Nuclear strategy and the modern Middle East.

Russell, James A.

While the press and pundits greeted the release of the Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) in January 2002 with a flurry of commentaries and outcries, there has been little analytical follow-up from the academic and think-tank communities on the far-reaching implications of this document for specific regional geopolitical environments such as the Persian Gulf or the wider Middle East.

This is surprising, since implementation of the NPR over the next decade promises to affect profoundly the shape and content of the nation's national security strategy writ large and, in turn, security strategies developed to pursue regional objectives in each of the geographic theaters around the world. Nowhere is this more the case than in the Middle East and the Persian Gulf. The NPR indicates that the United States is making the region a central focus of the redesigned strategic deterrent, now comprising nuclear and conventional components, with conventional long-range precision-strike weapons functioning in a "strategic" context. While it might be too dramatic to suggest that the Middle East effectively replaces the Soviet Union as the central targeting requirement for sizing and configuring the U.S. strategic deterrent, it seems clear that regional contingencies will assume a more prominent role in the nation's nuclear strategy. (1)

This paper will examine the implications of the NPR for U.S. security strategy in the Middle East, framing NPR implementation in the context of theoretical literature surrounding the role of nuclear weapons in deterrent and coercive political strategies. The paper will also highlight policy challenges facing the United States as it seeks to use the reconfigured strategic deterrent as a means to promote its interests and achieve its objectives in this volatile region.

To illustrate the difficulties of applying the strategic deterrent as a tool for regional security, the paper will apply the theoretical framework to an examination of the coercive/compellant framework with Iraq from 1991-2003. The study will conclude with an assessment of the contributions, positive or negative, that the redesigned strategic deterrent could make toward the building of a qualitatively new regional security order in the post-Saddam Middle East.

THE HISTORICAL FRAMEWORK

The NPR represents strands of continuity and change when viewed in the context of the historical role that nuclear weapons traditionally have played in U.S. security strategy in the Middle East. Throughout most of the Cold War, nuclear weapons were seen as the ultimate guarantor of the broader military mission to "defend the region" against encroachment from outside powers like the Soviet Union. Planning for the use of nuclear weapons in the Middle East began in earnest in the early 1950s as military planners looked for ways to redress Soviet conventional military superiority around the world. In June 1950, the National Security Council issued a report (NSC 26/3) titled Demolition and Abandonment of Oil Facilities and Fields in the Middle East. The report addressed the possibility of plugging Saudi oil wells "... as a means of conservation and denial during enemy occupation." Nuclear weapons were looked at as a possible tool to deny the Soviets access to the oil fields. The report found, "Denial of wells by radiological means can be accomplished to prevent an enemy from utilizing the oil, but it could not prevent him from forcing 'expendable' Arabs to enter the contaminated areas to open well heads and deplete the reservoirs. Therefore, aside from other ill effects on the Arab population, it is not considered that radiological means are practicable as a conservation measure." (2)

Such was the initial (and unsuccessful) attempt to find a useful role for nuclear weapons in regional strategy. But nuclear weapons eventually came to be seen as one tool available to the United States as it sought to protect its interests in the Middle East and counter the Soviet Union's conventional military superiority along the Turkish and Iranian borders.

Applying the strategic deterrent in other regional scenarios periodically surfaced during the Cold War as a way to deter Soviet involvement in regional affairs. In October 1973, U.S. forces--including the Strategic Air Command--were placed on heightened alert in response to possible Soviet military intervention to keep the Israelis from destroying the surrounded Egyptian Third Army. During the crisis, Henry Kissinger sent Soviet leader Brezhnev a message stating that the introduction of Soviet troops into the region would represent a violation of the recently signed Agreement Between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on the Prevention of Nuclear War. (3) The implication of Kissinger's message was obvious: introduction of Soviet troops could have led to a nuclear face-off between the Cold War antagonists.

In January 1980, following the takeover of the American embassy in Iran and in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, President Carter stated, "An attempt by an outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force." (4) At the time, Carter's statement was widely considered to encompass the use of nuclear weapons in response to a Soviet advance into Iran. In February 1980, details of a Pentagon report emerged indicating that the United States might have to use tactical nuclear weapons in response to any Soviet military advance toward the Gulf. (5) The Pentagon study, Capabilities in the Persian Gulf, helped form the basis for recommendations to create the Rapid Joint Deployment Task Force, which later became the U.S. Central Command.

In the spring of 1996, the application of the strategic deterrent in the region occurred in the context of counter-proliferation policy. The United States detected construction of an underground site at Tarhuna in Libya that was widely believed to be related to Libya's production of chemical-warfare agents. Secretary of Defense William Perry stated that the United States would consider a wide range of options to ensure that Tarhuna did not become operational. In discussing the Libyan site, Perry stated that any country attacking the United States with chemical weapons would "... have to fear the consequences of a response from any weapon in our inventory." He further elaborated that "we could make a devastating response without the use of nuclear weapons, but we would not forswear that possibility." (6)

Potential use of nuclear weapons emerged in wars with Iraq in 1991 and again in 2003. Statements made by a variety of senior government officials in both crises reflected a belief by decision makers that the nuclear arsenal had a role to play in deterring Saddam from using his chemical and biological weapons against coalition forces. Specific warnings were made by senior U.S. officials to Saddam in both cases. Secretary of State James Baker passed a message to Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz in January 1991 stating that any Iraqi use of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) would be met with overwhelming force. Similar public references were made by a variety of U.S. officials before Operation Iraqi Freedom.

NPR AND THE MIDDLE EAST

A review of the historical framework reveals the episodic appearance of the region in U.S. nuclear strategy. During times of crisis, decision makers drew upon the strategic deterrent; and with the subsiding of each crisis references to nuclear weapons subsided. The focus of the strategic deterrent during the Cold War was on the Soviet Union and the various geographic theaters of conflict during the period.

But with the passing of the Soviet threat and the emergence of a new security environment defined by rogue states, transnational terrorist organizations and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the strategic deterrent has found a new series of missions that seem particularly prominent in the Middle East and Persian Gulf. A reading of the NPR suggests that the strategic deterrent will be applied on a more or less ongoing basis in the region as a means to achieve a number of short- and longer-term strategic and policy objectives.

