Ariel (Eli) Levite is a nonresident senior fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program and Technology and International Affairs Program at the Carnegie Endowment.
Prior to joining the Carnegie Endowment in 2008, Levite was the principal deputy director general for policy at the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission from 2002 to 2007. He also served as the deputy national security adviser for defense policy and was head of the Bureau of International Security and Arms Control (an assistant secretary position) in the Israeli Ministry of Defense.
In September 2000, Levite took a two-year sabbatical from the Israeli civil service to work as a visiting fellow and co-leader (with Dr. Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall) of the Discriminate Force Project at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) at Stanford University.
Before his government service, Levite worked for five years as a senior research associate and head of the project on Israeli security at the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies (subsequently renamed INSS) at Tel Aviv University. He has taught courses on security studies and political science at Tel Aviv University, Cornell University, and the University of California, Davis.
He has been awarded the Dr. Jean Mayer Global Citizenship Award at Tufts University’s Institute for Global Leadership and the Chevalier dans l’Ordre National de la Legion d’Honneur.
Levite has published extensively in academic outlets s as well as contemporary journals and newspapers. Some of his more recent publications include: "Israeli Strategy in Transition", in Hitchcock, William I., Melvyn P. Leffler, Jeffrey W. Legro, (eds)., Shaper Nations: Strategies for a Changing World. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, forthcoming 2016; "From Dream to Reality: Israel and Missile Defense" (with Shlomo Brom), in Kelleher, Catherine Mcardle and Peter Dombrowski (eds.), Regional Missile Defense from a Global Perspective, Stanford University Press, 2015; “Will Nuclear War Break Out in the Middle East?” in Heisbourg, Francois (ed.), Do Nuclear Weapons Have a Future? Paris, France: Odile Jacob, 2011; “Reflections on Nuclear Opacity,” in Tertrais, Bruno (ed.), A Tribute to Sir Michael Quinlan, Paris: France, FRS, 2011; “Rethinking Nuclear Abolition,” in A report to the Trilateral Commission 64, Washington, Paris, and Tokyo: The Trilateral Commission, 2010; “Global Zero: An Israeli Vision of Realistic Idealism,” Washington Quarterly Vol. 32, No. 2, April 2010; “Heading for the Fourth Nuclear Age,” IFRI Proliferation Papers No. 24, winter 2009; “Reflections on a Multilateral Base Camp,” Working Paper, Center for American Progress, July 2009; “The Current Proliferation Predicament” in Pilat, Joseph E., (ed.), Atoms for Peace: A Future After Fifty Years, Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center and the Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007; “Never Say Never Again: Nuclear Reversal Revisited,” International Security Vol. 27, No. 3, winter 2002–2003; “The Case for Discriminate Force,” with Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, Survival Vol. 4, No. 4, winter 2002-2003; Offense and Defense in Israeli Military Defense Doctrine, Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1989; and Intelligence and Strategic Surprises, NY: Columbia University Press, 1987. Levite has also authored, contributed, and co-edited other works, including Israel’s Nuclear Image, Foreign Military Intervention, and Deterrence in the Middle East.
To navigate the twin problems of dealing with Iran and preventing the nuclear threshold from becoming a desirable status for others, policymakers ultimately will need to reconfigure nuclear energy and nonproliferation policy.
Israel has turned head-hunting into its core strategy in its fight against the forces of evil.
The Gaza war is in fact societal and unless we acknowledge that we can't achieve and sustain success.
Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks did not happen out of the blue. They were preceded by years of bitter conflict, ever since the group consolidated its control of the Gaza Strip in 2007.
Hamas’s attack tested the core tenets of Israel’s security outlook, its traditional military and defense doctrine, and its national security policy.
As increasing amounts of information and services are moved to the cloud, a few providers have come to manage the bulk of cloud services. This level of dependence and concentration offers some benefits and risks, but policy action is needed to minimize and manage the risks.
Israel approaches the proposals to establish a regional NWFZ or WMDFZ skeptically, viewing them first and foremost as a crude means to disarm Israel prior to challenging its very existence.
October 7 has fundamentally shaken Israel's sense of security and unleashed a chain of events threatening to engulf the Middle East—mostly due to provocations by Iran and its proxies. Absent urgent actions to douse the flames, these could spread globally.
On the face of it, the deal is a three-way win-win situation. Upon closer examination, though, the benefits that could accompany such a deal seem far less certain and the risks associated with them rather considerable.
