Memo to Israel and US: launching regional wars to prevent Iran from going nuclear does not pass the cost-benefits test

The Ukraine and Iran wars have given military strategists everywhere reason to re-examine their war doctrines. The fact that Russia, despite being a military superpower, has not been able to get the Ukrainians to play dead, and the fact that Iran has not only held its own against the joint might of the US and Israel, but is now also fighting back effectively, tells us why.

Before we discuss which doctrines might really have to change, let us first examine the primary reason why Israel and the US went to war with Iran for the second time in less than a year: to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Is the cost to the world from the resulting disruptions worth this attempt to set Iran back in its hunt for nuclear weapons?

The assumption is that if Iran has nukes, it can focus on the obliteration of Israel. But history tells us that the proliferation of nuclear weapons does not automatically result in their deployment during wars. It has never been deployed since the Americans did so towards the end of the Second World War against a side that was already losing the war. The justification then was to bring the war to a successful conclusion by forcing Japan to surrender. But it is more than likely that the Americans themselves wanted to use nukes to check what could actually happen to civilian populations. They found out in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And after that, no country has ever used nukes.

In the Russia-Ukraine war, the Russians have often made nuclear threats, but mostly to intimidate Nato from fully committing itself to join the war on Ukraine’s side, and/or making Ukraine a part of Nato. In fact, others have argued that the war would never have taken place if Ukraine also had nukes.

India and Pakistan have had nuclear weapons since 1998, but while Pakistan has sought to blackmail us with nukes, its bluff has always been called many time, most recently during Operation Sindoor.

The reality of owning nukes is simple: their use may be risked only if one side faces ultimate annihilation, not in routine wars and local skirmishes, but in a total war where only one side can survive. Countries tend to opt for desperate measures (including using chemical weapons) when their leadership comes to the conclusion that it faces total annihilation. Nuclear weapons come last on the threat perception scale.

The lesson is simple: never reach a point in any war where one side faces total defeat and a threat to survival.

In the Israel-Iran context, the fact is Israel is already known to have nuclear weapons, and it has never used them for the simple reason that it has never been threatened by the possibility of total annihilation. Israel faced it most difficult military threat in 1973 during the Yom Kippur war, when an Arab coalition jointly attacked it across the Sinai and Golan Heights. Israel is supposed to have acquired nuclear capabilities a few years before that, but never used them.

North Korea has had nuclear weapons for quite some time. But it has never used them, though it periodically conducts missile and nuclear tests to rattle the Japanese.

The NPT (Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) doctrine of trying to prevent other countries beyond the initial five (now seven, with and Pakistan and India joining the club) from going nuclear is past its sell-by date. The cost-benefit analysis of launching endless wars to uphold the NPT is no longer worth it. Multi-country wars in the name of preventing Iran (or any other country) from acquiring nuclear weapons cause more global economic damage and may not be worth waging.

The downside of allowing some countries to go nuclear is that they may feel emboldened to launch mini wars below the nuclear threshold – as Pakistan does with terrorism targeted at India and Iran does by backing Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis - but the counter to these threats must be local, not regional or global. Israel would be better off dealing with the three H threats as local nuisances, not by going after Iran.

As far as preventing nuclear proliferation is concerned, the best option may be to incentivise countries that don’t go nuclear with economic and other sops. The rest can be put under tech and economic sanctions, but the efficacy of the same is questionable. India and Pakistan did not buckle, nor did North Korea, Nor will Iran.

The second doctrine relates to asymmetric warfare, and the futility of using air or naval power to subdue recalcitrant nations.  

Both Ukraine, no doubt with active logistical and financial support from Nato, and Iran, possibly with covert support from Russia and China, have shown that overwhelming military power is not enough to subdue a determined adversary.

The key to their ability to hold out is the use of asymmetric warfare capabilities against enemies with much stronger military, financial and technological power. Without any air force or navy worth the name, both have held two superpowers at bay. They have shown that cheap weaponry, especially drones and missiles (costlier than drones, but easier to move and hide) can work in defence. Air power can pound your cities to dust, and sea power can sink your naval forces and limit your ability to freely export and import, but they cannot ensure your defeat or your ability to disrupt your enemies’ economies.