The NPR implies that the defense of Israel represents a core mission for the strategic deterrent by identifying several near-term contingencies involving an attack on Israel that could lead to the use of nuclear weapons by the United States. (7) Moreover, with (as of this writing) two countries in the region (Syria and Iran) still supporting terrorism and possessing programs to develop WMD, the strategic force has two other potential targets. And, last but not least, the region seems implicitly highlighted by the NPR's treatment of the targeting problem posed by hardened and deeply buried targets that cannot be threatened by conventional weapons. (8) As noted in the NPR, these targets necessitate a new family of munitions including low-yield nuclear weapons that may have to be fielded over the next decade. These munitions must be developed in part because of the characteristics of the strategic targeting problem in countries such as Iran and Syria. (9)

The NPR identifies Iraq, Iran, Syria and Libya (in addition to North Korea) as countries that "... could be involved in immediate, potential or unexpected [nuclear] contingencies. All have longstanding hostility towards the United States and its security partners.... All sponsor or harbor terrorists, and all have active WMD and missile programs." (10) Saddam's forcible removal and Libya's apparent abandonment of its WMD programs presumably delete these countries from the potential list of contingencies, still leaving Iran and Syria as countries in the region that might be involved in situations requiring the use of nuclear weapons.

The NPR strongly implies a U.S. commitment to use nuclear weapons in the defense of Israel, stating that an "immediate contingency" that might lead to the use of nuclear weapons includes "... an Iraqi attack on Israel...." While such an attack clearly has been obviated with Saddam's removal, it stands to reason that the same logic would apply to a Syrian or Iranian attack on Israel. Both Syria and Iran maintain well-established WMD capabilities, and both maintain longstanding and overt hostility towards Israel. This chain of logic suggests that defending Israel from an attack by Syria or Iran is a core mission for the strategic deterrent.

While the NPR specifically refers to several regions, the strategic deterrent is assigned a broad array of functions that are particularly salient within the Middle East regional context:

* Assurance: "U.S. nuclear forces will continue to provide assurance to security partners in the presence of known or suspected threats of nuclear, biological or chemical attacks or in the event of surprising military developments. This assurance can serve to reduce the incentives for friendly countries to acquire nuclear weapons of their own to deter such threats and circumstances." (11)

* Dissuasion: The wide array of conventional and nuclear capabilities in the strategic deterrent "... may dissuade a potential adversary from pursuing threatening capabilities." (12)

* Deterrence: "[Missile] [D]efense of U.S. territory and power-projection forces, including U.S. forces abroad, combined with the certainty of U.S. ability to strike in response, can bring into better balance U.S. stakes and risks in a regional confrontation and thus reinforce the credibility of U.S. guarantees designed to deter attacks on allies and friends." (13)

* Defeat: "Composed of both nuclear and non-nuclear weapons, the strike element of the New Triad can provide flexibility in the design and conduct of military campaigns to defeat opponents decisively. Non-nuclear strike capabilities may be particularly useful to limit collateral damage and conflict escalation. Nuclear weapons could be employed against targets able to withstand non-nuclear attack (for example, deep underground bunkers or bio-weapon facilities.)" (14)

The NPR identifies the strategic deterrent and its nuclear component as a tool that can help support a broad array of policy objectives. The NPR's broadly defined strategic objectives of assure, deter, dissuade and defeat mirror the verbiage in the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR). (15) According to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, these concepts represent "... key goals that will guide the development of U.S. forces and capabilities, their deployment and use...." (16) The same formulations appear in the Bush administration's National Security Strategy report. (17)

The reason to belabor what might seem an obvious point is simple: the strategic deterrent performs an integral (even a core) function in the diverse array of capabilities available to the National Command Authority. The strategic nuclear force is seen as a tool to address a wide variety of different threats in different mission scenarios requiring the threat and actual use of force. As described in the NPR and other strategy documents, it seems clear that nuclear weapons and the strategic deterrent will be applied in many peacetime and wartime scenarios short of massive retaliation and all-out war. That is, the NPR assigns nuclear weapons many roles beyond simple retaliation for a WMD attack on the United States or its allies. As such, it extends the function of nuclear weapons beyond simple deterrence of enemy behavior.

The NPR does state that the strategic nuclear force can serve as a powerful deterrent to preserve the status quo and prevent the outbreak of interstate conflict. However, Bush administration strategy documents further assert that the U.S. nuclear arsenal can help change the behavior of states through dissuasion, which seeks to convince states of the futility of entering into a direct competition with the United States.

The documents also highlight the salience of threats coming from the spread of WMD together with terrorism. The strategic deterrent is presented as a tool to deter states from providing WMD to terrorist clients and from attacking the United States and its friends and allies. While many of the Bush administration's strategy documents show a lack of confidence in applying deterrence to non-state actors, the documents expand the role of deterrence to provision of WMD to terrorists by so-called "rogue states." (18) Hence, not only is a state such as Iran deterred from undertaking offensive operations against its neighbors, but it is presumably deterred from providing certain mass-effect technologies, materials and weapons to non-state actors.

In addition to these aforementioned broadly defined deterrent objectives, the strategic deterrent's family of precision conventional and nuclear-strike munitions is also presented as a powerful tool of counterproliferation policy. The nuclear and conventional components together are presented as tools both to deter the spread of WMD to non-state actors and also to deny those states with WMD the advantages that these capabilities might present in an actual conflict. Should WMD be used against the United States or its regional partners, the strategic arsenal is meant to decisively defeat an adversary through the combined capabilities of the nuclear and conventional strike components of the strategic deterrent. The strategic arsenal's counterproliferation mission also seems particularly highlighted by the NPR's treatment of the strategic targeting problem posed by hardened underground targets that cannot be held at risk by conventional munitions.

The prospect of using the deterrent in short-notice operations also is strongly implied by the NPR's call to replace the cumbersome Single Integrated Operational Plan with something called "adaptive planning," in which components of the strategic nuclear forces can be integrated into responses to ongoing contingencies on reasonably short notice. Making the strategic arsenal more responsive in short-notice contingencies seems particularly applicable to potential counterforce strikes against WMD and leadership targets.

In applying the strategic arsenal to actual wartime use, the Bush administration repeats formulations from previous administrations reserving the right to use nuclear weapons in certain contingencies. As stated in the National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction: "The United States will continue to make clear it reserves the right to respond with overwhelming force--including through resort to all our options--to the use of WMD against our forces abroad and friends and allies." (19)

These broadly defined political and military objectives suggest certain identifiable formulations about the role the strategic deterrent will play in regional security strategy:

* Deter and defend attacks against forward-deployed forces;

* Deter and defend Israel from attack by adversaries using conventional or non-conventional means, i.e., WMD;

* Convince states with WMD or those contemplating the pursuit of WMD to abandon those programs, i.e., "dissuasion" of competitive behavior by opponents at the strategic level;

* Convince states either engaged in or supporting terrorism to cease these activities (known in the broader security literature as "compellance," in which an adversary is convinced to stop doing activities it has already started, and possibly to reverse any gains made);

* Deter states that possess WMD from passing these weapons to terrorist organizations targeting either the United States or Israel;

* Present the NCA with a flexible and diverse array of attack options (both conventional and nuclear) to defeat adversaries in regional contingencies, such as:

--Counterforce operations against WMD and regime targets;

--Tactical support to theater commanders;

--Strategic use in situations requiring massive retaliation;

* Assure Israel of the U.S. defense commitment, which, in turn, can act as a deterrent to aggressive Israeli actions against its neighbors;

* Assure coalition partners throughout the region that the United States can and will use force to deter attacks on these partners and, by extension, defend them using the strategic deterrent if necessary.

