Israel’s most critical defense objective is to contain the spread of nuclear technology to Iran.  This may be a futile and counterproductive effort given the history of technology.  The reason why is because of the spread of technology and how difficult it is to contain it.  To make this argument, let’s briefly review the seminal business book Innovators Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail, by Clayton Christensen.

As so often it happens in technology, many new disruptive technology breakthroughs generally come from smaller companies.  Such is the case because large, established companies often are not interested in discontinuous, disruptive changes but in more incremental changes, although there are always exceptions such as Cisco.

These companies are often blinded by their institutional thinking focusing on improving the technology that has made them successful in the first place, and have no desire to cannibalize their existing, profitable businesses.  For instance, consider how even a relatively young company such as Yahoo deemphasized its search functionality in favor of being a portal because that’s what it customers wanted.  This focus on customer needs to build an ever better portal allowed an upstart such as Google to rise from nowhere and because of a new algorithm and disruptive business model, pay per click, beat Yahoo at its own game.

In a way, the very nature of their success works against these well entrenched companies in technology, because they get blindsided by the emergence of the next technology product cycle.  Often this new technology initially starts off in a small niche market which is not that enticing for the big, established firms, but it rapidly moves up the food-chain with ever richer features appealing to an ever wider audience till it dethrones the establishment technology.

Meanwhile, entrepreneurs or smaller competitors, since they have no existing business to protect, are not constrained by such legacy problems and dilemmas.  They try to seize the new emerging trend and ride the wave all the way to the top – that is until the cycle repeats itself all over again.  Another example is how Digital Equipment and its mini computers were once the dominate technology for years until they became obsolete as personal computers moved up the food-chain.  And now the PC itself and its entire ecosystem is threatened by web applications.

The Israeli leaders would be well advised to take heed of the warnings of the Innovators Dilemma. I believe the Israeli strategic planning could face the same fate as that of so many once dominant technology companies that ultimately met their demise by disruptive technology that rapidly moved up the food chain.  Here is why.

Electronics keep getting cheaper, faster, smaller, more powerful and – thanks to the Internet – more accessible.  For example, one can now buy from the electronics store near you advanced night vision goggles or GPS devices – things that not long ago were considered sophisticated military items.  Or consider how prevalent satellite imagery has become in commercial applications, while not long ago this was strictly in the realm of the military and intelligence services.

Israel cannot successfully fight this technology trend.  Today second and third rate military powers could cause significant damage to an enemy’s city much easier than they could have twenty or fifty years ago. Because of the spread of technology the technological bar to reach this minimum level of destructive power has been significantly lowered over the decades.

Even if Iran’s nuclear development were slowed down, it would be virtually impossible for Israel or the US to prevent Iran from developing more accurate, powerful, faster, longer range missiles that could possibly carry chemical or biological warheads.  It seems all but inevitable that a sort of Mutually Assured Destruction relationship would develop between Israel and an Iran armed if not with nuclear weapons armed with chemical and biological missiles – whether Israel likes it or not.  At what point does MAD kick in?  Will Iran’s ability to kill 100,000 Israelis at will constitute MAD?

Aside from the existential threat of chemical and biological missiles, Iran could always develop more powerful, smaller and smarter IEDs and bombs for suicide bombers – making the Israelis’ lives exceedingly difficult.  Just consider how effectively IEDs were put to use in Iraq, or how helpless Israel was in response to the barrage of the rockets fired by Hezbollah in the summer of 2006.  Now imagine how much more accurate, faster, smaller and more powerful these weapons could get in the next decades thanks to the advancement of technology.  Only at its peril could Israel stick its head in the sand and think it could withstand this technological trend.

Although Israel may continue to retain its military advantage in totality and its technology would also advance, especially its anti-missile technology, as soon as Iran develops the capability to significantly harm Israel, Israel’s overwhelming military advantage would become moot.  So long as Iran is realistically perceived by Israel as having the capability to cause significant damage to just a few Israeli cities even once, in such a scenario, it doesn’t matter how many more times Israel could destroy the Iranian cities.  Therefore, whether the Islamic republic develops nuclear weapons or missiles armed with chemical and biological warheads either scenario underscores the need for Israel to seek a diplomatic solution rather than a military one.

Therefore, not just for America’s strategic interests and not just for the Iranian people’s democratic aspirations but for Israel’s own existential security, Tel Aviv should acknowledge that the nature of Tehran’s regime is far more critical to its existential security than delaying Tehran’s mastery of the nuclear technology.  Israel is facing a multi-headed problem, solving one problem is not enough since a non-nuclear Islamic republic could still pose an existential threat to Israel.  The Israeli leaders ought to view the nature of Iran’s regime as their primary existential threat. Israel would be much more secure even with a nuclear armed Iran that is democratic versus a none-nuclear Islamic republic that is armed with powerful chemical and biological long and short range missiles and IEDs.

Instead of beating the drums of war and focusing so exhaustively on stopping Iran’s nuclear development even at the expense of undermining Iran’s democratic movement, Israeli leaders’ #1 priority should be to use their vast and unsurpassed public relations network and lobby, especially in the United States, to put the international media spotlight on the Iranian democratic dissidents and help strengthen Iran’s democratic movement.