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Is the Prospect of Nuclear War Really a Risk of the Past?
Military personnel stand guard at a nuclear facility in the Zardanjan area of Isfahan, Iran, April 19, 2024, in this screengrab taken from video. Photo: WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
In an impressively-prepared television documentary, The Fog of War, one-time US Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara warned about the limits of rationality in world politics — and nuclear war. McNamara summarized succinctly: “Rationality won’t save us.”
International crises and confrontations are essentially inevitable, and the only way for powerful states like the United States to remain powerful is by demonstrating capacity and willingness to dominate high-value escalations. To best ensure such a perceived capacity, this country will need to take exceptional risks, but — simultaneously — avoid nuclear warfare.
How should the incumbent American president proceed? In protecting the United States from deliberate nuclear attack, American strategists will need to accept core assumptions of enemy rationality. Critical dangers could be created by enemy hacking operations, computer malfunctions (accidental nuclear war), or decision-making miscalculation (whether by the enemy, the United States, or both). In the plausibly indecipherable third-case scenario, damaging synergies could arise that would prove difficult or even impossible to reverse.
Historical Context and Present Threats
In these matters, history deserves some evident pride of place. Since 1945, the global balance of power has been transformed, in considerable measure, to a “balance of terror.”
The more-or-less transient “solution” is to manage all prospectively nuclear crises at their lowest possible levels of destructiveness. Wherever feasible, of course, it is best to avoid such crises altogether and maintain reliable “circuit breakers” against strategic hacking and technical malfunction. At the same time, especially in furtherance of nuclear war avoidance, hope can never be a correct strategy.
Accordingly, US defense planners should focus more explicit policy attention on the expected consequences of President Donald Trump’s breach with NATO over Ukraine and on Israel’s changing ties with certain Sunni Arab states. These Israeli-Sunni Arab ties center on preventing a common enemy — Shiite Iran — from “going nuclear.”
Israel’s own nuclear security decisions will have serious implications for the United States. Though Israel currently has no nuclear adversaries, the rapidly accelerating approach of a nuclear Iran could encourage nuclearization by Saudi Arabia, Egypt and/or Turkey.
Moreover, non-Arab Pakistan will likely become a more direct adversary of the United States and Israel. Pakistan is an already nuclear Islamic state with close ties to China. Like Israel, Pakistan is not a party to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT).
Furthermore, nuclear China has never renounced its right or intention to “recover” Taiwan by military force.
What is the probabilistic difference between a deliberate or intentional nuclear war and one that would be unintentional or inadvertent? Without carefully considering this core distinction, little of pragmatic use could be said about the calculable likelihood of any nuclear conflict. Though with greater “informality,” capable analysts and decision-makers will still have to devise optimal strategies for predicting and averting a nuclear war.
A Double-Edged Sword
Designed to guard against a US preemption, adversarial protective measures could involve the attachment of “hair trigger” launch mechanisms to nuclear weapon systems and/or the adoption of “launch on warning” policies, possibly coupled with certain pre-delegations of launch authority.
This means, incrementally, that the US could sometime find itself endangered by steps taken by an enemy state to prevent or minimize an American preemption. Plausibly, the United States would do everything possible to prevent such adversarial steps because of the expanded risks of accidental or miscalculated attacks against American populations.
Nonetheless, such steps could become a fait accompli, and Washington could calculate that a preemptive strike would be legal and cost-effective. Ironically, in this case, the American preemption would have been generated by enemy failures of “anti-preemption” measures. In principle, at least, this same ominous scenario could be played in the other direction. Here, a security-seeking United States, by deploying similarly destabilizing anti-proliferation safeguards, would spur mistaken or premature preemptive attacks by aptly apprehensive enemy states.
More fundamental issues will need to be analyzed in Washington. Above everything else, such existential matters should never be approached by American national security policy-makers as a narrowly political or tactical problem. Rather, informed by in-depth historical understandings and refined analytic capacities, US military planners should prepare to deal with a large variety of overlapping threat-system hazards. At times, the analyzed intersections could prove “synergistic” or force-multiplying.