The above functions are not specifically articulated in any strategy document but represent my judgments on how the QDR/NPR requirements match up against U.S. national-security objectives in the Middle East. Assuming that these objectives represent reasonable statements about the role of the strategic U.S. nuclear arsenal in the region, it is fair to state that the NPR associates nuclear weapons with a variety of military and political objectives in the region.

NPR, THEORY AND PRACTICE

Widening the potential political and military applications of the strategic nuclear force is of particular significance in the context of the regional environment. The region boasts not only all the salient threatening features of the international environment (terrorism, WMD and instability), but it is also a region where systemic interstate communication problems impose enormous obstacles for the United States in operationalizing complicated political and military strategies. These communications issues, which will be highlighted below, represent a critical issue for analysis by policy makers as they determine the role for the strategic nuclear force in regional security strategy.

Implementing the NPR in the region suggests an interesting confluence of theoretical approaches on the role of nuclear weapons in strategy and the role that perceptions, signals and communications play in interstate relations. The NPR implies that the strategic deterrent and, by extension, nuclear weapons, have a prominent role to play in a family of coercive political and military strategies--in which states either threaten, or in some cases actually use, force to achieve political objectives. Associating the strategic nuclear force with coercive and deterrent strategies suggests the applicability of a theoretical framework articulated during the late 1950s and early 1960s by Thomas Schelling in his works The Strategy of Conflict and Arms and Influence. (20) Schelling argued that nuclear weapons could serve as a useful tool to policy makers engaged in what he called the "diplomacy of violence." (21) Schelling believed that nuclear weapons represented a tool for policy makers that could be wielded through strategies of deterrence, compellance and coercion. The NPR's broadly defined missions for the strategic deterrent suggest that the Bush administration also believes this to be the case.

Schelling believed that nuclear weapons could play a role in the interstate bargaining process by discouraging an adversary from taking actions, forcing an adversary to change behavior and, if necessary, serve as tools to achieve tactical and strategic objectives once hostilities had been initiated. In his view, nuclear weapons could play a role in limiting the scope of armed conflict once begun, since the "escalation dominance" it afforded could convince an adversary of the futility of continuing the conflict, and hence bring the action to a close on favorable terms.

Schelling developed a model to analyze interstate conflict in his work The Strategy of Conflict. Strategies of deterrence, compellance and coercion, Schelling argued, could be placed into a framework of game theory called "a theory of interdependent decision." His theory posited that deterrence, compellance and coercion could be applied to achieve objectives as part of the interstate bargaining process. (22) His bargaining process needed a number of critical elements: (1) Actors in the system had to act rationally "... motivated by a conscious calculation of advantages, a calculation that in turn is based on an explicit and internally consistent value system." (23) (2) Actors had to have certain common interests and mutual dependence even if they simultaneously had other conflicting interests (actors with totally opposed interests would lead to wars of extermination a rarity in the international system). (24) (3) There must be a peacetime and wartime communications system for actors to convey intentions as an enabler for bargaining. (25) Under Schelling's theory, operationalizing the concepts of deterrence and compellance in the bargaining process occurred when states threatened the use of force and, if warranted, used force to inflict successive levels of pain on an adversary to achieve a successful outcome. (26) Schelling acknowledged that the bargaining process had one important limitation- when asymmetries in communications prevented actors from receiving signals of intent. (27)

The issues of actor rationality and the function of interstate communications have always troubled analysts in thinking through the implications of assigning roles to nuclear weapons in deterrent and coercive strategies. Former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara cogently expressed these doubts during his University of Michigan commencement address in June 1962, when he stated:

 The mere fact that no nation could
 rationally take steps leading to a
 nuclear war does not guarantee that a
 nuclear war cannot take place. Not
 only do nations sometimes act in ways
 that are hard to explain on a rational
 basis, but even when acting in a
 'rational' way they sometimes, indeed
 disturbingly often, will act on the
 basis of misunderstandings of the true
 facts of a situation. They misjudge the
 way others will react, and the way
 others will interpret what they are
 doing. (28)

McNamara's misgivings about the supposed rationality of actors involved in deterrent relationships are reflected in much of the literature on deterrence theory. (29)

The problem of interstate communications--central to the application of Schelling's coercive-bargaining framework is systematically addressed by Robert Jervis in his seminal work The Logic of Images. (30) Jervis analyzed the process through which states drew inferences from the actions of other states and, in addition, how states could influence the inferences being drawn by the desired actors. (31) Jervis suggested that states communicate with one another through a series of images: an internal image developed for internal audiences and an external image presented to the world at large. A central feature of the system as described by Jervis is that images constructed by states constitute a powerful tool for deception--they can be used to confuse actors. One of the main points in The Logic of Images is the central role that conscious deception plays in international relations. (32)

Jervis's theoretical frameworks on perception and signaling suggest that effective interstate communications are at best problematic and, at worst, haphazard. Sources of misperception, combined with the complicated system of communicating intent and developing indices, produce what can only be described as a process prone to uncertainty and unpredictability. As noted by Jervis, these difficulties can be exacerbated in cross-cultural communications but can also occur even between states with well-developed political and cultural relationships. For example, in his book Report to JFK: The Skybolt Crisis in Perspective, Richard Neustadt provides a fascinating account of the inability of two close allies--the United States and the UK--to communicate effectively on an issue of mutual interest and concern. (33)

Accepting that, as described in the NPR, the U.S. strategic nuclear force is intended to function on variety of different levels within a framework of coercive strategies, one might suggest that the theories of Schelling and Jervis need to be re-examined by those seeking to apply nuclear weapons as a policy tool in the Middle East. The confluence of the Schelling-Jervis theoretical approaches suggests a number of intertwined hypotheses that should be reviewed during NPR implementation:

(1) To function effectively, coercive strategies depend on common assumptions, mutual dependence, rational actors and effective communications.

