¹ For example, Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin said on Danish television on December 17, 1974, that “Israel is not a nuclear power and Israel has no nuclear weapons.” International Herald Tribune, 08 1, 1975 Google Scholar. Foreign Minister Yigal Allon repeated in October, “We don't have nuclear warheads.” Newsweek, 10 20, 1975 Google Scholar.

² This formula apparently was first used by Levi Eshkol in the Knesset, May 18, 1966. In recent years, a caveat sometimes appears that, while Israel will not be the first, she won't be the second either.

³ Sadat told Iranian publisher Farhad Massoudi that he believes Israel already has nuclear weapons. “The Middle East Ready to Explode, Sadat Says,” New York Times, 12 17, 1974 Google Scholar.

⁴ “CIA Says Israel Has 10–20 A-Bombs,” New York Times, 03 16, 1976 Google Scholar.

⁵ “Tod aus der Textilfabrik,” Der Spiegel, 05 5, 1969 Google Scholar.

⁶ Cited in “Russians Report on Israeli Arms,” New York Times, 08 9, 1972 Google Scholar. Additional independent press reports appeared in Al Ahram, November 23, 1973, and October 18, 1975; Boston Globe, July 31, 1975; United Press International wire reports published February 14, 1976, and November 25, 1976; New York Times, July 18, 1970; and November 25, 1976; New York Times, July 18,1970, and October 5, 1971; Washington Post, March 16, 1976; Jane's Aircraft 1972–73, p. 565; SIPRI Yearbook 1972, p. 312; Pranger, Robert J. and Tahtinen, Dale R., Nuclear Threat in the Middle East (Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 1975)Google Scholar; and London Sunday Times Insight Team, The Yom Kippur War (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1974), p. 282 Google Scholar. The leading work on the subject is still an International Institute for Strategic Studies monograph by Jabber, Fuad, Israel and Nuclear Weapons (London: Chatto and Windus, 1971)Google Scholar which concluded that “declaratory policy aside, Israel has gone steadily ahead in the development of the capacity to build atomic bombs,” p. 123.

⁷ “Cairo Editor Urges Nuclear Arms for Arabs,” New York Times, 11 24, 1973 Google Scholar, and “Israel Has Nuclear Arsenal, Egyptian Journalist Claims,” Los Angeles Times, 10 19, 1975 Google Scholar.

⁸ Quoted in New York Times, April 4, 1975.

⁹ “How Israel Got the Bomb: Special Report,” Time Magazine, 04 12, 1976 Google Scholar. Twelve months later, in a less highly publicized survey of the “Nuclear World,” Time quietly demoted Israel to the class of countries which might achieve a “bomb capability within a few years.” 05 2, 1977, p. 13 Google Scholar.

¹⁰ “Most Israelis Want N-Weapons,” Reuters report carried in Egyptian Gazette, 03 27, 1976 Google Scholar.

¹¹ Quoted in Jerusalem Post Weekly, March 30, 1976.

¹² In a press conference in Paris on March 19, 1976, and in a lecture in Tel Aviv on March 29, 1976, quoted in Aronson, Shlomo, “Nuclearization of the Middle East: A Dovish View,” Jerusalem Quarterly, no. 2 (Winter 1977), p. 36 Google Scholar. Dayan was out of the government at the time of these statements, and Prime Minister Rabin specifically disavowed any governmental responsibility for such statements made by “Knesset members.” Quoted in “No Change in Policy,” Australian Jewish Times, 04 15, 1976 Google Scholar.

¹³ Al Ahram, October 15, 1965. Quoted in Evron, Yak, “The Arab Position in the Nuclear Field: A Study of Policies up to 1967,” Cooperation and Conflict, no. 1 (1973), pp. 19–31 Google Scholar.

¹⁴ Reported in Heikal, Mohammed, The Road to Ramadan (London: Collins, 1975), pp. 76–77 Google Scholar.

¹⁵ “Mideast Ready to Explode, Sadat Says,” New York Times, 12 17, 1974 Google Scholar. See also, “Fahmy Warns: Egypt Would Make A-Bomb,” Jerusalem Post Weekly, 06 18, 1974 Google Scholar.

¹⁶ ”Egypt's Nuclear Body,” Canberra Times, 08 11, 1975 Google Scholar.

¹⁷ Quoted in “New War Threat,” Australian Jewish Times, 05 12, 1977 Google Scholar.

