It adds one more step in the process of pulling the retaliatory trigger. That can only reduce the certainty of retribution in Teheran’s eyes.

It is far from clear that this proposed policy — acquiescing to a nuclear Iran while reducing the certainty of retaliation — helps anybody. It may hurt everybody.

That's a fascinating discussion.

To some extent, the issue seems kind of moot. At the height of the Yom Kippur war in 1973, the U.S. moved to DEFCON 3 (near-crisis stage of military-strategic readiness) in anticipation of a possible Soviet deployment of troops to Egypt to assist Cairo. I doubt the U.S. government, with a presidential administration of either party, would refuse to come to Israel's assistance in the event of an impending or actual nuclear exchange. For the Obama administration, perhaps this all about clarifying the new administration's credibility of commitment, as well as establishing a reputation for firmness in the face of Tehran's international revisionism.

In any case, while we're on the topic, the Wikipedia page for ICBM's has some interesting related information, for example:

To comply with the START II most U.S. multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles, or MIRVs, have been eliminated and replaced with single warhead missiles. However, since the abandonment of the START II treaty, the U.S. is said to be considering retaining 800 warheads on 450 missiles.

MIRVed land-based ICBMs are considered destabilizing because they tend to put a premium on striking first. If we assume that each side has 100 missiles, with 5 warheads each, and further that each side has a 95 percent chance of neutralizing the opponent's missiles in their silos by firing 2 warheads at each silo, then the side that strikes first can reduce the enemy ICBM force from 100 missiles to about 5 by firing 40 missiles at the enemy silos and using the remaining 60 for other targets. This first-strike strategy increases the chance of a nuclear war, so the MIRV weapon system was banned under the START II agreement.

See also, Abe Greenwald's discussion, "Obama’s Nuclear Pledge to Israel."