Staying the Collision Course or Advancing Beyond “Dumb Luck”
In any global “state of nature,” there is little likelihood that the corrosive dynamics of nuclear risk-taking and nuclear deterrence would fade away on their own. Operating rationally in our centuries-old world system of belligerent nationalisms, the US president and his counterparts in Russia, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea, Israel, and elsewhere will seek to prevail in multiple and possibly-interrelated struggles for “escalation dominance.” Amid unrelenting global anarchy, these leaders would have no real choice but to stay tethered to a “scripted” geopolitical course.
Over time, no matter how carefully, responsibly and rationally each state’s security preparations are carried out, an international order based on incessant power struggles will fail.
For the moment, the principal risk of such catastrophic failures stems from unintentional nuclear war. It follows, recalling Sun-Tzu’s timeless wisdom, that such existential risk “must be thoroughly pondered and analyzed.” Properly, this analytic task is a matter solely for disciplined thinkers and strategic theorists. Under no circumstances should any primary intellectual responsibilities be handed off to politicians or government officials. Next time around, prima facie, America could run out of McNamara’s “dumb luck.
Prof. Louis René Beres was educated at Princeton (Ph.D., 1971) and is the author of many books and scholarly articles dealing with international law, nuclear strategy, nuclear war, and terrorism. In Israel, Prof. Beres was Chair of Project Daniel (PM Sharon). His 12th and latest book is Surviving Amid Chaos: Israel’s Nuclear Strategy (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016; 2nd ed., 2018).
The post Is the Prospect of Nuclear War Really a Risk of the Past? first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Security Warning to Israelis Vacationing Abroad Ahead of holidays
A passenger arrives to a terminal at Ben Gurion international airport before Israel bans international flights, January 25, 2021. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
i24 News – Ahead of the Jewish High Holidays, Israel’s National Security Council (NSC) published the latest threat assessment to Israelis abroad from terrorist groups to the public on Sunday, in order to increase the Israeli public’s awareness of the existing terrorist threats around the world and encourage individuals to take preventive action accordingly.
The NSC specified that the warning is an up-to-date reflection of the main trends in the activities of terrorist groups around the world and their impact on the level of threat posed to Israelis abroad during these times, but the travel warnings and restrictions themselves are not new.
“As the Gaza war continues and in parallel with the increasing threat of terrorism, the National Security Headquarters stated it has recognized a trend of worsening and increasing violent antisemitic incidents and escalating steps by anti-Israel groups, to the point of physically harming Israelis and Jews abroad. This is in light of, among other things, the anti-Israel narrative and the negative media campaign by pro-Palestinian elements — a trend that may encourage and motivate extremist elements to carry out terrorist activities against Israelis or Jews abroad,” the statement read.
“Therefore, the National Security Bureau is reinforcing its recommendation to the Israeli public to act with responsibility during this time when traveling abroad, to check the status of the National Security Bureau’s travel warnings (before purchasing tickets to the destination,) and to act in accordance with the travel warning recommendations and the level of risk in the country they are visiting,” it listed, adding that, as illustrated in the past year, these warnings are well-founded and reflect a tangible and valid threat potential.
The statement also emphasized the risk of sharing content on social media networks indicating current or past service in the Israeli security forces, as these posts increase the risk of being marked by various parties as a target. “Therefore, the National Security Council recommends that you do not upload to social networks, in any way, content that indicates service in the security forces, operational activity, or similar content, as well as real-time locations.”
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Israel Intensifies Gaza City Bombing as Rubio Arrives
Displaced Palestinians, fleeing northern Gaza due to an Israeli military operation, move southward after Israeli forces ordered residents of Gaza City to evacuate to the south, in the central Gaza Strip September 14, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Israeli forces destroyed at least 30 residential buildings in Gaza City and forced thousands of people from their homes, Palestinian officials said, as US Secretary of State Marco Rubio arrived on Sunday to discuss the future of the conflict.
Israel has said it plans to seize the city, where about a million Palestinians have been sheltering, as part of its declared aim of eliminating the terrorist group Hamas, and has intensified attacks on what it has called Hamas’ last bastion.
