Nasrallah killing worsens West Asia crisis

ENTROPY is defined as the absence of order or predictability and the gradual and irreversible decline into disorder. The last week of September has witnessed developments that have sharply increased both regional and global strategic entropy.

The audacious killing of Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut by Israel has the potential to plunge Lebanon and swathes of West Asia into greater turmoil. Much will depend on how Iran and non-state groups such as Hamas and the Houthis respond to this Israeli attack.

Both West Asia and eastern Europe are moving into a more intense spiral

of violence.

Tactically, the discredited Israeli intelligence leviathan that was unable to pre-empt the October 7, 2023, Hamas terror attack has redeemed itself, but the strategic prudence of targeting the Hezbollah leadership is a moot point.

It is evident that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has chosen to escalate the level of violence that he had unleashed after the Hamas attack on Israel. What began as an intense reprisal against Hamas in Palestine has been expanded with impunity into a genocidal war. With Hezbollah having entered the fray, Netanyahu has upped the ante by taking recourse to a lethal combination of telecom sabotage (pager explosions) and conventional airstrikes to decapitate the top leadership of Hezbollah.

Adding to the violence, the Yemen-based Houthi militia launched a barrage of missiles and drones against US naval ships in the Red Sea on September 27. While these were intercepted and neutralised with no damage to the warships, this points to a steady uptick in hostilities in West Asia in the run-up to the first anniversary of the Hamas attack. This has grave implications for maritime security and the global supply chain.

Washington has claimed that it was not in the loop with regard to the Nasrallah killing. While this may sound incredulous, given the depth of the US-Israel relationship and American intel capabilities, the fact that PM Netanyahu cut short his US visit after addressing the UN General Assembly points to strained bilateral ties.

The US is caught up in its domestic politics ahead of the presidential election. Neither candidate (Kamala Harris and Donald Trump) can afford to take an unambiguous position on PM Netanyahu and the disproportionate violence he has unleashed. While there are courageous voices in Israel that want an end to this war, domestic political compulsions and the fear that he may be indicted for other transgressions have emboldened Netanyahu to press the ‘death accelerator’ with impunity.

Hence, the first anniversary of the October 7 attack will pass off with no tangible prospect of a cessation of hostilities. The war in West Asia will enter the second year, with the global community wringing its hands in ineffectual despair.

A similar pattern is discernible in the strife-torn region of eastern Europe. The war that jolted the world when Russia embarked upon its ‘special operations’ and invaded Ukraine in February 2022 is back in focus, with Russian President Vladimir Putin issuing an explicit nuclear warning to his adversaries. He announced changes in the Russian nuclear doctrine.

Russia’s 2010 nuclear doctrine, which stated that the use of nuclear weapons would be allowed as a response to conventional aggression that threatens the very existence of the state, has now been revised and made more elastic.

The 2010 formulation was that nuclear weapons could be used by Russia “in response to the use of nuclear and other types of weapons of mass destruction against it or its allies, and also in case of aggression against Russia with the use of conventional weapons when the very existence of the state is threatened”.

This was refined in June 2020 when President Putin signed an executive order titled ‘Fundamentals of Russia’s Nuclear Deterrence State Policy’, which, in essence, endorsed the use of nuclear weapons in response to a non-nuclear strike. Experts aver that this was due to the improved capabilities of America’s conventional weapons.

This 2020 formulation was a significant departure by Russia from the core principles of nuclear deterrence, which envisioned the nuclear weapon as having only one role or core mission – to ‘deter’ the use or threat of use of another N-weapon.

The changes to the 2020 policy and the new threats that could elicit a nuclear response by Moscow include the following: aggression against Russia by a non-nuclear country, but with the participation or support of a nuclear country would be viewed as a joint attack on Russia; reliable information about a massive takeoff of strategic or tactical planes towards Russia or the launch of cruise missiles, drones, hypersonic weapons towards its territory may be interpreted as a sufficient reason for a nuclear response by Moscow; reserving the right to use nuclear weapons in case of aggression against itself and its ally Belarus; and any critical threat to Russian sovereignty with conventional weapons. Any of these exigencies will be sufficient for a nuclear response.

The transmutation from a threat to the ‘very existence’ of the state to a threat to ‘sovereignty’ can be interpreted as a case of lowering the nuclear bar and has grave implications for the deterrence policy and practice globally.

This is not the first time that President Putin has engaged in such nuclear signalling. His red lines have been clearly spelt out: the US and NATO have been cautioned not to enter the conflict directly and provide long-range missiles to Ukraine. Will feckless political brinkmanship push the world into a nuclear abyss?

Both West Asia and eastern Europe are moving into a more intense spiral of violence. Alas, the global political leadership is doing an ostrich act, its head mired in domestic politics, even as the clouds of war darken.