¹⁸ ”Egypt Pushes A-Power Ambition,” Christian Science Monitor, 12 22, 1975 Google Scholar, and “Middle East Planners Push for Nuclear Energy Development,” Middle East Economic Digest, 19 (11 21, 1975), 11, 12 Google Scholar.

¹⁹ ”Westinghouse to Supply Nuclear Reactor” Middle East Economic Digest, 20 (05 21, 1976), 13 Google Scholar.

²⁰ “Cooperation on Nuclear Projects,” Middle East Economic Digest, 20 (06 25, 1976), 13 Google Scholar.

²¹ “France to Build Nuclear Power Plant,” Middle East Economic Digest, 20 (03 26, 1976), 32 Google Scholar.

²² “France is to Build Libyan Atom Plant,” New York Times, 03 23, 1976, 9 Google Scholar.

²³ Christian Science Monitor, December 22, 1975.

²⁴ ”Italy Signs Atomic Energy Protocol,” Middle East Economic Digest, 20 (01 23, 1976), 21 Google Scholar.

²⁵ “Uranium Deposits Believed Important,” Middle East Economic Digest, 20 (03 12, 1976), 15 Google Scholar.

²⁶ Quoted in “Egypt Pushes A-Bomb Ambition,” Christian Science Monitor, 12 22, 1975 Google Scholar. On the general subject of American controls, see U.S. Foreign Policy and the Export of Nuclear Technology to the Middle East, Hearings before Subcommittees of the U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Foreign Affairs (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1974)Google Scholar.

²⁷ See, for example, Willrich, Mason and Taylor, Theodore B., Nuclear Theft: Risks and Safeguards (Cambridge, Mass.: Ballinger, 1974)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²⁸ I am indebted to Professor Carlo Schaerf of the Department of Physics, University of Rome, for calling these problems to my attention.

²⁹ Who is Publishing in Science? (Philadelphia: Institute for Scientific Information, 1976) tallied from indexesGoogle Scholar.

³⁰ Zahlan, Compare A. B., “The Science and Technology Gap in the Arab-Israeli Conflict,” Journal of Palestine Studies, 1, no. 3 (Spring 1972), 22 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³¹ Shirreff, David, “India Struggles to Close Trade Gap,” Middle East Economic Digest, 20 (02 13, 1976), 2–3, 34–35 Google Scholar.

³² Fuad Jabber estimated in 1971 that the lead time for a crash Egyptian program would be no more than seven to eight years (p. 141). A team of scientists including Henry W. Kendall, Professor of Physics at MIT, George B. Kistiakowsky, Emeritus Professor of Physical Chemistry at Harvard, Daniel Ford, Executive Director of the Union of Concerned Scientists, and George Rathjens, Professor of Political Science at MIT told the House Committee on Foreign Affairs in 1974 that the minimum time required for Egypt to build nuclear weapons would be six to ten years after initiating a large scale civilian nuclear reactor program. See U.S. Foreign Policy and the Export of Nuclear Technology to the Middle East, pp. 182-83.

³³ Jewish Observer and Middle East Review, July 2, 1965. Quoted in Jabber, p. 104.

³⁴ For example, Lt. Col. Haytham Al-Ayubi, head of the military research department of the Palestine Research Center (Beirut): “The fifth round will not be the last round. There will be a sixth, seventh, eighth … until both sides finally realize that the only solution lies in setting up a [secular] democratic state…” “Is War Inevitable?” translated from the Beirut weekly Monday Morning by Maha Samara in Atlas, January 1975, p. 36. Similar though less extreme views were expressed to the present author during visits with officials and scholars in Cairo and Damascus during October/November 1975 and February 1977.

³⁵ The issue of Arab rationality is taken up below.

³⁶ Heikal, , The Road to Ramadan, p. 43 Google Scholar.

³⁷ This perception of the future military balance is presented here to illustrate why some Arab strategists believe the military balance to be tipping. It is not meant to reflect the present author's assessment-indeed, I believe that in spite of the disparity of numbers, the conventional military balance is likely to remain strongly in Israel's favor well into the future. See Rosen, , “The Arab-Israeli Military Balance in the 1980's,” Jerusalem Journal of International Relations, 4, no. 1 (Fall 1978)Google Scholar forthcoming, and my forthcoming book, Balance of Power: The Arab-Israeli Case.

³⁸ Jabber, pp. 146–47 and 133.

