In 1965, Manhattan Project physicist Leo Szilard offered a clarifying term on nuclear military power. In some circumstances, he explained, belligerent use of nuclear weapons could become self-annihilating. Because a type of honey bee dies after it has stung, he described certain “weaker” nuclear states as ones with “sting of the bee” survival limitations.
This imaginative comparison remains relevant to Israeli security matters. Were he writing today about potential Russian, North Korean or Pakistani interventions on behalf of a still non-nuclear Iran, Szilard would likely caution Israel that its nuclear ordnance could at some point be immobilized by enemy proxies. In essence, he would be warning Israel against any reduction to “bee sting” nuclear status.
Even while Israel remains the only regional nuclear power, an “asymmetrical nuclear war” with a non-nuclear enemy remains worrisome. Even a not-yet-nuclear Iran could bring Israel to a point where Jerusalem’s only strategic options would be qualified capitulation or relentless escalation. Already, the Islamic Republic is rebuilding and enlarging its ballistic missile (delivery vehicle) capabilities.
One meaningful nuclear war scenario describes an Iranian non-nuclear attack on the Jewish state’s Dimona nuclear reactor. Another considers enemy launches of radiation dispersal weapons (i.e., “dirty bombs”). Significantly, such low-tech nuclear attacks could be accomplished by state or sub-state (terrorist) foes.
Unique escalations could follow in the wake of the enemy resorting to biological or electromagnetic pulse (EMP) ordnance against Israel. In a next-to-worst-case scenario, Israel would be prevented from striking preemptively against vital enemy targets by Russian, North Korean, Pakistani or Chinese nuclear threats. A plainly worst-case scenario would involve a “bolt-from-the-blue nuclear attack launched by Russia, North Korea or Pakistan.
What are the odds? Nothing genuinely scientific could be predicted about such scenarios. This is because logic-based probabilities must always be based on the determinable frequency of relevant past events.
During war against any aspiring nuclear adversary, Israel could calculate that it had no choice but to launch multiple and mutually reinforcing preemptive strikes. At the same time, Russian, North Korean or Pakistani threats of support for Jerusalem’s enemy could lay the groundwork for a multi-state nuclear war. Such a war could eventually involve the United States and/or China.
There would be important, qualified assessments. To the extent that they could still be estimated, the risks of an Israel-involved nuclear war would depend on whether the anticipated conflict would be intentional, unintentional or accidental. Apart from applying this three-part taxonomy, there would be no reason to expect any gainful strategic projections.
Jerusalem should bear in mind that even the Jewish state’s physical survival could never be guaranteed. At some point, ipso facto, even a conspicuously powerful Israel could be left with “sting of the bee” nuclear capability.
There will be further clarifications and nuances. An unintentional or inadvertent nuclear war between Israel and an enemy state or enemy surrogate state could take place not only as the result of miscalculations or misunderstandings between rational leaders, but as the unintended consequence of mechanical, electrical or computer malfunctions. This signals an additional distinction between an unintentional/inadvertent nuclear war and an accidental nuclear war.
Though all accidental nuclear wars would be unintentional, not every unintentional nuclear war would be accidental. On one occasion or another, an unintentional or inadvertent nuclear war could represent the outcome of human misjudgments on enemy intentions. Any such catastrophic outcome could be irremediable and irreversible.
Among other things, Jerusalem ought always to disavow strategic counsel drawn from “common sense.” As evidenced by U.S. President Donald Trump’s “peace” for Israel, complicated strategic problems can never be solved by “seat-of-the-pants” political judgments. For Israel, nothing could prove more important than to reject common-sense understandings and delegate complex nuclear calculations to intentionally small cadres of “high thinkers.” On its face, this intellectual task is not suitable for politicians or pundits of any ideological stripe.
To progress, Israel’s strategic planning should emphasize a prompt policy shift from “deliberate nuclear ambiguity” to “selective nuclear disclosure.” The core rationale of this necessary shift would not be to re-state the obvious (i.e., that Israel is already a nuclear power), but to remind all would-be aggressors that Jerusalem’s nuclear weapons are operationally usable at every imaginable level of warfare.
Reduced to its essentials, a worst case scenario for Israel would commence with variously explicit threats from Moscow. Israel, aware that it could not reasonably expect to coexist indefinitely with a nuclear adversary backed by Russia, would proceed with a new cycle of preemptions in spite of Russian warnings. In a subsequent response, Russian military forces could act directly against the Jewish state, seeking to persuade Jerusalem (not a foreseeably difficult task) that Moscow is in a superior position to dominate absolutely all escalations. Alternatively, Putin could delegate such military nuclear responsibilities to North Korea, an Iranian ally that has already been augmenting Russian military forces against Ukraine.
What about Trump’s declared peace for Israel? Unless the United States were willing to enter an already-chaotic situation with credible support for Israel, Moscow would have no difficulties in establishing “escalation dominance.” In this connection, Israel’s supporters could overestimate the Jewish state’s relative nuclear capabilities and options. There is simply no way in which the capabilities and options of a state smaller than America’s Lake Michigan could “win” at competitive risk-taking vis-à-vis Russia or North Korea.
For Israel, in such matters, self-effacing candor would be much safer than self-deluding bravado. As a strategic objective, Jerusalem’s avoidance of “bee sting” nuclear capacity must always be overriding.
In his continuing war of aggression and genocide against Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin has been recycling provocative elements of Soviet-era strategic thinking. One critical element concerns the absence of any apparent “firebreak” between conventional and tactical nuclear force engagements. Now, much as it was during the Cold War, Moscow identifies the determinative escalatory threshold with a first-use of high-yield, long-range strategic nuclear weapons, not tactical or theater nuclear weapons.
This perilous nuclear escalation doctrine is not shared by the United States and could at some point erode any once-stabilizing barriers of intra-war deterrence between the original superpowers. Whether sudden or incremental, such erosion could impact the plausibility of both a deliberate and inadvertent nuclear war. As Israel could need firm U.S. support in countering Russian nuclear threats, Putin should be granted a prominent place in Israel’s “high thinking” threat assessments of Iranian nuclear progress.
For Israel, the bottom line of all nuclear-warfare analysis is an obligation to analyze preemption options as intellectual problems. Reaching rational judgments on defensive first strikes against a still pre-nuclear state enemy will require fact-based anticipations of (1) Russian, North Korean and/or Pakistani intentions; and (2) U.S. willingness to stand by Israel in extremis.
Israel’s growing nuclear war hazards are varied and without precedent. Remembering physicist Leo Szilard’s illuminating metaphor, Jerusalem should remain aware that even with visibly refined nuclear weapons and nuclear doctrine, Israel could sometimes be left with a starkly inadequate “sting of a bee.” Significantly, in Jewish historical terms, that fate could signify “End of the Third Temple Commonwealth” harms.