(2) Successful coercive strategies depend on a communications system that allows actors to accurately convey and receive intent.

(3) Inherent and systemic difficulties in interstate communications can complicate the interstate bargaining process.

(4) Absent a communication system that accurately conveys and receives intent within a coercive framework, actors may not function predictably in accordance with bargaining and game-theory assumptions.

(5) Implementing coercive strategies in situations with acute communications issues or illogical images could result in unpredictable behavior and (at worst) strategic instability due to actions by the involved actors.

IMPLICATIONS IN THE MIDDLE EAST

During the Cold War, arms control played an important role in establishing a relatively structured communications system between the United States and the Soviet Union. The talks themselves and the accompanying informal interactions on the margins of these meetings helped establish a communications framework that enabled the deterrent relationship at the strategic level. The arms-control process came to be an important tool to maintain strategic stability by, among other things, helping both actors sort through the complicated process of drawing inferences from signals and indices. It also allowed the actors to take unambiguous concrete actions (limiting Strategic Nuclear Delivery Vehicles, for example), pursuant to an agreed-upon framework that sought to introduce predictability to the actors' force structures.

Consistent with Schelling's formulations, this meant that the actors in the bargaining process shared a basic set of assumptions and could agree to pursue compromise in certain aspects of their relationships, while at the same time allowing and even encouraging conflict to continue in other areas. And, consistent with Jervis's ideas, the actors had a structured forum to convey intention and develop indices to gauge the impact that their signals were having.

In the Middle East, however, there exists no institutionalized process for adversaries to ensure structured communications on a routine basis outside of formal political channels--and even these do not exist in the cases of Iran and the United States and Iran and Israel. Interstate communications tend to occur through other means: the media and more traditional forms of political or diplomatic communications. These forms of communication leave a lot to be desired. The language of diplomacy, Jervis notes, effectively constitutes its own "code" with ambiguous and open-ended meanings. (34) He neatly summarized the characteristics of diplomatic language:

 The complex signaling system is not
 noiseless and unambiguous, and thus
 signals are often intentionally unclear
 even at the first, or semantic, level.
 This allows actors to issue signals
 they can disown and gives them more
 flexibility to explore possible politics
 without changing others' images of
 themselves to their detriment. (35)

Communication through the media, particularly in the Middle East, is even more problematic. Government-controlled media throughout much of the Arab world routinely push pronounced anti-American and anti-Israeli messages, which make it a poor channel through which to communicate signals.

Perhaps most important, further cloaking the interstate communications process are differences flowing from history, religion, ethnicity and particularly distinct "national" identities as well as the personalities of the leaders themselves. Defining these differences between the United States and the countries in the region as "cultural" seems somehow inadequate; a more complicated term is really required. However, the interaction of these variables provides an important founding basis for the images suggested by Jervis that are integral parts of the interstate communications system. If these images are opaque, obscured or just plain misperceived by the United States, it is difficult to accurately convey intent through the signaling process. If the signaling process does not work properly, then the communications system cannot accurately convey signals.

At the macro level, a classic example of this phenomenon is the seemingly unending efforts by the last two American administrations to improve the "image" of the United States throughout the Arab world. One commentator in the Middle East eloquently described the systemic problems facing the United States as follows:

The basic problem is that the American
penchant for clarity and a neat,
explicit, black-and-white classification
of people's identities and intentions
clashes badly with the Middle East's
traditions of multiple identities,
sometimes hidden intentions, and
frequent imprecision in one's stated
intentions.... Arabs and Americans are
like ships passing in the night,
sounding their horns, firing their guns,
making known their views, but having
no impact on the other. (36)

Such basic communications difficulties form an important and arguably vital backdrop as policy makers start to think through the implications of applying the strategic deterrent within the region as suggested by the NPR. These communications difficulties imply that Schelling's bargaining process cannot work with any degree of predictability--and may in fact work illogically--due to the incongruence of the respective images of the parties. This incongruence, in turn, undermines the ability of the strategic deterrent to function predictably as an element in coercive and deterrent strategies.

POLICY ISSUES

Defense of Israel

Establishing the defense of Israel as a core mission for the strategic deterrent in some ways simply represents an acknowledgement of what has been apparent for the last quarter century: that policy makers of both main political parties in the United States regard the defense of Israel as a "strategic" interest for the United States. While it is difficult to see that Israel's defense constitutes a classic "realist" strategic interest for the United States, the political relationship between the two countries has made it so. An analytical issue for policy makers is to examine whether the U.S. "extended" deterrent for Israel should be treated in the same context as the extended deterrent on behalf of Europe during the Cold War. In Cold War Europe, the United States stationed nuclear weapons on European soil, developed a publicly stated doctrine governing the use of nuclear weapons in a so-called "escalation ladder," and stated as a matter of policy that the U.S. strategic nuclear arsenal represented a part of the continuum of capabilities that would be brought into play if the situation warranted it.

The situation in Israel today is obviously very different. Israel maintains a public position of strategic ambiguity, though there is little doubt that Israel is a nuclear power with 100-400 weapons. (37) Recent reports suggest that Israel has even deployed nuclear weapons in submarines. (38) While the stationing of U.S. nuclear weapons on Israeli soil might be difficult politically for both countries, parceling out other parts of the strategic deterrent to Israel seems reasonable, as was the case in Europe during the Cold War. One of the strategic deterrent's new components is strategic missile defense--a capability that the Israelis might welcome as an addition to the Arrow missile. Moreover, if Israel, as suggested, is a strategic partner, it also makes sense that precision-strike conventional capabilities in the strategic arsenal might be deployed forward to Israeli soil. As was the case with NATO partners during the Cold War, Israel could even be assigned "strategic" targets in connection with ongoing contingencies that would require use of the strategic conventional and nuclear arsenal.

Having made these points, it is admittedly difficult to envision a military requirement necessitating any of the above actions. The United States already has significant forward-deployed forces in the region at a variety of different locations, so the stationing of weapons in Israel seems redundant. Moreover, in terms of target coverage, Israel offers nothing that could not be satisfied with basing elsewhere in the region. But if the NPR is to be taken seriously, and if the United States is to integrate the defense of Israel into the missions assigned to the strategic nuclear arsenal, policy makers should devote the same analytical effort accorded to the extended deterrent on European soil that eventually resulted in the doctrine of flexible response in 1967. If nothing else, the analytical effort would sort out some of the complicated conceptual and policy issues of associating the strategic nuclear and conventional arsenal with Israel's defense.