The group’s political leadership, which has engaged in on-and-off negotiations on a possible ceasefire and hostage release deal, was targeted by Israel in an airstrike in Doha on Tuesday in an attack that drew widespread condemnation.
Qatar will host an emergency Arab-Islamic summit on Monday to discuss the next moves. Rubio said Washington wanted to talk about how to free the 48 hostages – of whom 20 are believed to be still alive – still held by Hamas in Gaza and rebuild the coastal strip.
“What’s happened, has happened,” he said. “We’re gonna meet with them (the Israeli leadership). We’re gonna talk about what the future holds,” Rubio said before heading to Israel where he will stay until Tuesday.
ABRAHAM ACCORDS AT RISK
He was expected to visit the Western Wall Jewish prayer site in Jerusalem on Sunday with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and hold talks with him during the visit.
US officials described Tuesday’s strike on the territory of a close US ally as a unilateral escalation that did not serve American or Israeli interests. Rubio and US President Donald Trump both met Qatar’s Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani on Friday.
Netanyahu signed an agreement on Thursday to push ahead with a settlement expansion plan that would cut across West Bank land that the Palestinians seek for a state – a move the United Arab Emirates warned would undermine the US-brokered Abraham accords that normalized UAE relations with Israel.
Israel, which blocked all food from entering Gaza for 11 weeks earlier this year, has been allowing more aid into the enclave since late July to prevent further food shortages, though the United Nations says far more is needed.
It says it wants civilians to leave Gaza City before it sends more ground forces in. Tens of thousands of people are estimated to have left but hundreds of thousands remain in the area. Hamas has called on people not to leave.
Israeli army forces have been operating inside at least four eastern suburbs for weeks, turning most of at least three of them into wastelands. It is closing in on the center and the western areas of the territory, where most of the displaced people are taking shelter.
Many are reluctant to leave, saying there is not enough space or safety in the south, where Israel has told them to go to what it has designated as a humanitarian zone.
Some say they cannot afford to leave while others say they were hoping the Arab leaders meeting on Monday in Qatar would pressure Israel to scrap its planned offensive.
“The bombardment intensified everywhere and we took down the tents, more than twenty families, we do not know where to go,” said Musbah Al-Kafarna, displaced in Gaza City.
Israel said it had completed five waves of air strikes on Gaza City over the past week, targeting more than 500 sites, including Hamas reconnaissance and sniper sites, buildings containing tunnel openings and weapons depots.
Local officials, who do not distinguish between militant and civilian casualties, say at least 40 people were killed by Israeli fire across the enclave, a least 28 in Gaza City alone.
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Turkey Warns of Escalation as Israel Expands Strikes Beyond Gaza
Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan speaks during a press conference with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis (not seen) at the Presidential Palace in Ankara, Turkey, May 13, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Umit Bektas
i24 News – An Israeli strike targeting Hamas officials in Qatar has sparked unease among several Middle Eastern countries that host leaders of the group, with Turkey among the most alarmed.
Officials in Ankara are increasingly worried about how far Israel might go in pursuing those it holds responsible for the October 7 attacks.
Israel’s prime minister effectively acknowledged that the Qatar operation failed to eliminate the Hamas leadership, while stressing the broader point the strike was meant to make: “They enjoy no immunity,” the government said.
On X, Prime Minister Netanyahu went further, writing that “the elimination of Hamas leaders would put an end to the war.”
A senior Turkish official, speaking on condition of anonymity, summed up Ankara’s reaction: “The attack in Qatar showed that the Israeli government is ready to do anything.”
Legally and diplomatically, Turkey occupies a delicate position. As a NATO member, any military operation or targeted killing on its soil could inflame tensions within the alliance and challenge mutual security commitments.
Analysts caution, however, that Israel could opt for covert measures, operations carried out without public acknowledgement, a prospect that has increased anxiety in governments across the region.
Israeli officials remain defiant. In an interview with Ynet, Minister Ze’ev Elkin said: “As long as we have not stopped them, we will pursue them everywhere in the world and settle our accounts with them.” The episode underscores growing fears that efforts to hunt Hamas figures beyond Gaza could widen regional friction and complicate diplomatic relationships.