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US-Israel Relations Good- War Decline in U.S.-Israeli relations would spark a nuclear conflict
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US-Israel Relations Good- WarDecline in U.S.-Israeli relations would spark a nuclear conflictLavigne 98[Chris Lavigne Mid-East Specialist, associate attorney at Locke, Liddell & Sapp in Dallas, Texas. “ Peace and War on the Golan Heights: the Prospects for Peace in the Middle East”, http://wassom.com/chris.htm]Once the conflict began to escalate, it would be hard to control. If Israel was intent of striking back at captured Syrian positions on the Golan, and then expanded the scope of the conflict back onto Syrian territory, the stage would be set disaster. A situation which began as a Syrian limited war option to recapture the Golan Heights could quickly boil over into a full-scale war with the risk of escalation to the level of weapons of mass destruction. This is especially true given that the stages of escalation to the nuclear level may be quite small in the modern Middle East. During the Cold War, U.S. and Soviet strategic nuclear weapons deterred one another from attacking. The greatest risk of escalation occurred with the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons, which were limited range, small scale (in the nuclear sense) kilo-ton bombs, that were to be deployed against heavy concentrations of conventional, enemy troops. The deployment of tactical nuclear weapons lowered the "firebreak" (the point at which a country is willing to deploy nuclear weapons) to a level in which nuclear war-fighting could be engaged in without the dangers associated with strategic nuclear arms. The problem with this theory, however, is that by lowering the firebreak of the use of nuclear weapons, it made the deployment of strategic weapons all the more likely through a process of vertical escalation. The deployment of tactical nuclear weapons, thus, bridged the gap to deploying strategic weapons as well. In the Middle East, the most common type of nuclear weapon that is likely to be deployed is small fission-reaction bombs that would be classified as tactical weapons if they were in a superpower arsenal. Thus, the bridge between conventional and nuclear war in the Middle East will be drastically short. "In the Israeli-Arab sector, battlefield weapons will have no "firebreak" effect, because of the blurring between the different stages of nuclear escalation. Thus, the danger of losing control of the process of escalation will be greater than in the European Arena."52 SCENARIO 3-WARS OF ATTRITION Following both the 1967 and 1973 conflicts, Arab states engaged in very limited attacks against Israeli population centers in an effort to annoy Israel and sap support for Israeli occupation of Arab lands. The Arab strategy was the rough equivalent of a bothersome mosquito; buzz around long enough and sting Israel lightly in a sensitive area. Syria was always vigilant is assuring that its provocations were never great enough to elicit a massive Israeli response. The goal was not to engage Israel in a military conflict, but to pressure Israel into making concessions by irritating them in sensitive fashion. Assad can use his relationship with radical rejectionist groups, such as the Hezbollah in Lebanon, in order to engage in guerrilla-type activities that Israel is not well-suited to fight. Israel has more to lose in a protracted war of attrition than Assad, because a low-level conflict, like that which has brewed in Lebanon, can sap critical defense resources from the IDF and increase public pressure for the government to resolve the territorial disputes that drives the conflict with relatively little cost to Syria. The danger of this approach, however, is two-fold. Sometimes a mosquito's sting precipitates a crushing response in order to kill the pesky insect, just as Israel did when it invaded South Lebanon in 1982. In this case, rather than resolving territorial disputes, the Arab war of attrition created a situation in which Israel invaded another Arab country and has since militarily enforced the security-zone in south Lebanon that has helped to perpetuate the suffering of the Lebanese. If the peace process is allowed to collapse, and Hezbollah attacks continue into northern Israel, the groundwork for a much broader conflict will be laid. A recent conference sponsored by the Arab Press Service came to this startling conclusion in October, 1996: "In a situation devoid of hope, another Arab-Israeli war would be a possible outcome. This could occur as soon as 1997…There are extremists on all sides who would prefer a military solution. A skirmish between Hezbollah and Israeli soldiers in the occupied zone of South Lebanon can easily develop into a military confrontation… If such a condition occurs in the dry months of 1997, when the weather is better suited to move heavy armor into Lebanon, it could develop into a full scale war."53 The second danger, involves the risk of escalation of the conflict into an accidental war that no one ever wanted. If during the course of a low-level skirmish, the situation on the ground should shift one way or another, the possibility for escalation could increase. The potential for miscalculations would be great, and differing levels of international attention could influence poor political judgments. Efraim Inbar, a Professor of political science at Bar-Ilan University, explains the danger: One of the lessons learned by the Arabs after the October 1973 war was that limited use of force is useful in breaking a political stalemate and that Israel is vulnerable to this type of warfare. Syria, for example, is capable of waging a limited war of attrition, or a limited invasion of the Golan Heights. It can also launch missile attacks on a few selected targets within Israel. Even the United States might shut its eyes to a limited Arab attack in order to elicit greater flexibility in further peace negotiations from an Israel perceived as being intransigent. Indeed, a deterioration in US-Israeli relations could lead to Syrian and Egyptian violations of their demilitarized agreements with Israel and possibly to Arab aggression.54 Directory: file -> view view -> Western Europe after wwii view -> Author study: paul fleischman view -> Qpa1 7ela study Guide view -> Arctic Oil/Gas Neg view -> November 1970 Approximately 150,000-500,000 deaths Bhola Cyclone Bangladesh view -> Grade Level: 6 Unit of Study: Caribbean glce view -> Citation: Duffield, Katy view -> Table of Contents Lesson # view -> Chinese Wind Energy Disad Download 1.27 Mb. Share with your friends:
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