As part of this effort, policy makers need to examine the commitment to Israel in light of the NPR's broadly stated objective of assuring friends and allies. The U.S. strategic arsenal is intended to assure Israel (and other regional states) of the U.S. commitment to its defense. The "assurance" flowing from the U.S. posture is intended to influence Israeli behavior, most obviously acting as a constraint on Israel's use of force against its neighbors and vice versa. The strategic arsenal potentially could act both as a tool to restrain overly aggressive Israeli actions and to control conflict escalation.

Hence, determining how assurance will work vis-a-vis Israel is a central challenge for U.S. security strategy. It might be equally argued that the strategic umbrella provided by U.S. forces could in fact encourage Israel to act more aggressively than it otherwise would, since its actions would be backed not just by its own nuclear force but also by the thousands of warheads in the U.S. arsenal and the array of standoff conventional munitions used to great effect in Afghanistan and Iraq.

In order to assess the impact that the U.S. strategic arsenal and its associated doctrine can have on Israeli behavior, an analysis of Israeli views of compellance and deterrence is essential. A review of literature on Israeli deterrence suggests a striking and potentially dangerous variance between U.S. and Israeli views of compellance and deterrence. The U.S. view of compellance is generally to avoid escalation, while the Israelis actively seek it. Another way of describing this variance is that the United States views compellance and escalation like a pyramid in which escalation proceeds incrementally. By contrast, the Israeli view of compellance and escalation is more like an inverted pyramid in which escalation is immediate, uncontrolled and overwhelming. (39) This analysis suggests that the Israelis have developed a compellence/ deterrence model that is founded on a number of assumptions: (1) Israeli leaders have historically sought to deliberately provoke hostile Arab reactions in order to establish dominance with an overwhelming and disproportionate conventional response. (2) Seeking an excuse to escalate is a characteristic of Israel's use of force against its adversaries. (3) Bureaucratic inertia and the role of military officials in the decision-making process have contributed to a default position of conventional escalation. (4) This approach has failed to achieve Israel's objective of security and has in fact played a role in compromising the ability of the actors to create a political framework for negotiations. (40)

Understanding Israeli views of these issues is of critical importance as policy makers attempt to determine how the U.S. strategic arsenal will interact with Israeli views of compellance and deterrence. The preceding analysis suggests the importance of arriving at a common set of U.S. and Israeli assumptions to avoid escalation in a crisis situation that might in certain circumstances involve the United States and its strategic forces.

Syria a Target

Analysis of the historical record in Iraq (which has only just begun) provides some useful insights into an ongoing case of applying coercive and compellant strategy to Syria. Restating the obvious is important: the NPR suggests that Syria is a primary country-specific target of the strategic nuclear and conventional arsenal. Damascus continues to receive particular attention from U.S. policy makers due to its active support of terrorist groups, its overt hostility to Israel and its well-developed WMD infrastructure, particularly its missile and chemical-warfare programs. Pursuant to these threats, it seems clear that U.S. forces are expected to support a variety of deterrent and compellant objectives that involve the threat and, if necessary, the actual use of force in contingencies that involve Syria. Bush administration officials have in fact made a variety of statements in the aftermath of Operation Iraqi Freedom implying that the same calculations made in deciding to use force against Iraq also apply to Syria. (41) The U.S. nuclear and conventional arsenals are expected to either directly support or help accomplish the following objectives: (1) deter an attack on Israel; (2) defeat Syria (using nuclear weapons if necessary) should it attack Israel with WMD; (3) convince Syrian leader Bashar Asad to stop supporting terrorist groups targeting the United States and its allies; (4) convince Asad to forgo Syria's WMD programs and disarm; and (5) provide the national command authority with an array of nuclear and conventional counterattack options related to Syria's WMD infrastructure, some of which is buried underground.

Israeli-Syrian Standoff

The case of Syria is also interesting since the United States is imposing extended deterrence over an existing deterrent relationship--Israeli nuclear weapons and overwhelming conventional superiority, on the one hand, and Syria's well-developed WMD capabilities (mainly long-range missiles and chemical weapons) and inferior conventional capabilities, on the other. Imposing a U.S. coercive and deterrent framework over this existing relationship suggests that deterrence in this situation is a multifaceted phenomenon functioning at different levels with a wide variety of variables. The relationships among these variables need to be understood in the context of NPR implementation.

These issues assume particular significance in assessing the impact of NPR implementation on the Israeli-Syrian deterrent relationship. The relationship is highly unstable, with each side in an avowedly hostile posture towards the other. Syria uses terrorist surrogates to attack Israel, while Israel responds with conventional attacks on those surrogates. In October 2003, Israel bombed a target near Damascus that was allegedly associated with terrorist activities in the first such attack deep into Syria since the 1973 war. In response, Syrian Foreign Ministry official Bushra Kanafani stated, "Syria reserves the right to retaliate by all means at its disposal." (42) Hizbollah officials made similar statements of intent to respond in the event of further Israeli attacks. (43) Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon made equally defiant comments, stating, "Israel will not be deterred from protecting its citizens and will strike its enemies in every place and in every way." (44) The Bush administration's response was to caution both parties but to emphasize Israel's right to defend itself.

The incident is only the latest indicator in what is an obviously unstable political relationship with the potential for escalation stemming from a variety of factors. Judging the "stability" of the Syria-Israel deterrent relationship is problematic. Both actors may well have intuitively agreed upon a series of "red lines" that form the basis for a coercive bargaining framework. Israel mounted the raid into Syria as a signal of sorts, which, if nothing else, demonstrated its overwhelming military superiority and its willingness to use force whenever it felt justified. Syria's response recognized its inherent weakness but also conveyed that there are limits beyond which Syria cannot be pushed. If the preceding analysis about Israeli views of deterrence has any validity, it is equally plausible that Israel would have welcomed escalation by the Syrians as a pretext for a wider war.

Layering U.S. strategic forces over this situation creates additional uncertainties. For example, it is unclear to what extent either of the parties interacting in this incident is aware that both are being subjected to deterrent and compellant strategies as suggested in the NPR. So it seems manifestly unclear exactly how the strategic arsenal is functioning in its role of "assuring" Israeli decision makers of U.S. commitment to Israel's security. And it must be admitted that there is also no such clarity on what impact the deterrent effect is having on Syrian behavior.

Due to the U.S.-Israeli relationship, it seems clear that it would be easier for the United States to convey its intentions to its close ally, but Syria is another matter altogether. It is not too much to suggest that the United States may be wandering into the unknown insofar as it is integrating Syria into a coercive framework backed by U.S. nuclear weapons. It seems eminently unclear whether Bashar Asad realizes that he is being subjected to certain coercive and compellant strategies that are potentially backed up by nuclear weapons. It is also manifestly unclear whether the U.S. deterrent plays any role in the Syrian decision-making calculus on conflict escalation or even surprise attack. If the NPR's assertions about the central importance of deterring attacks against Israel and actively defending it are to be taken seriously, one would expect that Bashar Asad should be made aware that escalation in situations like the October 2003 Israeli strike could potentially lead to a U.S. response.

