Israel: Borders and Security

Colonel Merrill A. McPeak

From Foreign Affairs, April 1976

Summary:  "Israel," as Mrs. Meir put it, "is entitled to defensible borders." But where might such borders be drawn? The lines on which Israel's army stood at the end of the war of June 1967 seemed formidable, but have disappeared into history. The U.N. Security Council, in its celebrated Resolution 242 of November 1967, visualized that "secure and recognized boundaries" might be placed essentially along the lines obtaining before the outbreak of the June hostilities. Although it has refused to "draw maps," Israel has made it plain that the old lines will not do, in part owing to security concerns. But genuine security depends on regional accommodation, which the Arab states say cannot occur until all of the occupied territory is returned. All parties agree that some kind of demilitarization arrangement in returned territory would be needed in any overall settlement, but little serious public attention has been given to ways in which comprehensive demilitarization might be useful as a security safeguard in the context of comprehensive territorial return.

In addition, it is by no means proven that in conditions of approximate equivalence, nuclear weapons deter all levels of conflict. If the Arab states were to opt for a strategy of territorial recovery in small increments by conventional means, Israel's dilemma would be whether to risk certain national destruction by immediate resort to nuclear weapons, or to fall back on a conventional defense. Now, however, Israel would find its conventional forces weakened by the previous decision to adopt a "new look" in defense, and its conventional options constrained by the Arab nuclear deterrent.

As for practical difficulties, no acknowledged nuclear power has had to solve the problems associated with very small territorial extent. Israel's impact is such that we sometimes forget that it is about the size of New Jersey. The smallest nuclear power, the United Kingdom, is more than ten times as large, not including its overseas possessions, and the United Kingdom is itself smaller than Oregon. Configuring a survivable nuclear strike force requires considerable ingenuity in any case, but such small size creates enormous additional difficulty. For example, basing considerations probably rule out missile-firing submarines of the type we are used to thinking about. Only one Israeli port from which modern strike submarines might operate springs readily to mind, and even if others were to be developed the number would always be small. It would be altogether too easy for Arab attack submarines to shadow Israeli boats as they left home port; unexplained "accidents" at sea could too quickly claim a major portion of Israel's deterrent force.

If, through mobility, concealment and hardening, strike-force survivability could be reasonably assured, Israel would still confront the problem of locating nuclear weapon manufacture and storage sites. There are few locations in Israel where these tasks can be accomplished with some assurance of security. None of the locations is far removed from Arab territory, and the Arabs can probably make some plausible guesses about likely hiding places. Mobility is not much help with this problem, and concealment and hardening are in some respects mutually incompatible. In another round of fighting which opens conventionally, Israel would be obliged to consider nuclear production and storage facilities threatened at the outset. This would be doubly so if Israel's conventional capabilities were neglected. Ironically, a nuclear strategy would seem to require retention of occupied territory in order to protect nuclear facilities in the context of reduced conventional strength.

All of these arguments may be swept aside if, as Tucker asserts, historic and technological imperatives must in any case drive the sides to nuclear confrontation. Perhaps Israel and the Arab states cannot be persuaded that their own interests are best served by avoiding nuclear strategies, but the United States need not encourage such a development. As a matter of policy, we should continue to design military and economic aid programs which promote conventional military postures in the region. Moreover, our assistance actions should not be open to misunderstanding; the parties must make no mistake about our intentions in this regard. If this has the ring of free advice, recall the recent flap over the Pershing missile, or the promise of a nuclear power station for Egypt.

VI

But deterrence need not rely solely on military strength, nuclear or conventional. Any combination of factors making attack repugnant can deter. For the Middle East, the best deterrent measure at hand is the establishment of demilitarized zones, manned by neutral observers, through which either side would be extremely reluctant to attack.

U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, the consensus framework for overall settlement, acknowledges the requirement for demilitarization. Moreover, there seems to be widespread agreement that demilitarization provisions might endure if placed in an international peacekeeping context and backed by appropriate guarantees. For example, writing in these pages more than five years ago, John C. Campbell offered an outline proposal, based on Resolution 242, calling in part for demilitarized zones on both sides of future frontiers and for total demilitarization of the Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights and Sharm-el-Sheikh, all with international peacekeeping and guarantees.3

Campbell's proposal has stood up well over the years but, in common with many peace plans, it says too little about functional arrangements for demilitarization. Naturally, final technical details would have to be worked out by the parties in direct negotiations, but as things now stand such negotiations would quickly break down. On the technical details of size of demilitarized zones and strength and composition of Arab forces permitted to return, we may expect directly opposed views, with compromise carrying nearly as much danger for Israel as no agreement at all. On the issue of offsetting demilitarization, for example, there is room in Israel for little more than symbolic demilitarized zones. But if the Arabs match only the small size of postulated Israeli demilitarized zones, the shield erected would be too thin to permit relaxation of Israeli fears.

The way out of these difficulties is for the parties to accept in advance a formula of total return and total demilitarization. By agreeing to total return, Israel would accept the reassertion of authority by Arab governments in all of the occupied territories; by consenting to total demilitarization, Arab governments would accept limitations on their authority in the returned areas, limitations aimed at safeguarding Israel's security.

If such a formula were accepted, operational details of demilitarization could be worked out without difficulty, perhaps along lines such as the following: