The circumstances surrounding an Israeli strike on what may have been a Syrian nuclear reactor are still unclear. It is not yet certain that Syria was building a reactor, and if it were, what capacity it would have for producing fissile material, when it might have produced enough material for a weapon, and how Syria planned to deploy any nuclear capability it developed. Major questions remain about the level of North Korean support Syria did or did not receive, and about the level of Syrian-Iranian cooperation if any.
There are, however, several things that are clear about Syria’s position, and that put any Syrian nuclear efforts in context. In brief:
- Syria has fallen far behind Israel in conventional capability and has no practical chance of catching up.
- Syrian capabilities for asymmetric warfare, and the its ability to use allies like the Hezbollah, can irritate or provoke Israel, but not defeat it or deter it from using its massive supremacy in long-range precision strike capability.
- Syrian chemical and possible biological capabilities do not give it a meaningful deterrent to Israel, do not rival Israel’s status as a nuclear power, and might do more to justify an Israeli use of nuclear weapons in retaliation than achieve strategic benefits.
- The Syrian air force is approaching obsolescence as a force. Although Syria has some “modern aircraft,” it lacks the mix of airborne and groundbased sensor and battle management assets, the mix of munitions, IS&R assets, and sortie sustainability it needs to compete. It faces de facto air supremacy from the Israeli air force.
- Missiles are Syria’s only way of striking at Israel with some confidence of success, but Syria still faces steadily more effective Israeli ballistic missile defenses, plus Israeli ability to target and destroy Syria’s larger missile systems with Israel’s precision strike assets.
Seen from this perspective, a Syrian effort to achieve a “break out” by covertly developing nuclear weapons has a kind of logic.....
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