Nuclear weapons won't necessarily make Iran more aggressive
Historical record is mixed on whether new nuclear nations become more aggressive or not, with nuclear weapons in some cases making aggressive nations less bellicose.
Quicktabs: Arguments
Nevertheless, one can overstate both the probability and the effectiveness of blackmail. It is again useful to recall that analysts expressed similar fears about China when it acquired nuclear weapons, yet Beijing's behavior for the most part did not validate those fears. Although China did attack Vietnam in 1979, the PRC's conduct since the late 1960s has generally been less, rather than more, bellicose than it was when China lacked a nuclear capability. That episode illustrates the larger point that nuclear weapons are much more useful as a deterrent against possible adversaries than they are as a mechanism for intimidating those adversaries, much less for war-fighting purposes. There are indications over the past several years that the two newest nuclear powers, India and Pakistan, have reached that conclusion. As in the case of China after the 1960s, New Delhi and Islamabad appear to have become more cautious and restrained since they built nuclear arsenals. One cannot guarantee that Tehran would follow that pattern, but by the same token it is unwarranted to assume that the Iranian regime would engage in rampant blackmail.
First, will the acquisition of nuclear weapons by the current regime make Iran more or less aggressive within the region or beyond it? There is much debate but no consensus on this issue among specialists.Some contend that Iran will become more aggressive in pursuit of its interests in the Gulf and more intimidating in its demands for regional cooperation. An assertive Iran could demand that U.S. bases in the region be closed, or it could threaten to resume its efforts to export the revolution as it did in the early 1980s when it tried to sabotage U.S.–friendly facilities and regimes in the Gulf. It could become more assertive in oil policy, more anti-Israel, or more meddlesome in Iraqi or Israeli-Palestinian affairs. On the other hand, some Iranian scholars argue that a nuclear-secure Iran will be more moderate in its foreign and security relationships and that a more powerful Iran is actually a less dangerous Iran.Others stress that Iran has an inferiority complex, wants nuclear weapons for psychological comfort and to ensure regime survival, and therefore would base its nuclear strategy on defensive deterrence. Iranians, they say, recognize that use of nuclear weapons against Israeli or U.S. targets would be suicidal. They also point out that such use would be historically uncharacteristic; after all, Iran has not invaded or attacked another country for over 150 years. These latter observers predict that a nuclear armed Iran would not be any more aggressive than it currently is, would have better relations with the United States, and would be less likely to support terrorist organizations.
Notwithstanding these considerations, it is important not to overestimate the utility of nuclear weapons. To date, nation-states have not found them to be useful as instruments of overt military aggression. While the possession of nuclear weapons may allow North Korea and Iran to pursue more vigorously objectives that run counter to U.S. interests, it seems likely that these adversaries will do this in a constrained fashion. In fact, we have no historical cases in which an emerging nuclear power undertook large-scale military aggression to advance revisionist claims. So we do not foresee a nuclear-armed North Korea becoming likelier to invade South Korea. Nor do we expect that Iran would use nuclear weapons, should it acquire them, as a shield to facilitate large-scale conventional aggression against Saudi Arabia, the Persian Gulf states, or adversaries further afield, including Israel.
A close look at the history of the nuclear age shows that countries with nuclear weapons are neither more likely to make coercive threats nor more likely to succeed in blackmailing their adversaries. Nuclear powers such as the United States and the Soviet Union certainly made numerous threats after they acquired nuclear weapons. But so did Libya, Serbia, Turkey, Iraq, Venezuela, and dozens of other countries that did not possess the bomb. Nuclear weapons are not a prerequisite for engaging in military blackmail. Further, there is scant evidence that possessing the bomb makes coercive threats more successful when they are made. Nuclear weapons did not help the United States compel North Korea to release the USS Pueblo and its crew in 1968. Israeli coercive threats backed by the implicit threat of nuclear war failed against Syria prior to the 1982 Lebanon War, just as British threats against Argentina in 1982 were unable to compel the return of the Falkland Islands, despite Britain’s possession of nuclear weapons.
