Schrödinger's Nuke: How Iran's Nuclear Weapons Program Exists – and Doesn't Exist – at the Same Time
1 Jun 2015
By John R Haines for Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI)
This article was external pageoriginally published by the external pageForeign Policy Research Institute in May 2015.
"If we master nuclear technology, we will be transformed into a regional superpower and will dominate 17 Muslim countries in this neighborhood...We have reached a very important stage and we need to pay a price for making Iran powerful." - Major General Moshen Reza’i, 24 March 2006
"Schrödinger's cat" is a classic thought-experiment in which a cat concealed in a box is said to be simultaneously alive and dead though obviously it is one or the other. The paradox's basis is that each outcome is equally uncertain, and it is unknown which outcome is false. Thus, in the absence of actually knowing which outcome is false, the two mutually exclusive outcomes are said to be equally "true."
And so it is with Iran's nuclear weapon program. The Islamic Republic of Iran has a nuclear weapon program—indeed, it has had one for decades[1]—and, at the same time, it does not. This article probes the roots of that paradox. It begins by parsing the meaning of the "nuclear weapons program" triad, viz., uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing; explosive nuclear device fabrication; and weapon delivery systems.
In the early 1980s the leaders of the Islamic Republic quickly revived Iran's Pahlavi-era nuclear program amidst a bitter struggle with neighboring Iraq.
"The Government of Iran's 1982 decision to reinstitute the Pahlavi regime's nuclear program [...] ironically [...] continued what many scholars see as the Pahlavi regime's strategy of running a parallel weapons program, using Iran's openly declared civil nuclear power program as a springboard for developing weapon grade fuel, and as cover to mask its development of the technical know-how for weapons design and manufacturing.[2]
A principal basis for claiming today that Iran does not have a nuclear weapons program is a November 2007 United States National Intelligence Estimate.[3] In that document, the Director of National Intelligence averred, "We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program," defined as "Iran’s nuclear weapon design and weaponization work and covert uranium conversion-related and uranium enrichment-related work."[4] However, the 2007 NIE also states that because of "intelligence gaps," the Department of Energy and the National Intelligence Council could "assess only with moderate confidence that the halt to those activities represents a halt to Iran's entire nuclear weapons program." It leaves unresolved how Iran unlearned things once learned, or how it un-mastered technical and engineering challenges earlier mastered.
The 2007 NIE neither specified exactly what nuclear weapons efforts Iran halted nor what it achieved prior to the 2003 "halt" nor explained how halting one element of a complex program—even if, as the 2007 NIE contends, Iran's enrichment and reprocessing activities ceased by late 2003—meant that the Islamic Republic's nuclear weapons program as a whole suddenly ceased to exist. The document goes on:
"This NIE does not assume that Iran intends to acquire nuclear weapons. Rather, it examines the intelligence to assess Iran’s capability and intent (or lack thereof) to acquire nuclear weapons, taking full account of Iran’s dual-use uranium fuel cycle and those nuclear activities that are at least partly civil in nature."[5]
The 2007 NIE's controversial claims regarding Iranian "capabilities and intent" are based on a series of judgments, some or all of which are presumably informed in part by classified material that has not been released. Thus the basis for many seemingly contestable claims remains a subject for speculation but in the end is unknown. What is known, however, is that the NIE's claims were based on conditional "assessments and judgments," qualified as "In all cases...not intended to imply that we have 'proof' that shows something to be a fact."[6]
Jack Davis pioneered analytic tradecraft at CIA. He once described what he called the "intelligence food chain." Atop the food chain sit Facts, followed by Findings and Forecasts, and at the bottom, ungrounded judgments that Davis dismissed as Fortune Telling. The 2007 NIE's claims about Iranian "capabilities and intent" sit somewhere between fortune telling to findings, but self-admittedly fall short of facts.[7]
Much has been said concerning nuclear weapons and the Islamic Republic of Iran. While some of this commentary is thoughtful and well informed, much of it—on both sides of the question—is—lamentably—neither.