³⁹ From a series of articles in January 1961 in the Baghdad daily Al-Ahali written by a retired colonel. Translated in Ben-Tzur, Avraham, “The Arabs and the Israeli Atom Reactor,” New Outlook, 4 (03–04 1961), 21 Google Scholar.

⁴⁰ Khalidi, Ahmad Samih, “An Appraisal of the Arab-Israeli Military Balance,” Middle East Forum, 42, no. 3 (1966), 55, 63 Google Scholar.

⁴¹ See Schleifer, Abdullah, The Fall of Jerusalem (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1972), 76 Google Scholar.

⁴² “Can the Arabs Go to War?” The Middle East, no. 29 (03 1977), 23 Google Scholar.

⁴³ “Middle East: The Military Dimension,” Journal of Palestine Studies, No. 16, 4, no. 4 (Summer 1975), 24 Google Scholar.

⁴⁴ Ibid., p. 11.

⁴⁵ Pitai, Raphael, The Arab Mind (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1973), p. 160 Google Scholar. See also Hamady, Sania, Temperament and Character of the Arabs (New York: Twayne, 1960), pp. 205, 211, 222 Google Scholar.

⁴⁶ Berger, Morroe, Conflict in the Middle East (London: Allen and Unwin, 1971)Google Scholar, quoted in Laffin, John, The Arab Mind Considered: A Need for Understanding (New York: Taplinger, 1975), p. 108 Google Scholar.

⁴⁷ Ibid.

⁴⁸ Zoppo, Ciro, “The Nuclear Genie in the Middle East,” New Outlook, 02 1975, p. 24 Google Scholar.

⁴⁹ Alan Dowty, “Nuclear Proliferation: The Israeli Case,” International Studies Quarterly (forthcoming).

⁵⁰ Safran, Nadav, From War to War (New York: Pegasus, 1969), p. xvi Google Scholar.

⁵¹ Warner Schilling has described nine ways of dealing with the fixed site ICBMs of the superpowers. See Schilling, et al., American Aims and a Changing Europe: Dilemmas of Deterrence and Disarmament (New York: Columbia University Press, 1973), pp. 25–26 Google Scholar.

⁵² See Rosen, Steven J., Military Geography and the Military Balance in the Arab-Israeli Conflict (Jerusalem: Hebrew University, 1977)Google Scholar, Jerusalem Papers on Peace Problems, no. 21.

⁵³ Zoppo, p. 24.

⁵⁴ Testimony in Hearings before the Senate Armed Services Committee, March 19, 1976, Fiscal Year 1977 Authorization for Military Procurement Part 2, Research and Development (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1976), p. 6257 Google Scholar.

⁵⁵ “Airborne Early Warning for the U.S. Navy,” International Defense Review, 8, no. 5 (10 1975), 679–82Google Scholar; and Klass, Philip J., “E-2C Radar to Provide New Flexibility,” Aviation Week and Space Technology, 07 12, 1976, p. 51 Google Scholar.

⁵⁶ This discussion of options is an extensive reconsideration by the author of some of the arguments given in his “Nuclearization and Stability in the Middle East,” in Marwah, Onkar and Schulz, Ann, eds., Nuclear Proliferation and the Near-Nuclear Countries (Cambridge, Mass.: Ballinger, 1975), pp. 170–71Google Scholar.

⁵⁷ On the Egyptian shelters, see General Salah El Dine Abdel Hamid Ali, General Abdel Sattar Megahed Arafa, and Colonel Salah El Dine M. El Dardery, “The Scientific Effect of the October 1973 War: Modification of Planning-Construction and Maintenance and Repair of Military Airports,” paper delivered to the International Symposium on the October 1973 War, Cairo, 10 1975 Google Scholar; and Rosen, Steven and Indyk, Martin, “The Temptation to Pre-Empt in a Fifth Arab-Israeli War,” Orbis, 20 (Summer 1976), 279–80Google Scholar.

⁵⁸ Based on calculations from Tsipis, Kosta, Offensive Missiles, Stockholm Papers no. 5 (Stockholm: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, 1974) and other sourcesGoogle Scholar; see Rosen, , “Nuclearization…,” pp. 166–68Google Scholar.

⁵⁹ See Burt, Richard, New Weapons Technologies: Debate and Directions, Adelphi Paper no. 126 (London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1976), esp. p. 3 Google Scholar.