Would a nuclear-armed Iran have more success blackmailing its neighbors? The historical record suggests not. For example, during the 20th century, Britain made successful threats against Germany, the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Turkey, and others before acquiring nuclear weapons in 1952. Since acquiring the bomb, however, it has made only one successful threat, as part of a NATO coalition against the Bosnian Serbs in 1994. Many hardliners say Iran’s ideological fervor makes it unique. US officials voiced similar concerns about Mao’s China in the early 1960s. But nuclear weapons did not embolden China. Iran today is certainly different from China in the 1960s, but policymakers would do well to remember that apocalyptic fears about nuclear proliferation are not new.
The Pakistani-Indian conflict may be such a situation. Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal may have enabled it to engage in riskier behavior in Kashmir than it otherwise would attempt, because nuclear weapons help to deter Pakistan’s ultimate nightmare: an assault by the militarily superior India, which could slice Pakistan in two and perhaps destroy it completely. But if you try to apply that logic to Iran, no one is playing the role of India. Iran has its own tensions and rivalries with its neighbors— including Iraq, Saudi Arabia, other states on the Persian Gulf, and Pakistan. But none of these pose the kind of existential threat that Pakistan sees coming from India. Moreover, none of the current disputes between Iran and its neighbors (such as the one over ownership of some small islands also claimed by the United Arab Emirates) come close to possessing the nation-defining significance that the Kashmir conflict poses for both Pakistan and India.
Nevertheless, even some observers and policymakers who accept that the Iranian regime is rational still worry that a nuclear weapon would embolden it, providing Tehran with a shield that would al low it to act more aggressively and increase its support for terrorism. Some analysts even fear that Iran would directly provide terrorists with nuclear arms. The problem with these concerns is that they contradict the record of every other nuclear weapons state going back to 1945. History shows that when countries acquire the bomb, they feel increasingly vulnerable and become acutely aware that their nuclear weapons make them a potential target in the eyes of major powers. This awareness discourages nuclear states from bold and aggressive action. Maoist China, for example, became much less bellicose after acquiring nuclear weapons in 1964, and India and Pakistan have both become more cautious since going nuclear. There is little reason to believe Iran would break this mold.
In 1964, when the PRC tested its arst nuclear device, China was perhaps the most “rogue” state in modern history. Mao Zedong’s domestic policies caused the death of tens of millions of China’s citizens. Moreover, he had pursued an aggressive foreign policy before the atomic test. Examples include attacking India, aghting the United States directly in Korea and by proxy in Vietnam (where it armed a nonstate actor, the Vietcong), and threatening war over Tai- wan. Mao made a series of highly irresponsible statements about the PRC surviving and even thriving in a nuclear war. No country in the post–World War II period—not Iraq, Iran, or even North Korea—has given U.S. policymak- ers more reason to fear its nuclearization than China.34
Within five years of the PRC’s nuclear test, however, the United States and China initiated a covert dialogue. In less than a decade, they began an anti- Soviet alliance that put great pressure on Russia and helped to bring the Cold War to an end. Nuclear weapons did not make China more hostile. If anything, its foreign policies became less aggressive and more mature over time. Today China has one of the most restrained and most responsible nuclear force postures and deployment policies of any nuclear power; it maintains a mini- mal deterrent under tight command and control while eschewing a arst-use doctrine.35
That Iran—surrounded by rivals with nuclear ambitions and singled out by the United States, the largest military power in the world—has an interest in nuclear weapons is not surprising. Even assessments that view Iranian behavior as a challenge to U.S. interests in the Middle East do not consider the regime as threatening as the PRC was during the 1960s. As Shahram Chubin writes, “It is not overtly confrontational or given to wild swings in behavior or to delusional goals; it has not denounced arms control treaties to which it formally adheres; and there is evidence of pluralism and some debate within the country.”36 Nuclear weapons could make Iran more aggressive. Or, as with China, they could provide international legitimacy and security, making Iran less aggressive than it has been. As one recent analysis put it, “If anything, Iran might and that possession of a nuclear weapon actually diminishes its op- tions in the Middle East and forces it to act with greater restraint.”37 A deeper understanding of nuclear history and the underlying geopolitical circum- stances Iran faces makes the prospect that it would take actions (such as supplying Hamas or Hezbollah with nuclear weapons) that could invite its own destruction highly unlikely.38
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The author reviews his recent study using historical examples to predict how states will act once they have acquired nuclear weapons, finding "history suggests that if Iran were to acquire nuclear weapons, it would be less universally emboldened than the pessimists fear, but nor would it find nuclear weapons to be useless."
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