A Review of Iranian Capabilities

Wednesday

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Members of Iran's Revolutionary Guards march during a parade to commemorate the anniversary of the Iran-Iraq war (1980-88), in Tehran. (REUTERS)

Recently there has been a debate at the Foreign Policy website about the possibility of a US-led preventative war against Iran, to prevent the latter from becoming a nuclear weapons power. Matthew Kroenig wrote an article for Foreign Affairs advocating a preventative war; Stephen M. Walt wrote a response against Kroenig in Foreign Policy; Kroenig responded to Walt, and Walt wrote another rejoinder. You can read all about it in Why attacking Iran is still a bad idea. I rarely say this, but I agree with almost everything that Stephen M. Walt wrote.

With all this talk of war and Iran, here’s a quick review of what I’ve written about some of Iran’s more interesting capabilities revealed over the last three years:

● Speedboat Diplomacy

This was my first post about the much-discussed acquisition by Iran of the Bradstone Challenger, a specialty high speed small sport boat with obvious military implications for building a fast patrol boat.

● The Swarming Attack

After discussing the possibility of a fast patrol boat, the question emerges of the possibility of “swarm warfare” involving a large number of small, fast patrol boats going up against a large, lumbering blue water navy in the confines of the Persian Gulf, and most especially the Strait of Hormuz (the latter very much in the news again; cf. US warns Iran over threat to block oil route)

● The Political Context of Striking a Carrier

I left a lot of questions unanswered in my post on small boat swarm warfare, so I revisited the topic in this little-read post that attempts to place a US-Iran confrontation in a political context. The Iranians don’t need to sink a carrier in order to score a political victory, and they don’t need to stop all traffic in order to do real economic damage merely by slowing the sixty percent of the world’s oil that transits the Strait of Hormuz.

● Small Boat Swarms: Strategic or Tactical?

This post was a further elaboration of the problems of swarm warfare, specially asking whether we should regard such weapons systems as tactical (like a tank or a helicopter) or strategic (like a nuclear bomb).

● An Iranian Coup

This post followed the announcement by Iran of the indigenous development of a drone UCAV bomber, the Karrar.

● Flying Boat Swarms?

This post followed the announcement by Iran of the indigenous development of a flying boat, the Bavar, which I suggested might also be used in swarm warfare, like fast patrol boats.

● Political Constraints on Weapons Systems

The central argument of this post concerned the political imperatives that drove the design of the F-35, but I have also observed here that political imperatives have similarly driven Iran’s innovative weapons systems.

● Another Iranian Coup

In this relatively recent post I discussed the Iranians taking possession (possibly by hacking and hijacking) a Lockheed Martin RQ-170 Sentinel drone, which may well have things to teach them about their own drone program under development.

I hope that these posts have given the reader an adequate understanding that Iran is well aware of its pariah status vis-à-vis the Western powers, and that it has sought to address its vulnerable position in the world by pursuing innovative weapons systems and developing innovative doctrines for the battlespace deployment of these weapons systems. Iran’s innovations don’t guarantee military success or the efficacy of their weapons systems in combat, but it does suggest surprises in any military engagement that cannot be predicted prior to combat. I have no doubt that every conceivable scenario has been and is being war-gamed by military professionals around the world, but none of this will accurately predict the real thing.

One of the few things upon which I would disagree with Stephen Walt in the arguments he made (as referenced above) is his cautious attitude on whether or not Iran is seeking to become a nuclear power. I not only believe this to be the case, but I believe that it is more or less inevitable, and that the other powers in the world need to get used to the idea of a nuclear-armed Iran. It won’t be the end of the world. Of course, perhaps you will be saying to yourself that the Israelis won’t let it go that far, and will intervene as they intervened with Iraq’s nuclear program under Saddam Hussein. The obvious rejoinder to this is that the Iranians will have learned the lessons of the vulnerability of the Osirak reactor. I am sure that Iran’s nuclear facilities are both hardened and geographically distributed.

Some time ago I mentioned how much I unexpectedly enjoyed William Langewiesche’s book Atomic Bazaar: The Rise of the Nuclear Poor. Langewiesche concludes his book by mentioning the importance of, “…finding the courage in parallel to accept the equalities of a maturing world in which many countries have acquired atomic bombs, and some may use them.” I can imagine someone calling this pessimistic or fatalistic, but it is so sober and so realistic that I admire Mr. Langewiesche for ending on this note. It is precisely this spirit that ought to inform all our endeavors (and adventures). There are some things that can be addressed by the military power of the advanced industrialized nation-states of the West, but there are other things that are beyond the possibility of intervention. Physics and technology must be counted among those things that cannot be stopped by intervention, and physics and technology are what it takes to build a bomb. Deal with it.

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