⁶⁰ See Rosen, Steven and Ball, Desmond, “Fuel Air Explosives for Medium Powers,” Pacific Defence Reporter, 04 1977 Google Scholar; and Rosen and Indyk, p. 280.

⁶¹ “Israel Test-fires Lance,” Flight International, 05 15, 1976, p. 1312 Google Scholar.

⁶² Egypt's efforts were described in Lewis Frank, A., “Nasser's Missile Program,” Orbis, 11 (Fall 1967), 746–57Google Scholar.

⁶³ “France Will Help Egypt Build Her Arms Industry,” Egyptian Gazette, 04 5, 1976, p. 1 Google Scholar.

⁶⁴ However, medium-range surface-to-surface missile systems presently available in the Middle East in 1977 do not possess counterforce-capable CEPs. Israel's Jericho (range 280-300 miles) is said to have guidance problems (Insight Team, p. 283) and has been rated as accurate within one kilometer (3280 feet). See Le Monde, April 25, 1968; and Jabber, Israel and Nuclear Weapons, p. 96. The Arabs' Scud-B (range 180-200 miles) is reported in one study as having an error probability of 1300 feet, and the unguided Frog-7 is known to be inferior to the Scud. Harkavy, Robert E., “The Strategic and Diplomatic Implications of the Israeli Nuclear Weapons Program” (Mimeo, Kalamazoo College, Michigan, 1974), p. 39 Google Scholar. A later draft of this paper is to appear as Israel's Nuclear Weapons: Spectre of Holocaust in the Middle East. Monograph Series in World Affairs (Denver: University of Denver Press, 1977)Google Scholar. The Pershing (range 460 miles) promised to Israel during the Sinai II negotiations (but not delivered) has accuracy problems so severe that a Pershing II with radar area correlation guidance is reported to be under development to correct this deficiency (Jane's All the World's Weapons Systems 1976, p. 42.) The Soviet Scaleboard SS-12 (range 400-500 miles), reported in the Middle East Economic Digest of June 11, 1976, to be under delivery to Syria, appears to derive from the SS-13 and SS-14, which are regarded as low accuracy missiles. See Richardson, Doug, “Soviet Strategic Nuclear Rockets Guide,” Flight International, 12 11, 1976, p. 1732 Google Scholar. Of presently available systems, the Lance is the most accurate but has a limited range (50-75 miles) and a CEP well in excess of 150 feet.

⁶⁵ See Scoville, Herbert Jr., “A Leap Forward in Verification,” in Willrich, Mason and Rhinelander, John, eds., SALT, The Moscow Agreements, and Beyond (New York: Free Press, 1974), pp. 160–82Google Scholar; and U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency Publication 85, Verification: The Critical Element of Arms Control (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1976)Google Scholar.

⁶⁶ See Taylor, John W. R. and Monday, David, Spies in the Sky (New York: Scribner's Sons, 1972), p. 117 Google Scholar; and Ball, Desmond J. and Coleman, Edwin, “Alternative Missile Basing: Analysis of a Land-Mobile ICBM System,” Survival, 19, no. 4 (07/08 1977)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Shlomo Aronson has called attention to reports that American monitoring stations were able to detect the nuclear “radiating freight” of Soviet ships headed for Alexandria during the October War, picking up the “low radiation” by “highly sensitive, secret American equipment” (privately circulated communication).

⁶⁷ See Schlesinger, James Secretary, Annual Defense Department Report FY 1976 and FY 1977 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1975), pp. 11–28 Google Scholar.

⁶⁸ See Ball and Coleman. The present analysis assumes that the movement of the transporter from its station to the randomly selected shelter will not be tracked by enemy radars or infrared or electro-optical sensors. The use of smoke, decoys, or other protective measures might be required.

⁶⁹ See testimony of Munsey, Colonel Vigil W. in Hearings Before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Fiscal Year 1975 Authorization for Military Procurement … April 2, 1974 Part 6 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1974), p. 3347 Google Scholar.

⁷⁰ Fuad Jabber points out that, even without sophisticated second-strike defenses, no first-strike could be counted on to destroy all the nuclear weapons available to the other side and, given the geographic concentration of Middle East populations, even one or two remaining warheads would cause what may be considered unacceptable damage to the initiator of a nuclear exchange. Jabber, , Israel's Nuclear Option and U.S. Arms Control Policies, California Seminar on Arms Control and Foreign Policy research paper no. 9 (Los Angeles: Crescent Publications, 1972), p. 34 Google Scholar; and Jabber, Israel and Nuclear Weapons, Chapter 11.

