Cordesman/Wilner, Iran & The Gulf Military Balance
AHC 6/3/12
104
strategic forces and the capacity to re-deploy non-strategic nuclear systems in East Asia, if needed, in times of crisis. The Administration is pursuing strategic dialogues with its allies and partners in East Asia and the Middle East to determine how best to cooperatively strengthen regional security architectures to enhance peace and security, and reassure them that U.S. extended deterrence is credible and effective.
US Preventive Strike Options The need to keep many key aspects of US plans and intelligence classified means that there is no clear way to determine exactly how top level US decision makers view the trade-offs between negotiation, preventive and preemptive military options, and deterrence/containment. Moreover, current US perceptions will almost certainly change with each state of Iran’s progress if Iran clearly moves to the point of a nuclear break out capability, then tests a device, an then begins to deploy some mix of nuclear armed forces. Given the timing of Iran’s actions, a different set of key actors are almost certain to be in office before Iran has significant nuclear capabilities, and possibly a different Administration. Iran may define its goals in ways that raise or lower US perceptions of threat, and the 5+1, Gulf, and other regional states may change their perceptions as well. The Diplomacy and Politics of Preventive Strikes The same problems occur in trying to guess at US plans and perceptions of preventive and preemptive strike options. It is clear that the US has strike assets that are far larger and more capable than those of Israel. At the same time, there is no practical way to determine how U.S. senior policymakers and military leaders perceive U.S. abilities to identify, target and destroy Iran’s current nuclear and other strike capabilities, or assess the degree to which this would provide security over time vs. provoking Iran into some massive new effort to acquire nuclear weapons. It is clear that the U.S. has conducted serious military contingency plans for years, has exercised and tested some elements of such trikes, and has improved its intelligence and targeting coverage. It is also clear from media sources that the US has focused on developing better ordnance to kill underground and hard targets, has developed regional missile defense options, is seeking to improve regional air defenses, and retains stealth and cruise missiles – options where Israel has far more limited capabilities – as important potential assets. What is not clear is exactly how the U.S. would approach such strikes, and how much acceptance or support it feels it needs, or can count on, from the Gulf and other neighboring states. The US does have major potential advantages over Israel. It may be possible to get the overt or covert support of Gulf States. It may be able to launch and base from bases in the Gulf area and carriers. It has sufficient forces to strike with near simultaneous strikes at key Iranian nuclear, missile, air defense, and leadership targets. Depending on its access to forward bases in or near the Gulf, the US can carry out a limited to massive wave of initial air and cruise missile strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities or a much wider range of Iranian targets and then take the time to assess battle damage, and carry out restrikes over a period of days, weeks, months, or years. Much depends on whether the US would be able to get regional support for a US presence and overwatch that would allow it to continue to strike Iran – if Iran attempted to reconstitute its 104