In Syria and its leader Bashar Asad, the United States faces a superficially similar situation to the one it faced with Saddam during the 1990s: an authoritarian leader, most probably operating on limited and imperfect information with a decision-making environment characterized by relatively few actors. A main motivation for Asad is to maintain his hold on power. The internal political environment is also to some extent opaque--as it was in Iraq. Yet understanding this environment is crucial to devising a communications strategy that can accurately convey intent. In seeking to operationalize coercive and compellant strategies against Syria backed by the threat of force, the United States must once again also confront the communications issues so vital to the functioning of coercive strategy. Accurately conveying intent is essential. Confronting these communications issues forces the United States into critical analysis of Bashar Asad's structure of internal and external images through which intent has to be communicated. These images, which are functions of the leader's personality and historical experiences, also seem indelibly etched by a particular regional culture--as undefined and amorphous as that term seems. Reduced to its most basic level, the essential issue becomes this: How does the United States convey intent with Bashar Asad, and what indices can we develop to ensure that the signals are being received?

Deterrence and Regional Rogues

As previously noted, the Bush administration's strategy documents almost universally assert that so-called rogue regimes are not subject to deterrence. The absence of the deterrent restraint on these actors (as well as non-state actors) is one of the underlying assumptions in the administration's arguments calling for preemptive military action and preventive war.

Analysts have vigorously challenged the Bush administration's assumptions on these issues. Two of the most prominent of these are John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, who made a persuasive case that Saddam Hussein, for example, was subject to deterrence and that the strategy of containment exercised by the United States during the 1990s effectively limited Saddam's threat to region and the wider international system. (45) Walt has also argued separately that the wider threat of rogue states has been exaggerated. He argues that managing the insecurity of these states is the central policy challenge facing the United States, which can be accomplished reasonably easily through coalitions and alliances. (46)

Examining the applicability of deterrence and containment strategies--as opposed to dissuasive, compellance-based strategies--is a critical issue for policy makers as they think through the implications of applying the strategic nuclear force in the region. Dealing with rogue regimes with containment strategies as practiced during the Cold War and in the Gulf during the 1990s suggests that nuclear weapons (supported by conventional force) can function as a useful element in an overall strategy to manage the security environment.

Assuming that there can be a useful role for traditional deterrence vis-a-vis adversaries suggests that the United States should seek to construct regional political and military coalitions backed by conventional and strategic capabilities as the underlying framework of regional security and stability. For example, using U.S. advanced transformational military capabilities and technologies to create a shared system of situational awareness with coalition militaries to create transparency and trust could represent one building block in a security architecture to minimize the threat posed by anti-status-quo regimes. (47)

A critical component of a reconfigured system of regional security could conceivably draw upon one of the U.S. arsenal's new components--strategic missile defense. A region-wide missile-defense system, in combination with programs initiated during the Clinton administration under the auspices of the Cooperative Defense Initiative against Weapons of Mass Destruction, could serve as helpful elements to strengthen deterrence throughout the region. CDI, as it was called, sought to encourage the Gulf states to undertake a variety of measures to address the possibility of attacks using WMD.

The "Demand" Side of Security

Applying U.S. strategic forces toward a non-coercive, deterrence-based mission, in the context of a broadly-based containment strategy also implicitly addresses the demand side of the security equation. By creating a system of transparency, trust and confidence, states may feel less threatened and have less motivation to develop WMD capabilities. A central assumption of this argument is that insecurity, which can flow from internal vulnerabilities, is a cause for aggressive behavior. (48) By managing the external environment, regional states might be less inclined to pursue threatening capabilities and engage in aggressive behavior. In such an environment, a range of military capabilities, including the strategic deterrent, could be applied to form a seamless security umbrella that makes all those under it feel secure. Defensive capabilities, as noted above, could form part of the umbrella.

But in the Middle East, theory inevitably collides with reality. Intransigent and enduring sources of conflict seem impervious to all attempts to reduce tensions and promote cooperation on a region-wide basis. These sources of conflict limit what the United States can expect to achieve by extending its strategic umbrella throughout the region. The extension of a security umbrella, including forward deployed forces, only exacerbates the security dilemma of some of the regional states, most notably Iran and to a lesser extent Syria. Iran views the U.S. military presence in the region as a threat to its security and is almost certainly not interested in being "assured" by the strategic deterrent--except in a negative context.

Policy Lessons from Iraq?

In hindsight and given available information, it is difficult to underestimate the impact of misperception and communications issues on the coercive framework used throughout the 1991-2003 period by the United States against Iraq. (49) There are important lessons in this case as policy makers address the role of strategic weaponry, especially nuclear arms, in regional security strategy.

The stated objectives of U.S. policies were threefold (and not necessarily mutually supportive): deter Iraqi attacks against its neighbors and mitigate Iraq's military threat to the region; seek Iraq's compliance with a variety of U.N. Security Council resolutions, the most of important of which was verifiable disarmament; and simultaneously (from 1997 onward) topple Saddam by encouraging internal and external opponents. Throughout the decade, the United States used a variety of diplomatic, economic and military tools in the context of a broad-based strategy of compellance and deterrence to achieve these objectives. The United States deployed forces engaged in ongoing military operations to enforce a U.N. trade embargo and simultaneously denied Iraq control over much of its own airspace. It used its influence in the U. N. Security Council to isolate Iraq politically and took a leadership role in trying to ensure the efficacy of the U. N. arms-inspection process pursuant to U.N. Security Council Resolution 687. Force was used repeatedly throughout the period in response to various objectionable behaviors by the regime.

The U.S. approach towards Iraq represented a classic mix of deterrent and compellant strategies. The threat of force was always present, varying in intensity throughout the period, depending on the crisis du jour, and specific attacks were launched in 1993, 1996 and 1998. A pattern emerged during the decade: defiance by Saddam resulted in U.S. military deployments into the region accompanied by repeated statements of intent to use force. These crises either were resolved with a political compromise at the United Nations or, alternately, U.S. attacks. This pattern continued until December 1998, when the United Nations withdrew its inspectors and the United States mounted Operation Desert Fox. Following these strikes, the rules of engagement for U.S. forces patrolling the no-fly zones were expanded, allowing a more systematic and sustained military campaign against the Iraqi air-defense system and command-and-control network throughout southern Iraq.

