Containing and Deterring a Nuclear Iran

Purposes, Presumptions, and Processes

  Containment is hardly a cost-free policy. Substantial research exploring the nature of and prospects for biting sanctions designed to dissuade Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons already exists. Research institutions and various militaries and intelligence agencies have repeatedly gamed military options. Others have examined ways and means to aid and influence the Iranian opposition. Beyond the kind of policy sketches of the sort offered by a number of sources—including the 2008 Bipartisan Policy Center report;12 the Lindsay and Takeyh article; and a rebutting Foreign Affairs article by Eric Edelman, Andrew Krepinevich, and Evan Montgomery13—little thought has gone into what an effective containment and deterrent regime will require of the United States and its allies.

  This paper is the product of an American Enterprise Institute project designed to examine the challenges of containment and the costs of deterrence. We agree with containment proponents that the successes of the Cold War policy provide a framework for thinking about the difficulties of a nuclear Iran, even allowing for the unique circumstances of the two situations and the different and unique ideologies embraced by both adversaries. However, we feel that a deeper examination of the original Cold War policy choices is necessary. Similarly, the immense corpus of Cold War deterrence literature provided a resource that other studies have not fully mined. We seek to extract enduring principles or structures of deterrence as a way to assess the prospects for deterring a nuclear Iran. Further, we understand strategy making as a way to achieve US policy goals and therefore find that any worthwhile assessment of deterrence requires thinking about the US side of the equation. Finally, though a thorough appraisal of the military requirements for deterrence would demand more detailed analysis than resources allow, we offer some broad outlines of capabilities and force levels.

  These assessments required that we make some presumptions and projections about the nature and scope of Iranian nuclear capabilities, as well as its other military powers and its asymmetric potential. Current debates tend to focus too narrowly on questions such as when Iran will break out, whether Tehran will declare a nuclear capability or embrace ambiguity, or whether it will test a weapon. For the sake of this study, we presumed that Iran would follow the traditional strategic logic of emerging nuclear powers, building an arsenal that would provide a minimum but robust deterrent and seeking to reduce any vulnerability to a preemptive strike. An evaluation of the prospects of containment and deterrence demands nothing less. US policy and strategy must take reasonable worst-case scenarios into account. Conversely, any effort at containment that cannot withstand such a stress test is a prescription for failure. As will be argued in fuller detail below, we ensure these presumptions are well within the realm of the possible of the current Iranian program. In particular, we assumed that Iran has acquired a nuclear-weapons capability and may have tested a device; Iran continues to advance its nuclear-weapons program and warhead-delivery systems; there has been no military intervention in Iran; and there has been no substantial change in form or composition of the government in Tehran.