The narrow question here is whether there is a credible basis for believing Iran possesses a working nuclear weapon of some configuration, and/or whether Iran has mastered all the techniques required to fabricate one. This article is based on open-source materials unless expressly noted as reflecting the author's belief. The author has in all cases avoided the use of documents that cannot be found in the public domain.
A quick note about what this essay does not presume to cover. It offers no special insight into Iran's enrichment/reprocessing activities and capabilities, or its missile delivery platforms. Both of these important subjects are extensively and competently covered elsewhere, and readers are left to peruse that material on their own. Nor does this essay offer any special insight into Iranian intentions other than to suggest plausible contours of a governing nuclear doctrine. Here, the author takes sharp issue with how that doctrine is portrayed conventionally—a view surprisingly common to those who claim, respectively, that Iran has, and does not have, a nuclear weapons program—which the author suggests are based on a shared reductive mis-analogy.
The current "P5+1" discussions are represented as seeking to impose limits on Iran's ability to "go nuclear." That representation is inaccurate in the author's view. The current talks—neither side's self-declared "understandings" have yet been reduced to writing and/or accepted by the other side—are focused on imposing time-restricted limits on Iran's uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing activities. Iran's development of advanced medium (and possibly, intermediate) range missile platforms lies outside the bounds of the P5+1 talks. What also is outside the bounds of the restarted discussions is the matter of exactly what Iran has achieved in the nuclear realm since the 1970s, including clarity on the question of the Islamic Republic's earlier efforts to acquire contraband nuclear weapons and weapons-grade fissile material from proliferator-states and non-state traffickers.
I. Configuring Iran's Nuclear Weapon Triad
"He who knows how to advance, but has not learned to retreat under certain difficult conditions, will not triumph in war."
-Vladimir Lenin
From a realist perspective, the Islamic Republic's development of nuclear weapons was wholly predictable, given the strategic environment that Iran faced in the late 1970s and early 1980s. As those threats mitigated or neutralized, however, Iran never changed its doctrinal objectives. Balance of power considerations were the impetus for its nuclear weapons program; bureaucratic politics inside the Islamic Republic have ensured its continued pursuit.[8]
It is plausible that Iran at some point managed to accumulate sufficient weapon-grade fissile material—the source of which, if true, is likely a combination of material produced by Iran's indigenous enrichment/reprocessing program; illicit material diverted from another nuclear state (likely a former Soviet republic); and/or material sourced directly from nuclear charges diverted from another state (same likely origin)—to field a limited number of defensive, tactical-as-battlefield nuclear weapons.[9] If so, Iran likely re-ordered the nuclear weapon triad to prioritize the fabrication of explosive nuclear devices paired with a simple delivery system. If, as the November 2007 NIE claimed, Iran in fact had temporarily suspended enrichment/reprocessing activities, one possible explanation for such a step is that it had adequate material on hand, suspending enrichment/reprocessing as a subterfuge.[10]
For the balance of this essay, we will employ the definition of a nuclear weapon as comprising three parts formulated by a senior counselor in the Russian Foreign Affairs Ministry, Vladimir Rybachenkov: a nuclear munition; a nuclear charge; and a delivery vehicle and its associated control system. A nuclear munition is the component of a delivery vehicle (e.g., a missile, torpedo, air bomb, or artillery projectile) that contains a nuclear charge, which is the device that produces a nuclear explosion.[11] For reasons stated earlier, the discussion that follows focuses on nuclear munitions and charges rather than delivery systems.
What land war doctrine might be associated with the Islamic Republic acquiring and/or fabricating a nuclear munition and incorporating it into a simple delivery vehicle, e.g., an artillery shell or land mine? With a land area roughly equal to that of Alaska, Iran's land war doctrine is built around a flexible, layered defense that exploits the country's strategic depth and terrain. The Islamic Republic evolved a parallel set of armed forces each with its own subservices (army, navy & air force). On one side there is the Islamic Republic of Iran Army ("IRIA"), the country's regular military also known as Artesh.[12] On the other side there is the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). IRIA ground forces form a first line of defense against an invading force while IRGC ground forces form a second line of defense and act as a reserve.