⁷¹ Though it should be noted that a mini-charge requires just as much nuclear explosive as a charge of greater force, in order to achieve critical mass. The low force is obtained by designing in a low degree of efficiency, and apparently requires substantial knowledge of nuclear weapons technology. See Thunborg, Anders, Evolution of Doctrines ana the Economics of Defense (Stockholm: Swedish Institute, 1973)Google Scholar, Appendix: “What are mini-nuclear weapons,” pp. 60–62.

⁷² Scott, John F., Nuclear Strategy for Defending a Border (U.S. Army War College: Strategic Studies Institute, Military Issues Research Memorandum ACN 75042,1975)Google Scholar.

⁷³ Schlesinger, James R., The Theatre Nuclear Force Posture in Europe: A Report to the United States Congress in Compliance with Public Law 93-365 (Washington, D.C.: Department of Defense, 1975) released 07 1, 1975, pp. 1–2, 12–16 Google Scholar.

⁷⁴ Gray, Colin S., “Theatre Nuclear Weapons: Doctrines and Postures,” World Politics, 28 (01 1976), 300–14CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Also, Fair, Colonel Stanley D., The Changing Roles for Theatre Nuclear Forces (U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute, Military Issues Research Memorandum ACN 76044, 1976)Google Scholar.

⁷⁵ See footnote 32.

⁷⁶ On the failure of efforts to limit strategic bombing of cities in Europe during World War II, see Sallagar, Frederick M., The Road to Total War (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1969)Google Scholar.

⁷⁷ Address by President Johnson at Seattle, “The Direction and Control of Nuclear Weapons,” September 16, 1964, in U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, Documents on Disarmament 1964 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1965), p. 431 Google Scholar.

⁷⁸ Schlesinger, pp. 24–25.

⁷⁹ See Larus, Joel, Nuclear Weapons, Safety, and the Common Defense (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1967)Google Scholar.

⁸⁰ See Willrich and Taylor; also Norton, Augustus R., “Nuclear Terrorism and the Middle East,” U.S. Army Command, Military Review, 56 (04 1976), 3–4 Google Scholar; and Jenkins, Brian, Will Terrorists Go Nuclear?, California Seminar on Arms Control and Foreign Policy, discussion paper no. 64 (Los Angeles: Crescent Publications, 1975)Google Scholar.

⁸¹ See Evron, Yair, “Israel and the Atom: The Uses and Misuses of Ambiguity, 1957–1967,” Orbis, 27 (Winter 1974), 1342, 1332, 1333 Google Scholar; Haselkom, Avigdor, “Israel: From an Option to a Bomb in the Basement?” in Lawrence, Robert M. and Larus, Joel, eds., Nuclear Proliferation: Phase II (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1974), p. 165 Google Scholar; and Dowty, forthcoming.

⁸² Testimony in U.S. Foreign Policy and the Export of Nuclear Technology to the Middle East, p. 189 Google Scholar; and Quester, George, “Can Proliferation Now Be Stopped?” Foreign Affairs, 53 (10 1974), 83 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁸³ See Jabber, Fuad, “Not By War Alone: Curbing the Arab-Israeli Arms Race,” Middle East Journal, 28 (Summer 1974), 240 Google Scholar; also Hodes, Aubrey, “Implications of Israel's Nuclear Capability,” Wiener Library Bulletin, 22 (08 1968), 4 Google Scholar.

⁸⁴ P.L. 94–329, “Arms Export Control Act,” Section 305, “Nuclear Transfers.” See Congressional Quarterly Almanac 1976, p. 215.

⁸⁵ See Burt, Richard, “Proliferation and the Spread of New Conventional Weapons Technology,” International Security, 1 (Winter 1977), 119–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Secretary Kissinger declared himself in opposition to “overly severe constraints which would seriously set back, rather than advance, our nonproliferation efforts” including those which would “cast further doubt on the credibility of U.S. supply commitments and the constancy of our policy at precisely the moment when we can least afford such doubts.” Statement on U.S. nonproliferation strategy before the Senate Committee on Government Operations, March 9, 1976, reprinted in Department of State Bulletin, 74 (03 29, 1976), 410 Google Scholar. On the other hand, Senator Symington has been a vigorous advocate of strong measures. See also Brennan, Donald et al., The Implications of Precision Weapons for American Strategic Interests (Harmon-on-Hudson, N.Y.: Hudson Institute, 1975), Report 2264–RR, pp. 25–33 Google Scholar.

