How Would Iranian Nuclear Forces Be Deployed?
Introduction
The Islamic Republic stated Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, “has absolutely no intention of utilizing its nuclear capabilities for military purposes.” He goes on to cite ideological and religious beliefs as the rationale for not seeking weaponization. However, religious persuasions do not provide a credible explanation for the leadership’s decision not to weaponize the Iranian nuclear program.
With the international security landscape changing rapidly and becoming increasingly uncertain and dangerous, it is imperative for the US national security establishment to consider how Iran would deploy its nuclear forces, should it ever exercise the political will to weaponize its nuclear program. In this article, I highlight that the impetus to develop a nuclear weapon depends on Iranian domestic political dynamics and argue that a nuclear Iran would adopt a deterrence-by-punishment posture, using its nuclear forces as a strategic deterrent.
Iranian Nuclear Behavior and Domestic Politics
Iran is a destabilizing actor in the Middle East. Its constant attempts to attack Israel and threaten regional Arab powers are emblematic of Iranian belligerence. Equally, Iran continually poses a threat to American security and interests, both regionally and internationally.
While Iran has demonstrated a propensity to sow disorder whenever the opportunity arises, the regime does not behave irrationally when it pertains to its nuclear program. Despite threatening to weaponize its nuclear program in the past, Iran has repeatedly refrained from doing so, which is indicative of its rationality. While rationality carries many meanings, it is inferred in this context that there is a logic, order, and sense to Iran’s nuclear program and concomitant nuclear latency.
Namely, that Iran’s nuclear latency has enabled the regime to maximize its ability to instrumentalize the threat of nuclear breakout in pursuit of strategic goals. A latent nuclear capability entails that Iran has all the requisite capabilities to develop nuclear weapons relatively rapidly. However, Iran has refrained from exercising the political will to weaponize its fissile materials, even while engaged in a devastating regional war with Israel.
Whilst no political leader has chosen to weaponize Iran’s nuclear program, historically hardliners tend to use the threat of uranium enrichment to gain concessions from adversaries and to rally nationalist sentiment domestically. In contrast, moderates tend to preside over periods of relative transparency regarding Iran’s nuclear activities, measured by a willingness to cooperate more closely with the United Nation’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). While the distinction between moderates and hardliners in Iran is a blurred and unreliable one, presidents of varying political persuasions have behaved differently on nuclear policy issues.
For example, by the end of his tenure, Mohammad Khatami suspended Iran’s uranium enrichment activities as part of a cooperation agreement with the European Union. As Gaukhar Mukhatzhanova observed, “US National Intelligence Estimates concluded that Iran had halted the weaponization activities in 2003…at the height of US power and adventurism [in the Middle East], the perception of threat in Iran was that it led away from nuclear weapons, not toward it.” Likewise, it was under Hassan Rouhani that Tehran negotiated and signed the Joint-Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), agreeing to halt uranium enrichment to 3.7 percent in exchange for the unfreezing of assets and the lifting of sanctions.
Contrastingly, when hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came to power, the terms of the EU agreement Khatami negotiated were rejected, and the team that had successfully negotiated the agreement was replaced. Iran’s uranium enrichment activities were resumed, and IAEA inspections efforts obstructed. The consequent reinstatement of Western sanctions spurred hardliners to rhetorically corelate Iran’s nuclear program with a much-needed sense of self-sufficiency.
These patterns in Iran’s nuclear behavior align with Scott Sagan’s domestic politics model of proliferation. According to Sagan’s domestic politics model, states decide to pursue nuclear weapons based on their internal political dynamics, encompassing the role of interest groups, public opinion, political persuasions, and economic interests. As Sagan states, “domestic actors encourage or discourage governments from pursuing the bomb.”
Similarities can be drawn with India’s proliferation model. Like Iran, India did not develop nuclear weapons when it faced dire direct military threats from China and Pakistan; instead, India waited 24 years after testing a peaceful nuclear device before officially acquiring nuclear weapons. Applying the domestic politics model to India, Sagan argued that public opinion played an instrumental role in Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s decision to conduct nuclear tests in 1974. Likewise in 1998, political considerations drove India’s decision to openly become a nuclear power.
Had Iran weaponized its nuclear program during the Iran-Iraq War (1980-88) or during the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 when it faced direct and existential military threats, the security model would have provided a more accurate framework in which to understand Iran’s nuclear program. However, Iran discontinued its nuclear weapons program in 1987, and during the Iraq War in 2003, Iran offered to assist US counter-terrorism efforts in the region. Therefore, the impetus to develop nuclear weapons in Iran appears contingent on domestic political factors, as opposed to external security threats or norms.