One point raised consistently in the context of any discussion of Iran's suspected nuclear weapons program is its ballistic missile program, which operates under the control of the IRGC. It is true that the ballistic missile force has taken on an increasingly central place in Iran's deterrence strategy, and is at least implicitly linked to IRGC-controlled Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, and Explosives (CBRNe) programs. It is also likely that one or more of Iran's ballistic missile force platforms—for example, the Shahab-3 medium-range ballistic missile—were developed for use as nuclear delivery platforms. There is no open-source evidence, however, to establish whether or not Iran has mastered miniaturization, weaponization and other tasks associated with mounting and delivering a nuclear missile warhead. There is compelling evidence that it did not possess this capability in the period in question here, i.e., the 1980s and 1990s. A bona fide nuclear role for the ballistic missile force would force the Islamic Republic leadership to reassess its missile doctrine, which today is countervalue—targeting population centers[13]—rather than counterforce.
Iran's overall military doctrine is based on a denial strategy known as a mosaic defense.[14] It seeks to nullify numeric and/or technological advantages enjoyed by a superior enemy force by requiring that force to find, isolate and defeat each "tile" of the defensive mosaic. While the enemy force might bypass defensive strong points during an initial thrust into the Iranian heartland, sooner or later it must deal with each “tile.” Iran in the meantime would launch full spectrum warfare against the enemy, to include military, political and economic counter-pressure. In the words of the Head of the IRGC Center of Strategy, Brigadier General Mohammad Ali Jafari:
"As the likely enemy is far more advanced technologically than we are, we have been using what is called 'asymmetric warfare’ methods... We have gone through the necessary exercises and our forces are now well prepared for this."[15]
Similarly, IRIA Minister of Defense and Logistics Major General Mostafa Mohammad-Najjar said in February 2006, "The armed forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran enjoy a unique superiority in asymmetrical defense in the entire region, relying on their own defense capabilities."[16]
The Islamic Republic evolved a defensive doctrine against threats posed by states with nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, and a minimum deterrent doctrine against states with formidable conventional military capabilities.[17] Gregory Giles points out in his work on Iran’s unconventional weapons doctrine that, while too often overlooked, the Islamic State’s posture on chemical weapons at the end of the Iraq war implied a “no first-use” policy, in lieu of which Iran followed a second-strike doctrine to deter follow-on unconventional attacks.[18] The question is whether this doctrine carried over into the nuclear realm.
To be an effective deterrent, a second-strike nuclear capability must be perceived as able to survive a first-strike counterforce engagement. However difficult this may seem, it is equally difficult for an attacker, whose counterforce first-strike must have near-certainty of destroying Iran's second-strike capability. The mutual deterrent effect of a nuclear-ambiguous Iran would limit potential adversaries' freedom of action by making unacceptable the expected cost of military action—here, an attack on the Iranian homeland, or on, say, suspected nuclear facilities. Robert Jervis postulates that states like Iran also can use a mutual deterrent relationship as strategic cover for local aggression, something referred to as the “stability–instability paradox.”[19]
The available evidence seems to support this reading. In December 2001, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani “invoked a hypothetical Muslim nuclear capability. Importantly, he seemed to posit such a capability as a second-strike deterrent against the [existential threat] posed by pre-emptive attacks by Israel or the United States against Iran.”[20] Rafsanjani's emphasis on a second-strike capability for the Islamic Republic to deter Israel and the United States may indicate that Iran, like China before its 1964 nuclear weapon test, planned for a nuclear deterrent capability in the long term, but was willing to settle for a defensive doctrine—denying an invader’s military objectives—in the interim.[21]
One factor to keep in mind is that in the absence of alliances, Iran is forced to balance regional threats by itself. This unambiguously forces Iran towards deterrence as a way to maintain its sovereignty and to assert political power within the region. A 2010 Pentagon report summarized Iran's deterrence strategy this way:
"Iran is developing technological capabilities applicable to nuclear weapons and, at a minimum, is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons, if it chooses to do so. [...] Iran's military strategy is designed to defend against external or 'hard' threats from the United States and Israel. Iran's principles of military strategy include deterrence, asymmetrical retaliation, and attrition warfare. Iran's nuclear program and its willingness to keep open the possibility of developing nuclear weapons is a central part of its deterrent strategy. Iran can conduct limited offensive operations with its strategic ballistic missile program and improved naval forces."[22]
Iranian perceptions aside, it is highly unlikely that either the United States or Israel would attack unless Iran was known to be on the threshold of mobilizing or using nuclear weapons. Thus contrary to acting as a deterrent, an unambiguous nuclear program would increase rather than deter the threat of Iran being attacked.[23] Accordingly, Iran has adopted a posture of nuclear ambiguity, a perception fostered by the conflict between its well-known, serial efforts to acquire nuclear munitions and weapon-grade fissile material; and at the same time, the Islamic Republic's repeated denial of any nuclear ambitions.[24]
In this context the objective of using tactical nuclear weapons is to cause "gridlock" or stalemate on the battlefield.[25] This has direct bearing on the choice of a delivery system to produce optimal gridlock. The radiation contamination associated with an airburst weapon (e.g., Iran's Shahab-3) is confined and lasts only 24-96 hours. The additional of chemical contamination may extend that period to 2-4 days, but the important point is that the relatively confined geographic area that is contaminated means it can be easily bypassed, avoiding gridlock. A surface burst weapon in contrast contaminates a far larger (3x) area and so is harder to bypass.[26]
The author maintains that the Islamic Republic's armed forces have, for at least a decade, been adequate to deter conventional aggression by regional adversaries. Iranian opacity regarding nuclear weapons enlarges the deterrent effect of its conventional forces by an order of magnitude, dissuading potential adversaries from mounting an existential threat to the Iranian homeland. A tactical-as-battlefield nuclear force dovetails cleanly into Iran's mosaic defense doctrine. This is textbook Cold War nuclear strategy circa 1960s and 1970s—here is one example from a mid-1960s Soviet thought-piece about a war in central Europe:
"NATO command attaches a great deal of importance to the employment of nuclear land mines, especially at the outbreak of war. [...] An important army group must have at least 250 nuclear land mines which may be deployed for the purpose of delaying an attack of the enemy ground forces and for forcing them to concentrate in an area where they can advantageously destroy them by nuclear and conventional means."[27]
Here is another from a c.1970s Central Intelligence Agency assessment of Soviet intentions:
"The introduction of nuclear-capable artillery will provide low-yield tactical nuclear weapons and delivery systems with sufficient accuracy to permit employment in close proximity to Pact forces."[28]
If as argued later in this essay, the Islamic Republic in fact has managed to secure—or to the same effect, if potential adversaries think it likely that Iran has secured—a limited number of tactical, possibly fractional-yield nuclear weapons, then Iran would have to develop some controlling doctrine to regulate their use. Iran of course denies possessing or seeking nuclear weapons, so there would be no public articulation of such a doctrine. It is reasonable to speculate that the leadership of the Islamic Republic might look to other states for doctrinal models.
Read the external pagefull essay.
Endnotes
[1] Iran's nuclear program goes back nearly 60 years to April 1957, when it signed an "Atoms for Peace" agreement with the United States. In 1967, the United States shipped enriched uranium and plutonium to Iran for use as research reactor fuel. In the early 1970s, Iran and the United States reached agreement to establish multinational uranium enrichment and reprocessing facilities inside Iran, and to build an Iranian uranium enrichment facility in the United States. In 1974, the Pahlavi regime established the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) in response to a Stanford Research Institute study published a year earlier. That study posited Iran's need for nuclear energy based on the life expectancy of its oil reserves, which were expected to begin a long-term productivity decline between 2010 and 2020. Bilateral cooperation continued into the late 1970s with agreements on nuclear technology exchange and spent fuel reprocessing. However, the declaration of the Islamic Republic brought comity in the nuclear arena to an abrupt halt in 1979, with the new regime quickly (and to its later regret) dismantling the AEOI.
