ABSTRACT
This chapter raises the question of why US and Israeli policies toward the common security threat of the Iranian nuclear program (INP) have seen both periods of deep cooperation as well as high degrees of tension regarding the proper course of action. Also, it asks why within each country, policy toward the INP between 1996 and 2020 shifted several times: US policy shifted from an exclusive reliance on coercive measures, toward emphasizing diplomatic measures, and then back to coercion, while Israeli policy shifted between adopting a secondary role subordinate to international efforts, and a forward-leaning aggressive stance. It then presents structural realist explanations for these divergences and argues that they are indeterminate, and therefore not capable of fully accounting for the gap between the countries and the policy shifts seen within. The alternative explanation presented is that deep-seated cultural factors play a substantive role in forming the policies toward the issue in both countries. This, it is argued, is an outgrowth of the nature of counterproliferation policy, which constitutes an attempt to address a future threat that has not yet materialized. Finally, an outline of the structure of the rest of the book is presented.
