“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”: The Israeli Nuclear Taboo and the Limits of Global Governmentality

Abstract

It is a well-known “secret” that Israel is a nuclear weapon state (NWS). Just like India and Pakistan, Israel has secretly developed a nuclear arsenal, but unlike the two, Israel did not advertise its possession of nuclear weapons by publicly declaring or testing them. Indeed, even today the Israeli government refuses to say anything factual about its nuclear activities, and neither affirms nor denies the existence of an Israeli nuclear arsenal. This policy is commonly referred to today as “nuclear ambiguity” (in Hebrew, the phrase is amimut) and remains Israel’s unique contribution to the nuclear age. Ambiguity has provided Israel with the best of all possible worlds: the advantages of nuclear deterrence to protect against existential threats in an anarchic world (especially against its “hostile” Arab neighbors and a potentially threatening Iran), but almost none of the potential political drawbacks of possessing nuclear weapons, such as the scrutiny—and occasional disapprobation—applied to the world’s eight acknowledged nuclear powers (Cohen and Miller 2010).