As to nuclear weapons specifically, the Shah in June 1974 said Iran would get nuclear weapons "without a doubt and sooner than one would think," a statement he quickly disavowed. In February 1975, the Shah made the more nuanced comment that Iran "had no intention of acquiring nuclear weapons, but if small states began building them, Iran might have to reconsider its policy." [external pagehttp://isis-online.org/country-pages/iran. Last accessed 8 May 2015] The Pahlavi regime established a nuclear weapons research program in the 1970s according to Akbar Etemad, a former vice prime minister and the AEOI's founder and first president. Etemad said he created a special nuclear research team “to give the country access to all technologies, giving the political decision-makers the possibility of making the appropriate decision and doing so while time permitted them to build a bomb if that is what was required.” [external pagehttp://www.dawn.com/news/116623/iran-opted-for-n-bomb-under-shah-ex-offi.... Last accessed 8 May 2015]
[2] For example, see: Brenda Schaffer (2003). “Iran at the Nuclear Threshold.” Arms Control Today [published online 1 November 2003]. external pagehttp://www.armscontrol.org/act/2003_11/Shaffer?print. Last accessed 7 May 2015.
[3] Office of the Director of National Intelligence (2007). Iran: Intentions and Capabilities. National Intelligence Estimate, November 2007. external pagehttp://www.dni.gov/files/documents/Newsroom/Reports%20and%20Pubs/2007120.... Last accessed 17 April 2015.
[4] Office of the Director of National Intelligence (2007), op cit.
[5] Ibid
[6] Ibid.
[7] Forecasting is an intelligence judgment based on a set of explicit linchpins—factors that likely will determine whether an action does or does occur. These factors include triggers—plausible developments that could uncouple the linchpins holding the argument together—and signposts—early indicators that the forecast's bottom-line judgment needs revision. When forecasting goes awry—fortune telling—it is often because an intelligence judgment focused on asserting a bottom-line judgment. See: Douglas J. MacEachin (1995), "Tradecraft of Analysis," in Roy Godson, Ernest R. May & Gary Schmitt, eds. U.S. Intelligence at the Crossroads: Agendas for Reform. (Dulles: Brassey's, 1995).
[8] Charles C. Mayer (2004). National Security Interests to Nationalist Myth: Why Iran Wants Nuclear Weapons. Monterey, CA: Naval Postgraduate School), pp. 3-4.
[9] The rationale for this proposition is elaborated later in the essay. As also discussed later in the essay, Iran has manifold good (and not so good) reasons to maintain a posture of ambiguity, in its case, suspect denials of nuclear ambitions.
[10] This is, of course, speculation, and the author acknowledges that other, non-exclusive explanations have been advanced including the disruption of Iran's enrichment infrastructure by means of cyber-espionage. However, it is reasonable to speculate that Iran would seek to acquire a small number of nuclear weapons as "weapons of last resort," as Victor Utgoff wrote in 2000 [The Coming Crisis: Nuclear Proliferation, U.S. Interests, and World Order. (Cambridge: Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs),p.114.] Utgoff is Deputy Director of the Strategy, Forces, and Resources Division of the Institute for Defense Analyses.
[11] Under United States law, a "nuclear explosive device" is “any device...designed to produce an instantaneous release of an amount of nuclear energy from special nuclear material that is greater than the amount of energy that would be released from the detonation of one pound of trinitrotoluene (TNT).” See: 22 USCS § 6305 (4).
[12] Literally, "the army." Persian: ارتش.
[13] Iran's countervalue doctrine today may limit acceptable targets to a subset referred to as critical infrastructure targets.
[14] The development of Iran's mosaic doctrine was highly influenced by Chinese warfare doctrines, especially the February 1999 publication of "Unrestricted Warfare" as well as similar North Korean and Vietnamese doctrines.
[15] Quoted in Jahangir Arasli (2006). Obsolete Weapons, Unconventional Tactics, and Martyrdom Zeal. How Iran Would Apply its Asymmetric Naval Warfare Doctrine in a Future Conflict. (Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany: George C. Marshall Center for Security Studies), p. 40.
[16] Ibid., p. 41.