⁸⁶ Quoted in Jewish Observer and Middle East Review, December 23, 1960; cited in Bader, William B., The United States and the Spread of Nuclear Weapons (New York: Pegasus, 1968), p. 96 Google Scholar.

⁸⁷ Interview in New York Times, February 8, 1975.

⁸⁸ For example see Haselkorn, pp. 168–69.

⁸⁹ Salisbury, Harrison, War Between Russia and China (New York: Bantam Books, 1970), pp. 126–27Google Scholar. The United States reportedly expressed its concern about this possibility to the Soviet Union. See Newhouse, John, Cold Dawn (New York: Holt, Rinehart, & Winston, 1973), pp. 164–65Google Scholar.

⁹⁰ See Horowitz, David, From Yalta to Vietnam (London: Penguin, 1967), p. 263 Google Scholar; and Stone, I. F., The Hidden History of the Korean War (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1952), pp. 92–94 Google Scholar. Preventive war options were assessed officially by the National Security Council in 1950 and, according to all reports, rejected categorically on philosophical, political, and military grounds. See NSC-68, A Report to the National Security Council by the Executive Secretary, on United States Objectives and Programs for Security (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 04 14, 1950), pp. 11, 53, and 37Google Scholar.

⁹¹ “Is War Inevitable?” Woman's Home Companion, 75 (03 1948), 43 Google Scholar, excerpted in Filene, Peter G., American Views of Soviet Russia, 1917–1965 (Homewood, Ill.: Dorsey Press, 1968), p. 235 Google Scholar.

⁹² See Haselkorn, p. 165 ff; and Bell, J. Bowyer, “Israel's Nuclear Option,” Middle East Journal, 26 (Autumn 1972), 386–87Google Scholar.

⁹³ “Soviet Air Defenses,” Air Force Magazine, 03 1976 Google Scholar.

⁹⁴ The classic expression of the theory of finite deterrence is Gallois, Pierre, The Balance of Terror (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1961), pp. 1–14 Google Scholar. See also Kemp, Geoffrey, Nuclear Forces for Medium Powers: Part I: Targets and Weapons Systems, Adelphi Paper no. 106 (London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1974)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁹⁵ Robert W. Tucker advocates an open Israeli “nuclear deterrent primarily to reduce the dangerous dependence of the Jewish state on American aid and to enable it to depend to the maximum extent possible on its own resources. See his “Israel and the United States: From Dependence to Nuclear Weapons?” Commentary, 60 (11 1975), 29–43 Google Scholar. This proposal rests on the highly arguable supposition that conventional military expenditures could be reduced substantially after nuclearization. Moreover, it implies that the sole cause of Israel's dependence is military expenditures, which is demonstrably not the case. Israel's post-1973 reliance on vastly increased American aid is accountable primarily to the widening of her balance of bade deficits from an annual average of approximately $1 billion before the war to the $4 billion range following it. However, less than half (46 percent) of the increase in the balance of payments deficit between 1972 and 1975 is accountable to defense imports, the remainder representing the consumer goods import surplus, worsening terms of trade, and other non-defense-related factors. Israel's civilian sector historically imports over one-third more than it exports. The post-1973 global inflation of prices therefore automatically widened the absolute deficit, even though export growth rates have exceeded civilian import growth in recent years. Had there been no defense imports or exports at all, Israel's balance of payments deficit without U.S. aid and other donations would still have exceeded $2.2 billion in 1975. See “Balance of Payments” in Bank Leumi Economic Review, no. 85 (10 1976), pp. 2–5 Google Scholar. Israel's total imports in 1975 were $7,430 million, of which defense accounted for approximately $1,500 million. See Kochav, David, “Economics of Defense: Israel,” in Military Aspects of the Arab-Israeli Conflict (Tel Aviv: University Publishing Projects, 1975), p. 181 Google Scholar. Conclusion: if defense imports were reduced to zero, Israel's financing requirement for U.S. aid would be reduced by about half, but would still approximate $1 billion per year, and the U.S. might not be willing to provide any economic assistance to a nuclear Israel. And of course it is quite unrealistic to assume that conventional defense imports would be discontinued, if indeed they would be reduced at all. A similar case could be made regarding the effects of nuclearization on Egypt's aid requirements, most of which also derive from civilian rather than military demands.