The approach taken by the United States reflected important elements of Schelling's bargaining process: use the threat and actual use of force in tandem with public statements as tools to convey intent in pursuit of an objective. Escalation followed rhetoric if Saddam did not comply. Saddam's defiance during the period seemed to confirm a prevailing view that the United States was dealing with a dangerous and recalcitrant "realist" whose main motivation was to remain in power and continue defying the international community by preserving his WMD programs. Saddam's refusal to provide information to correct discrepancies in declarations to the U.N. weapons inspectors and the discovery of the so-called "concealment mechanism" during the tenure of U.N. Special Commission Chairman Richard Butler only confirmed a prevailing view that Saddam had stocks of WMD stored just out of reach of inspectors. After all, so the reasoning went, why would he go to such lengths and endure the wrath of the international community?

But in retrospect it appears that the other actor in the coercive bargaining framework (Saddam) was working off an asymmetrical series of motivations and had developed images that were, for the most part, opaque to the United States (if not the entire international community). The asymmetrical interests and opaque images meant the signals and indices used by each side were more like ships passing in the night than signals conveyed by rational actors communicating in a calculated interstate bargaining process. Saddam consciously manipulated both signals and indices to deceive a variety of different internal and external actors. And he was resoundingly successful in his deception. The United States and the international community bought it, hook, line and sinker.

Further, Saddam's motivations and images were strongly rooted in the region's cultural and behavioral norms--a critical one being not to lose face. The need for Saddam to preserve credibility with his neighbors and internal opponents formed an important, perhaps even defining, element of Iraq's external image. Saddam clung to these core beliefs and the supporting image beyond what anyone could have thought was rational. While the United States correctly perceived the importance Saddam attached to his WMD programs for regional and international credibility, it never caught on to the deception, in part because it seemed illogical and counterintuitive. While U.S. diplomatic and military actions undoubtedly had some coercive and deterrent value, these actions also had the unintended effect of reinforcing what Saddam wanted the rest of the world to believe: that he retained significant WMD stocks. For the United States, the disconnect between the signals made pursuant to the coercive policy objectives and the actions of the target could not have been more pronounced.

In retrospect, it seems clear that asymmetrical interests, misperception (fed by intelligence failures) and communications problems affected the coercive bargaining framework. Indeed, it is unclear to what degree the framework was operating at all in accordance with Schelling's paradigm. The implications of this analysis for the months preceding Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) are significant. As was the case in Gulf War I, a variety of senior U.S. officials, including President Bush, stated that Iraqi use of chemical and/or biological weapons against U.S. forces or coalition partners would be met with an overwhelming, i.e., nuclear, response. U.S. troops expected that Iraq would in fact use its chemical and biological weapons in response to the invasion, suggesting that the National Command Authority would have been placed in the position of having to make the decision on using nuclear weapons against Iraqi forces or regime targets. From the U.S. perspective, the public declarations and the history of Iraqi non-use of chemical/biological weapons in Gulf War I suggested that deterrence could play a role in the coercive framework and discourage Saddam from first use. But if the preceding analysis about the inherent weaknesses in the coercive framework is only partially correct, it suggests that both parties had entered a blind alley in the months before OIF. The United States believed that the coercive framework was fully operational and that deterrence could play a useful role. But if the post-war reports are any indication, it seems unclear whether Saddam was capable of taking the actions expected by U.S. decision makers within this framework or was receiving any of the intended signals. In short, the United States and Iraq were in a strategically unstable environment in which uncontrolled escalation could have flowed relatively easily due to actions by either party.

CONCLUSIONS

The preceding analysis suggests that U.S. strategic forces, including the nuclear weapons arsenal, hold both promise and problems as tools to help manage the regional security environment. In my judgment, the primary value of U.S. forces is not in the realm of coercion, compellance and dissuasion, in which actors are made to reverse actions already undertaken or change their entire foreign policy and security strategy to conform with U.S. goals in the region. Rather, the main value of the arsenal lies with supporting the broadly defined political objectives of deterrence and assurance. If combined with a security environment characterized by cooperation, transparency and trust, U.S. strategic weaponry could act as a stabilizing factor in the security environment--at least for those states participating in the framework. This suggests that the central policy challenge facing the United States is to craft a regional environment that builds relationships among cooperative states while simultaneously managing threats from anti-status-quo regimes.

Using U.S. strategic forces, including nuclear-weapons forces, as part of a coercive interstate bargaining framework appears more problematic. In the Middle East, it seems clear that the United States must address communications issues surrounding the conveyance of intent on which the bargaining process depends. Lessons of the 13-year experience with Iraq are not particularly encouraging. A cursory review of the interaction with Iraq suggests serious communications disconnects. While the United States effectively "got lucky," since Saddam's cupboard was bare, it would be a mistake to conclude that Iraq's non-use of WMD in Operation Iraqi Freedom is a useful model for the future. An unfortunate conclusion out of the Iraq case is that systemic communications difficulties in fact make pre-emptive action that much more attractive in situations where there can be no confidence that the coercive framework is functioning with any degree of predictability.

These lessons seem particularly germane to the ongoing Israeli-Syrian relationship, with the potential for escalation on both sides, which by extension involves the United States through its commitment to Israel. Variances between U.S. and Israeli views of deterrence and compellance should be closed if the United States wants its strategic deterrent to function in a constructive way to achieve its policy objectives with both parties. Moreover, deciphering the series of images motivating Syrian leader Bashar Asad seems equally important if the United States is to construct a communications system that can accurately convey intent.

One conclusion of this analysis is that policy makers must address communications issues, images and perceptions before using strategic nuclear forces in any regional coercive-bargaining framework. In the Middle East and elsewhere, systemic communications problems, complicated by cross-cultural issues, impose enormous difficulties in operationalizing nuclear weaponry as an instrument of coercive and compellant strategies. But the promise of using nuclear and conventional weapons purely as a strategic deterrent--that is, for providing an open-ended and admittedly ambiguous deterrent presence for a cooperative regional security environment--should not be minimized. Using nuclear weapons in this traditional sense of deterring aggression, as one supporting element in an overall system of managing regional security, suggests that U.S. policy should concentrate on the demand-side of the policy equation, to create a system of transparency and trust with all regional states.

(1) See John Donnelly, "DIA: Mideast Most Likely Place Nukes Could Be Used," Defense Week, (Vol. 21. No. 19, May 8, 2000).

(2) Declassified Top Secret Memorandum for the National Security Council, June 29, 1950, NSC 26/3, Subject: Demolition and Abandonment of Oil Facilities and Fields in the Middle East..