[17] Charles C. Mayer (2004). National Security Interests to Nationalist Myth: Why Iran Wants Nuclear Weapons. (Monterey, CA: Naval Postgraduate School), p. 3. Realism in the view of Pozen and others posits that a defensive doctrine seeks to deny an enemy’s military objectives while an offensive ones endeavors to destroy an enemy’s military force and disarm it. A deterrent doctrine aims to punish an aggressor by raising the cost of aggression to an unacceptable level, prompting the aggressor not to pursue attack. See: Barry Posen (1984). The Sources of Military Doctrine: France, Britain, and Germany Between the World Wars (Ithaca: Cornell), pp. 59-79.
[18] Gregory F. Giles (2000). “The Islamic Republic of Iran and Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Weapons,” in Peter R. Lavoy, Scott D. Sagan & James J. Wirtz, eds. Planning the Unthinkable: How New Powers Will Use Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Weapons (Ithaca: Cornell University Press), p. 92
[19] Robert Jervis (1984). The Illogic of American Nuclear Strategy (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press), pp. 29–34.
[20] George Perkovich (2002). Dealing with Iran’s Nuclear Challenge (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace), p. 6. Realism suggests leaders of stronger military powers, when confronting a weaker military power, will consider preventive war to stop unconventional weapons development. See: Scott Sagan (1996). “Why Do States Build Nuclear Weapons? Three Models in Search of a Bomb.” International Security. 21:3, pp. 25-26.
[21] See: Avery Goldstein (1993). “Understanding Nuclear Proliferation: Theoretical Explanation and China’s National Experience,” in Zachary S. Davis & Benjamin Frankel, eds. The Proliferation Puzzle: Why Nuclear Weapons Spread and What Results (London: Frank Cass), pp. 227-30.
external page[22] United States Defense Department (2010). "Unclassified Report on Military Power of Iran." external pagehttp://fas.org/man/eprint/dod_iran_2010.pdf. Last accessed 1 May 2015.
[23] George Perkovich of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace put it this way in 2003:
"Beyond Iraq, Israel and the United States, no other adversaries pose an existential threat to Iran. Iran faces no neighbor or adversary that plausibly would or could commit strategic military aggression or blackmail against it. [...] Most importantly, Iran would not be a target of Israeli or U.S. military attack if Iran did not acquire weapons of mass destruction. U.S. bellicosity toward Iran (and Iraq and North Korea) is fundamentally defensive. It is provoked by these states’ possession of weapons of mass destruction and the related concerns that they foment regional disorder and/or they might pass these weapons to terrorists. If Iran’s objective is to deter U.S. and/or Israeli aggression, then weapons of mass destruction do not solve Tehran’s problem, they create it."
See: Perkovich (2003). "Dealing With Iran's nuclear Challenge" (28 March 2003). external pagehttp://carnegieendowment.org/files/Irannuclearchallenge11.pdf. Last accessed 7 May 2015.
[24] It has not been lost on Iran "that the road to nuclear weapons is best paved with ambiguity. The Israelis, Pakistanis, Indians, and the North Koreans successfully acquired nuclear weapons by cloaking their research, development, procurement, and deployment efforts with cover stories that their efforts were all geared to civilian nuclear energy programs." From Richard L. Russell (2004). "Iran in Iraq's Shadow: Dealing with Tehran's Nuclear Weapons Bid." Parameters (Autumn 2004), p. 34.
[25] FM101-31-1 (1986), op cit.
[26] Ibid.
[27] General-Lieutenant Pavel Vasilyvich Melnikov (1966). "Problems of Conducting a War in Europe (Based on the view of the NATO Command). Military Thought (Voyennaya Mysl). 3:79. external pagehttp://www.foia.cia.gov/sites/default/files/document_conversions/46/1976.... Last accessed 10 April 2015.
[28] Director of Centeal Intelligence (1979). "Warsaw Pact Forces Opposite NATO." National Intelligence Estimate 11-14-79 (31 January 1979), p.17. external pagehttp://www.foia.cia.gov/sites/default/files/document_conversions/1700321.... Last accessed 10 April 2015.