Looking at the October 7 attacks not as a military strategist but as an economist, Russ Roberts argues that maintaining eternal vigilance is simply impossible—even though it is often required of political leaders. In a follow-up essay, he applies these lessons to the Iron Dome:

The more effective is the warning system or the safeguards, the more dangerous the situation becomes as the human side of the equation starts to underestimate the risk. Every day that Hamas did nothing more than launch a few rockets into Israel convinced the Israeli security apparatus that this was all it was capable of.

The effectiveness of Iron Dome helped us [in Israel] ignore the risk we faced from Hamas. Before October 7 it seemed reasonable to believe that Hamas’s ability to hurt us was very limited. We were wrong. Israel came to believe that the status quo might be a bit unpleasant but manageable. We were wrong.

When you reduce the risk of bad events, people often respond by taking more risks. In economics this is known as the Peltzman effect. A simple example is that a football helmet protects your head from the hit of your opponent but it also emboldens that opponent to lead with his head. A helmet can become a weapon. Because helmets are imperfect protection, they can lead to a higher risk of damage to the brain—any one hit is likely not to hurt, but the wearing of the helmet increases the numbers of hits delivered and received.

If Iran succeeds in obtaining nuclear weapons, the war in Gaza, let alone the protests on college campuses, will seem like a minor complication. Jonathan Schachter fears that this danger could be much more imminent than decisionmakers in Jerusalem and Washington believe. In his view, Israel seems to be repeating the mistake that allowed it to be taken by surprise on Simchat Torah of 2023 and Yom Kippur of 1973: putting too much faith in an intelligence concept that could be wrong.

Israel and the United States apparently believe that despite Iran’s well-documented progress in developing capabilities necessary for producing and delivering nuclear weapons, as well as its extensive and ongoing record of violating its international nuclear obligations, there is no acute crisis because building a bomb would take time, would be observable, and could be stopped by force. Taken together, these assumptions and their moderating impact on Israeli and American policy form a new Iran concept reminiscent of its 1973 namesake and of the systemic failures that preceded the October 7 massacre.

Meanwhile, most of the restrictions put in place by the 2015 nuclear deal will expire by the end of next year, rendering the question of Iran’s adherence moot. And the forces that could be taking action aren’t:

The European Union regularly issues boilerplate press releases asserting its members’ “grave concern.” American decisionmakers and spokespeople have created the unmistakable impression that their reservations about the use of force are stronger than their commitment to use force to prevent an Iranian atomic bomb. At the same time, the U.S. refuses to enforce its own sanctions comprehensively: Iranian oil exports (especially to China) and foreign-currency reserves have ballooned since January 2021, when the Biden administration took office.

Israel’s response has also been sluggish and ambiguous. Despite its oft-stated policy of never allowing a nuclear Iran, Israel’s words and deeds have sent mixed messages to allies and adversaries—perhaps inadvertently reinforcing the prevailing sense in Washington and elsewhere that Iran’s nuclear efforts do not present an exigent crisis.