Great article.
I don’t understand why Israel would even need 100 bombs. After launching a handful at Iran, they would still have over 90 stockpiled with plenty of material to make more. Who else other than Iran would they even consider bombing?
Wouldn’t Syria, Egypt and Lebanon be too close because of the fallout?
Depends the prevailing wind patterns, how big the bombs are, and how desperate the situation is.
Are you familiar with Mutually Assured Destruction? The Israeli version is known as the Samson Option.
More importantly perhaps, it wouldn’t have been a big deal if it hadn’t worked. Whether or not Hiroshima went a-glowing, the war was down to mopping up, the American civilian population was well safe, etc…
OTOH, if Israel has to let the firecrackers fly, things will likely be somewhat dire for them…
It would seem that Israel would need far fewer than 100 to destroy Iran’s cities and all the cities in the area (Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, etc.) that want to see them destroyed. Or maybe I’m thinking that their bombs are more powerful than they really are. Aren’t Israel’s nuclear weapon’s more powerful than a Hiroshima type?
But then again, I suppose its always nice to have a few extras on hand.
You assume that the first strike against you is going to take out some of your launch capability. Having more bombs than you need gives you second-strike capacity.
correct me if i’m wrong but given the following: 1) correct construction, 2) knowledge of physics and engineering, 3) enough computers, and of course 3) enough resources, one can make a working nuke without having the test it.
Iran’s defenses?!?
From the time Germany first lobbed V-2s at England to this very day no nation anywhere has had a practical defense against ballistic missiles (other than a preemptive strike on their launch sites). I’m assuming you’re not aware that Israel has had MRBM and LRBM for some time now.
Fallout, schmallout!
You have to understand Israel’s (rather accurate) view on military defense. If any arab power were to somehow ‘win’ a war against Israel there would not be any official surrender ceremony, or armistice, or arab occupation, or treaty, or negotiations of any kind. The arabs would wipe Israel from the face of the Earth. It would be a war of extermination much like the Nazis were doing with the USSR. And, also like the Nazis, a huge amount of outright murdering of captured Israeli military and civilian populations would occur as quickly as possible, before any ‘meddling’ infidels showed up.
In other words, Israel’s nukes make the unofficial statement to their enemies that in a war with them, even though they (the arab states) all only have conventional weapons, they can and *will *make MAD happen!