American bombings don’t end the Iranian nuclear question; they simply reset the timeline – Firstpost

On the night of June 21, 2025, the United States dropped more than just bombs; it dropped a signal to the world: ‘Deterrence is out; denial is back’.

In a stunning return to muscular pre-emption, ‘Operation Midnight Hammer’ unleashed a multi-theatre assault on Iran’s nuclear facilities. The Pentagon confirmed that B-2 bombers, GBU-57 bunker busters, and Tomahawk missiles hammered Natanz, Fordow, and Isfahan. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth called the strikes “devastating.” The Trump White House called it “a necessary reset.” What it really was: a test case for the nuclear age’s most unsettling question: can pre-emption ever replace deterrence?

These bombings represent the most significant military action against Iran’s nuclear infrastructure since the 
Stuxnet sabotage of 2010  and the assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh in 2020. In the wake of these events, a question arises that transcends tactical military calculations: What does this mean for nuclear stability, and can classical strategic theory still explain such actions?

Enter Kenneth Waltz

American political scientist Kenneth Waltz’s influential 1981 
Adelphi papers (Number 171, IISS), The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: More May Be Better, offers a critical lens through which to assess these developments. At its core, Waltz’s argument is counterintuitive when he suggests that nuclear weapons, by their very destructiveness, are stabilising forces. States that possess them, he underscores, become more cautious and more focused on survival, not aggression. In this light, the pre-emptive strikes on Iran’s nuclear programme reflect not the irrationality of Iran’s intentions but the persistent anxiety of its adversaries, who remain unconvinced by Waltz’s atomic optimism.

Now contrast that with the world’s reaction to Iran’s slow but deliberate march to nuclear latency. Iran has not conducted a test nor declared a bomb. Yet it has paid the price of a state that has cyber sabotage, assassinations, economic warfare, and now, a kinetic campaign of pre-emptive strikes.

Waltz foresaw these military actions in his work: “A country with nuclear weapons may be tempted to destroy the nascent force of a hostile country. This would be preventive war, a war launched against a weak country before it can become disturbingly strong”. This aptly describes the June 2025 strikes, which were not in response to an imminent Iranian nuclear breakout but rather to the potential of Iran nearing weaponization thresholds, allegedly within “weeks,” according to leaked intelligence assessments.

The Enduring Logic of Nuclear Self-Help

Iran’s nuclear ambitions are not new, but their persistence, despite IAEA inspections, international sanctions, cyber operations, and now overt strikes, signals something deeper: “the logic of self-help in an anarchic international order and the most important way in which states must help themselves is by providing for their security.” Waltz further argued that nations seek nuclear weapons not to conquer but to deter. For Tehran, though not a ‘clean (Shia Islamic) regime’, surrounded by hostile Sunni Arab states, a nuclear-armed Israel, and an unpredictable US, nuclear weapons represent the ultimate insurance policy.

This logic is only reinforced by repeated external interventions. Every act of sabotage or bombing deepens Iran’s belief that sovereignty and survival require a credible second-strike capability. Waltz anticipated such scenarios, noting that feelings of insecurity may lead to arms races that subordinate civil needs to military necessities. In other words, strikes may delay Iran’s programme, but they cannot erase its rationale.

Deterrence Vs Denial: The Israeli and US Dilemma

Waltz’s optimism rested on the assumption that nuclear deterrence works, even between rivals. He pointed to the Cold War standoff, India-Pakistan stability post-1971, and the cautious behaviour of nuclear-armed China. Yet the Israeli and American leaderships reject this logic vis-à-vis Iran, arguing that Tehran is a uniquely ideological actor that cannot be trusted with nuclear weapons.

This assumption that deterrence fails in the face of religious or revolutionary zeal has long animated Israeli security doctrine. The Begin Doctrine, which justified the bombing of Iraq’s Osirak reactor (
Operation Opera, 1981), has since evolved into a broader strategic policy of “nuclear denial,” later seen in Syria (
Operation Orchard, 2007) and now Iran (2025). The Trump administration has reinforced this approach, dismantling JCPOA-era diplomatic channels and embracing direct action as a preferred mode of containment.

Yet Waltz warned that denying nuclear capabilities through force may backfire. States struck in their developmental phase are likely to go underground, accelerate covert R&D, and insulate their programmes from external disruption. Iran’s nuclear infrastructure is already highly decentralised, hardened, and increasingly indigenized. The strikes may delay timelines, but they may also erode remaining restraint within the Iranian system.

Can Waltz Stil****l Be Right?

Amid the ongoing escalations, the US declared an 
abrupt ceasefire on June 24, but the truce unravelled almost immediately. That prompted Trump sharply criticizing both Tehran and Tel Aviv for engaging in pounding each other. This reflexive escalation somehow reflects Kenneth Waltz’s caution that, in unstable environments, “uncertainty and miscalculation cause wars”, particularly when deterrence is absent or deliberately denied.

As Waltz observed, “Miscalculation causes wars. One side expects victory at an affordable price, while the other side hopes to avoid defeat.” In this case, the absence of a mutual deterrent framework, given Iran’s nuclear vulnerability and Israel’s overwhelming military superiority in the Middle East, has led to a situation where ceasefires are fragile and “political logic may lead a country to attack even in the absence of an expectation of military victory.” Waltz’s analysis helps us understand why temporary truces, without structural stability or reciprocal deterrence, often collapse under the weight of mutual suspicion and unbalanced coercive power.

In another critical respect, Waltz’s argument retains its relevance: nuclear weapons discipline states more often than not. Nuclear-armed states do not launch wars against each other easily. Despite occasional rhetorical escalation, North Korea, India-Pakistan, and even China-U.S. relations have remained within conventional bounds. The fear of mutual destruction alters strategic behaviour.

Iran, even at the threshold stage, has shown such restraint. It has not retaliated with full-scale war even after provocations like General 
Soleimani’s assassination  (2020) or the latest June 2025 air strikes. Tehran’s response so far has been limited to cyber operations and asymmetric proxy mobilization, reflecting the very caution Waltz predicted nuclearization would produce.

Conclusion

The June 21 bombings do not end the Iranian nuclear question; they simply reset the timeline. Iran is unlikely to abandon its ambitions altogether. If anything, the strikes have confirmed to Tehran that the West’s assurances and the IAEA’s frameworks offer no lasting protection from aggression. In Waltzian terms, the more vulnerable a state feels, the more rational a nuclear deterrent becomes.

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As the region braces for Iranian retaliation, direct or through proxies, the world must confront the enduring dilemma Waltz posed: Is stability better served by containment and deterrence or by denial and pre-emption? In 2025, the answer remains a matter of contention. But the costs of the latter regional escalation, erosion of norms, and nuclear latency are becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.

Animesh Roul is Executive Director of the Society for the Study of Peace and Conflict (SSPC), New Delhi. He specialises in counter-terrorism and strategic affairs. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.

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