The final option -- providing additional, clarifying information in an attempt to alter how other target states perceive the threat -- was crudely attempted by Netanyahu at the U.N. As this information is often based upon highly-classified intelligence, states must balance how much to reveal without compromising sensitive sources and methods. This information is often disclosed publicly at international forums in order to achieve maximum impact. For example, Adlai Stevenson's October 1962 presentation to the U.N. Security Council, which included aerial photographs of Soviet troops and intermediate-range missile installations in Cuba, and Colin Powell's February 2003 Security Council speech, complete with audio recordings of two senior officers from Iraqi's elite military unit, cartoon imagery of purported "mobile production facilities for biological agents," and a replica vial of anthrax. Or, officials can simply make direct appeals to the public. Recall in September 1997, when Secretary of Defense William Cohen warned about Iraq's purported WMD program by dumping out a five pound bag of sugar during an ABC News talk show. Cohen claimed that were the sugar anthrax it could "destroy at least half the population of [Washington, D.C.]," or, as VX , could kill "millions, millions, if it were properly dispersed."
This information exchange also regularly occurs bilaterally. For example, during the height of the Kargil crisis between Pakistan and India in 1999, the Clinton administration sent intelligence officials to both countries to brief them on how the CIA envisioned a limited military skirmish could escalate to a nuclear exchange that killed tens of millions of people. Throughout the Bush administration, the CIA and Department of Energy officials briefed foreign leaders about specific vulnerabilities to their country's nuclear weapons or fissile material stockpiles. The United States also conducts joint threat assessment discussions with Russian technical experts through the U.S.-Russian Arms Control and International Security Working Group, in order to raise concerns about supposed advances in Iran's missile program.
In order to make this information more credible, states can also provide such intelligence to neutral third parties. In November 2011, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) revealed that "the Agency has received information from more than ten Member States" about Iran's suspected warhead development work. Clearly, Iran is a high-priority collection target for many intelligence agencies, and states provide some of that intelligence to the IAEA because it is an "autonomous international organization" trusted more than any state individually. Similarly, several governments provide information to U.N. Security Council sanctions committees about allegations of violations to U.N.-mandated diplomatic or economic sanctions.
While convincing other states that they face graver threats than they thought has rarely achieved the intended effect, the reaction of Asia-Pacific states to China in the past two years shows how threat perceptions can actually be altered. From 2003 to 2009, the United States focused its diplomatic and military attention on Afghanistan and Iraq, at the expense of partners and allies in East Asia. Jeffrey A. Bader, the senior director for East Asian affairs on the National Security Council, described the "widespread judgment that the U.S. was a declining power and that China was a rising power." This notion was crystalized at a July 2010 annual forum of the Association of South East Asian Nations, where China's foreign minister, Yang Jiechi, reportedly announced to his counterparts, "China is a big country and other countries are small countries, and that's just a fact." The reactions to such ominous warnings, combined with China's defense modernization, compelled U.S. allies and non-allies to seek stronger defense relationships with the United States. In other words, these Asia-Pacific states adjusted their threat perception largely on their own.
No doubt Israeli officials will continue to sound the alarm about a nuclear-armed Tehran, with the ultimate objective of changing America's threat perception of Iran -- they want the vastly superior U.S. military to participate in any attack against Iran's integrated air defense system, known nuclear sites, and ballistic missile production facilities. However, the advances in Iran's uranium enrichment program do not threaten the United States as severely as they do Israel. Telling the United States that it should be more scared of Iran -- and therefore should give Tehran an explicit deadline to comply with Western demands -- has failed so far. Yet, the poor track record of projecting threat perceptions has never stopped policymakers from trying, over and over. So expect to hear more -- a lot more -- from Tel Aviv.
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