Latest news with #KennethWaltz
Indian Express
19 hours ago
- Politics
- Indian Express
Nuclear Iran is best bet for peace
The proliferation of nuclear arms is a net loss for global peace and security. It raises the risks of accidental war, empowers authoritarian regimes and undermines decades of nonproliferation efforts. From both a moral and strategic standpoint, it is better for Iran not to get the bomb. But what if it does? This is not a prediction nor a policy endorsement. It is a hypothesis grounded in the counterintuitive logic of deterrence theory and shaped by the failures of decades-long Western policy that have prioritised sanctions, limited engagement, covert sabotage and containment over comprehensive security guarantees to the Islamic Republic. In entertaining this possibility, I want to raise the uncomfortable but necessary question: Might Iran's acquisition of a nuclear deterrent actually lead to more stability in the Middle East? At the heart of this question lies a paradox as old as the nuclear age. Scholars and strategists alike — from Kenneth Waltz to Bernard Brodie — have pointed out that the sheer destructiveness of nuclear weapons creates powerful incentives for restraint. States that possess nuclear weapons are often more cautious, not less. Deterrence, for all its risks, has worked. The Cold War did not turn hot, despite multiple crises. India and Pakistan, bitter adversaries with a history of war, have avoided full-scale conflict since both became nuclear powers. And North Korea, for all its volatility, has managed to deter external intervention while pursuing strategic bargains with the outside world. Iran today is boxed in strategically — militarily inferior to Israel, diplomatically isolated from the West, and economically devastated by a combination of chronic internal mismanagement and severe international sanctions. Its regional ambitions are checked not only by rival Sunni states like Saudi Arabia (as in Yemen) but also by an emboldened Israel (since October 7, 2023) that now conducts military strikes and assassination campaigns on Iranian targets with near impunity. The result is a hyper-militarised deterrence environment, but one that is asymmetrical and unstable. Israel enjoys nuclear superiority; Iran relies on proxies and grey-zone tactics to exert influence and respond to threats. This imbalance has produced endless escalation cycles — from Syria to Gaza to the Persian Gulf — where miscalculations could spiral into full-blown war. The recent 12-day war between Iran and Israel is the perfect case in point. A nuclear Iran would alter this dynamic. First, it would constrain Israel's freedom of military action. The assumption that Israeli or US strikes will go unpunished — or that Iran will absorb blows without escalating — would no longer hold. A credible Iranian deterrent would inject caution into Israeli planning, especially in moments of political recklessness or brinkmanship. It would make the cost of war explicit. And history suggests that when adversaries both possess nuclear weapons, they become more risk-averse, not less. Second, a nuclear weapon could moderate Iran's behaviour. This may sound counterintuitive, but again, history offers precedent. Once a state has secured a nuclear deterrent, its need to rely on destabilising asymmetric tactics — proxies, insurgencies, covert operations — tends to decrease. Nuclear security allows for strategic maturity. India after 1998, China after 1964, and even the Soviet Union in the late Cold War period — all became more status quo-oriented and less revisionist after going nuclear. Possession of the bomb doesn't make a state benevolent, but it does force it to act like a state: Accountable, strategic, and aware of its own vulnerability. Would Iran follow this pattern? It's impossible to say. The regime is ideologically driven and repressive. But it is also calculating. Its leaders have repeatedly shown a capacity for pragmatism when the survival of the regime is at stake, as evidenced by the ceasefire that ended the Iran-Iraq War in 1988, the nuclear deal in 2015, and the most recent ceasefire with Israel. A nuclear deterrent might compel the Islamic Republic to moderate from within, as ideological paranoia gives way to pragmatic coexistence. The Middle East is already a nuclearised environment. Israel has the bomb. The US has military assets in the region capable of delivering nuclear strikes. Iran operates under constant existential threat. The question is not whether a nuclear Middle East is ideal — it is not — but whether it would be more stable if Iran, too, had the kind of deterrent that forces enemies to think twice before acting. This hypothesis is not an argument for acquiescence. The goal should still be diplomatic engagement, arms control, and regional dialogue. But if those efforts fail — and they are failing — then we should at least ask: Would a nuclear Iran be less dangerous than a cornered, insecure, and conventionally belligerent one? A nuclear Iran may well freeze the battlefield rather than ignite it, and that may be the best peace the region can hope for. The writer is associate professor of International Studies at the Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies, Indiana University, and the author of several books on Iran's political development and US-Iran relations
&w=3840&q=100)
First Post
25-06-2025
- Politics
- First Post
American bombings don't end the Iranian nuclear question; they simply reset the timeline
Iran is unlikely to abandon its ambitions altogether. If anything, the strikes have confirmed to Tehran that the West's assurances and the IAEA's frameworks offer no lasting protection from aggression read more On the night of June 21, 2025, the United States dropped more than just bombs; it dropped a signal to the world: 'Deterrence is out; denial is back'. In a stunning return to muscular pre-emption, 'Operation Midnight Hammer' unleashed a multi-theatre assault on Iran's nuclear facilities. The Pentagon confirmed that B-2 bombers, GBU-57 bunker busters, and Tomahawk missiles hammered Natanz, Fordow, and Isfahan. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth called the strikes 'devastating.' The Trump White House called it 'a necessary reset.' What it really was: a test case for the nuclear age's most unsettling question: can pre-emption ever replace deterrence? STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD These bombings represent the most significant military action against Iran's nuclear infrastructure since the Stuxnet sabotage of 2010 and the assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh in 2020. In the wake of these events, a question arises that transcends tactical military calculations: What does this mean for nuclear stability, and can classical strategic theory still explain such actions? Enter Kenneth Waltz American political scientist Kenneth Waltz's influential 1981 Adelphi papers (Number 171, IISS), The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: More May Be Better, offers a critical lens through which to assess these developments. At its core, Waltz's argument is counterintuitive when he suggests that nuclear weapons, by their very destructiveness, are stabilising forces. States that possess them, he underscores, become more cautious and more focused on survival, not aggression. In this light, the pre-emptive strikes on Iran's nuclear programme reflect not the irrationality of Iran's intentions but the persistent anxiety of its adversaries, who remain unconvinced by Waltz's atomic optimism. Now contrast that with the world's reaction to Iran's slow but deliberate march to nuclear latency. Iran has not conducted a test nor declared a bomb. Yet it has paid the price of a state that has cyber sabotage, assassinations, economic warfare, and now, a kinetic campaign of pre-emptive strikes. Waltz foresaw these military actions in his work: 'A country with nuclear weapons may be tempted to destroy the nascent force of a hostile country. This would be preventive war, a war launched against a weak country before it can become disturbingly strong'. This aptly describes the June 2025 strikes, which were not in response to an imminent Iranian nuclear breakout but rather to the potential of Iran nearing weaponization thresholds, allegedly within 'weeks,' according to leaked intelligence assessments. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD The Enduring Logic of Nuclear Self-Help Iran's nuclear ambitions are not new, but their persistence, despite IAEA inspections, international sanctions, cyber operations, and now overt strikes, signals something deeper: 'the logic of self-help in an anarchic international order and the most important way in which states must help themselves is by providing for their security.' Waltz further argued that nations seek nuclear weapons not to conquer but to deter. For Tehran, though not a 'clean (Shia Islamic) regime', surrounded by hostile Sunni Arab states, a nuclear-armed Israel, and an unpredictable US, nuclear weapons represent the ultimate insurance policy. This logic is only reinforced by repeated external interventions. Every act of sabotage or bombing deepens Iran's belief that sovereignty and survival require a credible second-strike capability. Waltz anticipated such scenarios, noting that feelings of insecurity may lead to arms races that subordinate civil needs to military necessities. In other words, strikes may delay Iran's programme, but they cannot erase its rationale. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Deterrence Vs Denial: The Israeli and US Dilemma Waltz's optimism rested on the assumption that nuclear deterrence works, even between rivals. He pointed to the Cold War standoff, India-Pakistan stability post-1971, and the cautious behaviour of nuclear-armed China. Yet the Israeli and American leaderships reject this logic vis-à-vis Iran, arguing that Tehran is a uniquely ideological actor that cannot be trusted with nuclear weapons. This assumption that deterrence fails in the face of religious or revolutionary zeal has long animated Israeli security doctrine. The Begin Doctrine, which justified the bombing of Iraq's Osirak reactor ( Operation Opera, 1981), has since evolved into a broader strategic policy of 'nuclear denial,' later seen in Syria ( Operation Orchard, 2007) and now Iran (2025). The Trump administration has reinforced this approach, dismantling JCPOA-era diplomatic channels and embracing direct action as a preferred mode of containment. Yet Waltz warned that denying nuclear capabilities through force may backfire. States struck in their developmental phase are likely to go underground, accelerate covert R&D, and insulate their programmes from external disruption. Iran's nuclear infrastructure is already highly decentralised, hardened, and increasingly indigenized. The strikes may delay timelines, but they may also erode remaining restraint within the Iranian system. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Can Waltz Stil****l Be Right? Amid the ongoing escalations, the US declared an abrupt ceasefire on June 24, but the truce unravelled almost immediately. That prompted Trump sharply criticizing both Tehran and Tel Aviv for engaging in pounding each other. This reflexive escalation somehow reflects Kenneth Waltz's caution that, in unstable environments, 'uncertainty and miscalculation cause wars', particularly when deterrence is absent or deliberately denied. As Waltz observed, 'Miscalculation causes wars. One side expects victory at an affordable price, while the other side hopes to avoid defeat.' In this case, the absence of a mutual deterrent framework, given Iran's nuclear vulnerability and Israel's overwhelming military superiority in the Middle East, has led to a situation where ceasefires are fragile and 'political logic may lead a country to attack even in the absence of an expectation of military victory.' Waltz's analysis helps us understand why temporary truces, without structural stability or reciprocal deterrence, often collapse under the weight of mutual suspicion and unbalanced coercive power. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD In another critical respect, Waltz's argument retains its relevance: nuclear weapons discipline states more often than not. Nuclear-armed states do not launch wars against each other easily. Despite occasional rhetorical escalation, North Korea, India-Pakistan, and even China-U.S. relations have remained within conventional bounds. The fear of mutual destruction alters strategic behaviour. Iran, even at the threshold stage, has shown such restraint. It has not retaliated with full-scale war even after provocations like General Soleimani's assassination (2020) or the latest June 2025 air strikes. Tehran's response so far has been limited to cyber operations and asymmetric proxy mobilization, reflecting the very caution Waltz predicted nuclearization would produce. Conclusion The June 21 bombings do not end the Iranian nuclear question; they simply reset the timeline. Iran is unlikely to abandon its ambitions altogether. If anything, the strikes have confirmed to Tehran that the West's assurances and the IAEA's frameworks offer no lasting protection from aggression. In Waltzian terms, the more vulnerable a state feels, the more rational a nuclear deterrent becomes. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD ** As the region braces for Iranian retaliation, direct or through proxies, the world must confront the enduring dilemma Waltz posed: Is stability better served by containment and deterrence or by denial and pre-emption? In 2025, the answer remains a matter of contention. But the costs of the latter regional escalation, erosion of norms, and nuclear latency are becoming increasingly difficult to ignore. Animesh Roul is Executive Director of the Society for the Study of Peace and Conflict (SSPC), New Delhi. He specialises in counter-terrorism and strategic affairs. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost's views. **