(3) See details in William Quandt, Peace Process: American Diplomacy and the Arab-Israeli Conflict Since 1967 (Brookings Institution Press and University of California Press, 2001), pp. 120-124. Text of the agreement at http://www.state.gov/t/ac/trt/5186.htm.

(4) President Jimmy Carter, State of the Union Address, 23 January 1980, as cited by Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, "US Foreign Policy: Our Broader Strategy," 27 March 1980, Department of State, Current Policy No. 153.

(5) Richard Burt, "Study Says a Soviet Move in Iran Might Require U.S. Atom Arms," The New York Times, February 2, 1980, p. 1.

(6) Perry's statements as cited in the Arms Control Association Fact Sheets, "U.S. Nuclear Policy: 'Negative Security Assurances,'" at http://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/negsec.asp.

(7) NPR as posed at the Global Security Website at http://globasecurity.org/wme/library/policy/dod/npr.htm p. 6.

(8) See Proliferation: Threat and Response, Office of the Secretary of Defense, January 2001, pp. 90-91.

(9) See Doug Frantz, "Iran Closes in on Ability to Build a Nuclear Bomb," Los Angeles Times, August 4, 2003, p. A1. For details on Syria, see Dany Shoham, "Poisoned Missiles: Syria's Doomsday Deterrent," Middle East Quarterly, Vol. IX, No. 4, Fall 2002. Also see Anthony Cordesman, "Weapons of Mass Destruction in the Middle East: Regional Trends, National Forces, Warfighting Capabilities, Delivery Options, and Weapons Effects," Center for Strategic and International Studies, April 15, 2003, pp. 51-59.

(10) NPR, p. 6, as posted on the Global Security.org website.

(11) Ibid. p. 4.

(12) Ibid. p. 5.

(13) Ibid. p. 5.

(14) Ibid. p. 5.

(15) Quadrennial Defense Review Report, The Defense Department, September 30, 2001, pp. iii.

(16) Ibid. p. iii.

(17) The National Security Strategy of the United States of America, The White House, September 2002, p. 29.

(18) For an expanded discussion of this issue, see James J. Wirtz and James A. Russell, "U.S. Policy on Preventive War and Preemption," The Nonproliferation Review, Volume 10, Number 1, pp. 113-123.

(19) National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction, The White House, December 2002, p. 3.

(20) Thomas Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict (Harvard University, 1960). Arms and Influence (Yale University Press, 1966).

(21) Arms and Influence, p. 34.

(22) Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, Chapters 2 and 4.

(23) Ibid p. 4.

(24) Ibid p. 4.

(25) Ibid, Chapter III, "Bargaining, Communication and Limited War," pp. 53-80, and pp. 146-150.

(26) Arms and Influence, pp. 16, 31.

(27) The Strategy of Conflict, pp. 146-151.

(28) Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, "The No Cities Doctrine," University of Michigan Commencement, June 1962. In this speech, McNamara also argued that "... basic military strategy in a general nuclear war should be approached in much the same way that more conventional military operations have been regarded in the past. That is to say, principal military objectives, in the event of a nuclear war stemming from a major attack on the alliance, should be the destruction of the enemy's forces, not his civilian population."

(29) For example, in his book Deterrence: A Conceptual Analysis (Sage Publications, 1977), p. 78, Patrick Morgan notes that the circumstance of threat and reaction can create psychological reactions in the minds of the actors that can introduce "... some influence from irrational objectives and perceptions ..." into an otherwise rational decision-making process.

(30) The Logic of Images in International Relations (Princeton University Press 1970) p. 281.

(31) Ibid. p. 3

(32) Ibid. p. 11.

(33) Richard Neustadt, Report to JFK: Skybolt in Perspective (Cornell University Press 1999).

(34) Logic of Images, p. 115.

(35) Ibid. p. 138.

(36) Rami G. Khouri, "A View from the Arab World," Daily Star, Internet edition, February 11, 2004.

(37) See a summary of Israel's nuclear program at Monterey Institute for International Studies, Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Israel country summary, at http://cns.miis.edu/research/wmdme/israel.htm

(38) Peter Beaumont, "Israel Deploys Nuclear Arms in Submarines," Guardian Unlimited, Internet Edition, October 12, 2003

(39) Zeev Maoz, "The Unlimited Use of the Limited Use of Force: Israel and Low Intensity Warfare, 1949-2004," unpublished paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Studies Association, Montreal, March 17-20, 2004. Cited with the author's permission.

(40) Ibid. These conclusions are drawn from pp. 29-30.

(41) In an interview on April 5, 2003, Undersecretary of State John Bolton stated that the invasion of Iraq would send "a message" to Syria that "the cost of their pursuit of weapons of mass destruction is potentially quite high ... [and] the determination of the United States ... to keep these incredibly dangerous weapons out of the hands of very dangerous people should not be underestimated." See also Paul Kerr, "Top U.S. Officials Voice Concern About Syria's WMD Capabilities," Arms Control Today, Arms Control Association, May 2003. On April 16, 2003, Bolton further stated that the United States intends to exert "a maximum diplomatic effort" to persuade "states like Syria, Libya and Iran among others to give up their pursuit of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and long-range ballistic-missile delivery systems.... We want a peaceful resolution to all of these issues, but the determination of the United States, especially after September 11, to keep these incredibly dangerous weapons out of the hands of very dangerous people should not be underestimated." http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/syria-intro.htm.

(42) As quoted in Kim Ghattas, "Syria Warns Israel of Retaliation," BBC News, October 11, 2003.

(43) Ibid.

(44) As quoted in "Syrian Ambassador Promises Military Responses to Further Attacks," Guardian Unlimited, October 8, 2003.

(45) John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt, "An Unnecessary War," Foreign Policy, January/February 2003.

(46) Stephen M. Walt, "Containing Rogues and Renegades: Coalition Strategies and Counterproliferation," in Victor Utgoff, ed., The Coming Crisis: Nuclear Proliferation, U.S. Interests and World Order (MIT Press, 2000).

(47) Explained in greater detail in James A. Russell, "Searching for a Post-Saddam Regional Security Architecture," Middle East Review of International Affairs, Vol. 7, No. 1, March 2003.

(48) See Steven Walt, "Containing Rogues and Renegades," in Utgoff op. cit., pp. 193-193.

(49) See Dan Byman and Mathew Waxman, Confronting Iraq: U.S. Policy and the Use of Force Since the Gulf War (Rand Corporation, 2000).

Dr. Russell is a senior lecturer in the Department of National Security Affairs a the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA. The views expressed in this article are his own.