How Iran's Strategic Drift Emboldens Its Enemies

Yoel Guzansky, Ron Tira

Security, Middle East

Tehran's military means and political ends are out of sync.

Historically, Iran’s military strategy has been defensive, based on deterring potential rivals, developing restraining leverage over enemies, keeping adversaries pinned down in secondary theaters and undermining the will of potential enemies, while attempting to create influence as well as a defense zone that will provide it with strategic depth beyond its borders. The goal of this essay is to consider whether, as a result of the upheaval in the Middle East, Iran has been drawn into a regional policy with new characteristics, and whether its “strategic toolbox” is appropriate for this new policy.

Iran’s Traditional Defense Toolbox

Over the past two centuries, Iran’s policy and military personality was defensive, reflecting two underlying assumptions: that Iran was a victim of third-party aggression, and that such third parties were stronger than Iran. Iran’s military force is structured with this attitude in mind, built from three constituent parts.

Iran’s regular army, the Artesh, is exceptional in that it is built up primarily as an asymmetric, quasi-guerrilla force. For several years following 2003, its main reference scenario has been an American invasion. Together with the IRGC, the Artesh developed the Mosaic Doctrine of engaging an enemy asymmetrically as a guerrilla force while parts of Iran are under occupation. Naval and air force doctrines are also based on guerrilla rationale, principally revolving around attrition, disrupting enemy operations, and interrupting the enemy’s free use of the sea and skies.

Therefore Iran emphasizes surface-to-surface, -air and -sea missiles, as well as sea mines and small boats, over main battle platforms. There is also a preference for weapons that can be produced in Iran. These facts mean Iran’s military is not optimally built to launch ground offensives against a bordering peer or overseas expeditions. Its army, navy and air force are all designed to combat a better-armed invasion force at home, or in Iran’s “green water,” rather than projecting Iranian power away from home.