By Henry Sokolski
As Washington grapples with declassifying what it knows about nuclear weapons that Russia may deploy in space, there is another significant nuclear deployment that the Executive refuses to discuss at all — Israel’s possession of nuclear weapons. Washington has sat on this “worst kept secret” now for nearly six decades using a classified regulation — “DOE Classification Bulletin WPN-136 on Foreign Nuclear Capabilities” — to keep U.S. employees from publicly talking about Israel’s nuclear weapons arsenal.
This makes no sense. As Richard Lawless, a former CIA operative and Pentagon deputy undersecretary of defense, William Burr of the National Security Archive, and I write in a recent Washington Post op-ed, “Why the U.S. should start telling the whole truth about Israeli nukes,” continuing this policy is increasingly harmful.
Most recently, two elected Israeli officials — a government minister and a member of parliament — not only publicly referenced Israel’s possession of nuclear weapons, but suggested that they be detonated over Gaza. American efforts to keep Israel’s nuclear weapons program secret originally reflected a desire to keep the Soviets from using revelations regarding Israel’s arsenal as a pretext to help Egypt or Syria get the bomb. That concern, however, has passed: The Soviet Union collapsed more than three decades ago and Israelis are now all too open about their nuclear secrets.
A growing and real concern today is that Iran might get the bomb (it’s now only weeks away). Its nuclear and missile facilities are also increasingly invulnerable to attack. If Israel was desperate and isolated, might it conclude it has no alternative but to use its nuclear arms to counter Iran? The short answer is we don’t know. There’s reason, however, to be concerned.
In December, NPEC ran a three-move nuclear war game (see “Gaming Israeli Nuclear Use: Pandora Unleashed”) in which Israel launched two nuclear strikes against Iranian nuclear and missile sites (with 51 nuclear weapons) and Iran responded with a nuclear of its own. These attacks killed an unspecified number of Israelis, Iranians, as well as Russian and American military personnel.
How successful were these strikes in destroying nuclear and air offensive forces? Would Israel or Iran feel compelled yet to conduct further military nuclear operations? Might Israel target Tehran or Iran Tel Aviv? Would Russia or the United States be drawn into the war? None of the game participants could answer these and many other questions.
This led to one of the war game’s key takeaways: The U.S. and Israeli security experts and officials would do well to jointly game the most likely nuclear scenarios. Unfortunately, the Executive Branch’s classification regulations regarding Israel’s nuclear program make this awkward at best.
As is explained in the Washington Post piece, Israeli officials effectively have ended their silence about their nuclear weapons. For this reason and many others, it’s time we did the same.
Henry Sokolski, executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, served as deputy for nonproliferation in the Defense Department and is the author of Underestimated: Our Not So Peaceful Nuclear Future.