Imagining Iran’s Nuclear Posture
How Iran deploys its nuclear forces would depend on the posture it adopts. Nuclear posture can be defined as the structure, orientation, array and positioning of a state’s nuclear forces. According to Vipin Narang, the three nuclear postures regional nuclear powers can adopt are catalytic, asymmetric escalation, and assured retaliation. Because Iran does not face acute security threats on its borders, it would not seek to utilise nuclear weapons for reasons other than as a strategic deterrent.
Considering Iran’s strategic environment, it is improbable that it should adopt either a catalytic or asymmetric escalation posture. This is because a catalytic posture requires a reliable third-party nuclear patron that Iran could compel to intervene on its behalf in crises or conflict situations. Despite growing strategic partnerships with Russia and China, serious doubts remain over whether Iran could rely on either. Concerning the former, recent events in Syria suggest that Russia will gradually withdraw its military presence from the region to bolster its attritionary campaign in Ukraine, leaving Iranian proxies more exposed and further weakening the regime’s regional military standing.
An asymmetric escalation posture also seems unlikely, as Iran does not face direct external threats to its security, with neighboring adversaries Iraq and Afghanistan now conventionally weaker, and relations with Pakistan having more recently improved.
Hence, Iran is likely to adopt an assured retaliation posture.
An assured retaliation posture is a deterrence-by-punishment posture that enables a state to possess a second-strike capability, meaning that it can absorb a first strike and retaliate with a nuclear strike of its own, causing unacceptable levels of damage in the process. As a posture oriented toward strategic deterrence, achieving a credible assured retaliatory posture would best enable Iran to protect its vital interests.
Regarding assured retaliation being Iran’s likeliest prospective posture, comparisons with India are once again salient. Narang states, “India relies on a secure and survivable nuclear force, arrayed for an assure retaliatory strike against their primary opponents’ strategic targets.” Iran’s existing military capabilities support this assertion, and Iran’s current missile capabilities lend some insight into how Iran’s nuclear forces could be deployed.
According to Henrik Hiim, “Iran possesses the largest and most diverse missile arsenal in the Middle East, several of its missiles are nuclear-capable…. In addition, Iran is developing space-launch vehicles (SLVs) which facilitate the development of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).” Thus, the strategic utility of Iran’s missile capabilities indicates that Iran would seek to have highly survivable nuclear forces.
Highly survivable forces enable a nuclear weapons state to more credibly threaten nuclear retaliation after it has been attacked with a nuclear-first strike. By this logic, Iran would disperse its nuclear forces in various geographic locations, making it exceedingly challenging for a would-be aggressor to launch a successful disarming first strike. Such deployment arrangements would enhance survivability and strengthen the deterrent threat, objectives inherent to assured retaliation.
Conclusion
The Islamic Republic’s regime should never be permitted to acquire a nuclear weapon—firstly in the interest of upholding the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and secondly due to the regime’s history of aggression and state-sponsoring of terrorism regionally and globally. Nevertheless, the regime has, so far, not taken the necessary political steps to weaponize its nuclear program. Instead, as recent statements by President Pezeshkian suggest, Iran is hoping to revert to a strategy that involves combining diplomatic overtures laced with the tacit threat of nuclear weaponization, in order to extract concessions from Western powers.
It is difficult to predict how the Trump administration will respond to this. While the US president has a deep disdain for the JCPOA, he is also unpredictable and approaches diplomatic engagements in a transactional manner. A word of caution for President Trump: it is unwise to assume that Iran is a reliable actor; hence negotiating with the regime may prove to be a futile endeavor.
What is certain is that in the current regional strategic and security environment, it would not benefit Iran to acquire nuclear weapons. Becoming a nuclear weapons state would come at the consternation of Iran’s only major power partners in China and Russia, and thus deepen Iranian isolation, worsening its already lack-luster global standing. Iran’s ascension to nuclear weapons status would also exacerbate regional instability and increase the prospect of horizontal nuclear proliferation. Additionally, nuclear weapons would render Iran the target of US and NATO nuclear force targeting and, what is worse, turn the prospect of a regional nuclear conflagration with Israel into a serious and terrifying possibility. In other words, acquiring nuclear weapons would make Iran significantly less secure in what is already a dangerously precarious security environment for the regime.
Furthermore, Iran’s nuclear latency has worked relatively well for the regime so far, providing the regime with some diplomatic bargaining power. Weaponizing its nuclear program would prove to be a strategic miscalculation, reducing Tehran’s only genuine source of diplomatic leverage. However, if Iran were to acquire nuclear weapons, it would most likely adopt an assured retaliation posture and use its nuclear forces as a strategic deterrent. For now, however, that “if” remains a big one.