Two things make drones and missiles defy the logic of an enemy’s superior military capabilities.

One is comparative costs. Preventing a $20,000-30,000 drone from inflicting damage can cost you 10, 20 or 50 times that cost using radars, space-based surveillance and missile-defence systems. Also, if you send enough drones across, any defence system (say, effective at targeting 100 drones simultaneously), can be overwhelmed by larger incoming numbers. Some drones will get through, as we saw not only in Ukraine, but recently in the Gulf countries as well.

Two, the willingness to extend the damage to civilian and economic assets. The old rules of warfare, of not targeting civilians during war, are mostly ineffective. Both because terrorist organisations like Hamas have used schools and hospitals to hide their fighters, and also because the big powers no longer care about that. Today, the US is unfazed by the fact that a girls’ school may have been hit in its initial strikes on Iran, while Israel demolished much of Gaza’s civilian buildings in its war on Hamas terror earlier.

Iran, for its part, has been targeting commercial hubs in the UAE, Bahrain and other Gulf countries to impose costs on those booming economies. Their aviation, tourism, realty and oil sectors are piling on losses. What helps the weaker countries (in this case Iran) to resist is the promise of causing enough economic damage to richer and more powerful enemies. The US and Israel have targeted not just Iranian military targets, ammunition and oil dumps but even desalination plants and vital community resources. It was hardly likely that Iran would somehow be circumspect in what it targets with its drones and missiles.

The simple logic that Iran has used is this: if you have more to lose than me, the costs of continuing the war is higher for you than me.

Asymmetric warfare is about using unusual or cheap resources (including human lives) to make war costlier for the enemy. This is the logic of terrorism, and no matter how many billions you spend on intelligence, surveillance and defence systems, the terrorist who does not care for his life will always win – in terms of the damage he can inflict at the cost of just one life (or 20, as in the case of the 9/11 attackers). Even if a country prevents all attacks, it will pay a high price in terms of investments in mounting a foolproof defence. At some point, it will become uneconomical to spend that kind of money to prevent the odd terrorist attack or two.

The economic decline of America began after 9/11, when it not just decided to build the most expensive homeland security infrastructure in the world, but also wage wars on countries that were said to be supporting terrorists or alleged to be building nuclear weapons. According to one Harvard report, the US spent $3 trillion (ie, three-quarters of the current Indian GDP) or more in the Iraq war. In the current Iran conflict, the US has reportedly spent more than $5 bn in just the first few days of the war. It is likely to be several times that figure once the war ends. Israel is probably spending just as much. The costs are bound to mount if the campaign continues for long, and this does not include the costs to the global economy from inflation and disruptions in trade and business opportunities.

Of course, better answers to the problem of defending infrastructure and economic assets from drones and missiles will be found in future, but disrupters are not without their ability to outthink their adversaries. For example, Iran realised soon enough that Israel and the US will target its leadership, and prepared for that contingency by creating 31 autonomous defence commands run by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). Long after the Ayatollah was killed, Iran continues to attack its enemies without any leadership worth the name.

The cost-benefit ratio that now favours cheap swarm (or kamikaze) drones over high-cost Iron Domes and THAAD missile shields, not to speak of anti-drone missile systems like our own Akash and S-400 systems, can be countered. One can see micro missiles that cost as little as drones, or directed energy weapons (or high-energy lasers) growing in importance, but rest assured ways will be found around these too. Technology advantages are fleeting.

The lesson for India, which faces an inveterate and desperate foe like Pakistan on its west, is that it must have an antidote to asymmetric warfare that is far less costly than sending $250,000 missiles to bring down $30,000 drones, or spending millions of rupees defending civilian, defence and business infrastructure, including refineries and software hubs and defence installations producing ammo, warships or fighter aircraft.

The most important point to remember as far as Pakistan is concerned is this: it has very little to lose, while India has much to lose. Whatever antidote we create, it must also clear the cost-benefits test. It is not enough to have expensive defence shields that stop drones and missiles, but drive a hole through your fisc.

Future defence doctrines must factor in not just the ability to defend, but defend cost-effectively.

(This is an updated version of an earlier post the focused only on asymmetric warfare)