the growing
military threat against Iran is
strengthening the military
aspect of the Iranian
government’s response. Beyond
the current escalating tension
between Iran and the U.S. that
has grabbed so much media
attention, Tehran is also
considering longer-term
military measures in response
to U.S. pressure. Tehran believes
that the Trump administration’s
“maximum pressure” campaign
could deepen the existing
military expenditures
disparity between Iran and its
rivals and disrupt the regional
military balance. It obscures
Tehran’s military investments
and increases the costs of
implementing regional aspects
of Iran’s deterrence capabilities.
Trump sees “maximum
pressure” as a way to restrain
Iran’s power projection capacity
to that of a “ normal country“.
However, Tehran fears that any
future military imbalance could
ignite a Saudi- or Israeli-led war
even if that is not Trump’s
intent. This is convincing Iranian
leaders to adopt a new military
doctrine.
Trump’s escalation is also
shifting ordinary Iranians’
understanding of the threat.
People are feeling an existential
threat to the concept of “Iran”
itself and not just to the
“revolutionary state”. U.S.
pressure has enabled staunch
supporters of the Islamic
Republic to conflate their
“defending the revolution”
discourse with a “defending
Iran” discourse that has a wider
appeal among ordinary
Iranians. Despite huge social
burdens, these developments
are providing Iranian leaders
with the backing needed to
increase national resource
mobilization for the military.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah
Khamenei is convinced that the
only solution to deter U.S.
attack or future conflict is by
responding to U.S. threats in
kind. Indeed, he has
emphasized that Iran will
respond to threats with more
threats. In other words, he
believes that Iran needs to
escalate the threat level against
the U.S. in order to maintain
effective deterrence. In practical
terms, Tehran’s military
response will probably be in a
form of doctrinal review to
balance the increasing threats.
This means a shift from current
second generation doctrine of
“second strike” to the third
generation doctrine of “massive
retaliation”.
Against this backdrop, Ayatollah
Khamenei has asked his newly-
appointed Islamic
Revolutionary Guard Corps
(IRGC) commander, Hossein
Salami, to redefine the IRGC’s
principal strategies. He has
ordered Salami to provide
complementary steps for the
second phase of the Islamic
Revolution. The mission of the
second phase emphasizes
territorial integrity and asks for
a broader regional and global
role for the Islamic Republic.
Indeed, the Supreme Leader has
asked military officials to
provide plans for extending
Tehran’s reach to wider
geographical zones. Salami,
who is highly respected within
IRGC ranks and is seen as a
strategic thinker, said at his
inaugurationceremony on
April 24 that the IRGC’s
operations should be extended
globally to make the “enemy”
insecure to a larger extent. This
concept became the foundation
for a doctrinal review.
The first generation of Iranian
military doctrine, “Effective
Deterrence”, was developed
during 2003-2010 using Iran’s
internal vast geography to
provide physical depth and
erode an enemy invader. The
doctrine was designed to
increase any potential
adversaries’ costs and to lower
aggressors’ morale, in order to
deter them from attacking.
Various operational plans,
including “ mosaic defense“,
were developed to do so.
Meantime, Iran incorporated
Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2/AD)
capabilities to reinforce physical
depth by hampering an
enemy’s maneuverability and
accessibility to its regional
assets. However, this doctrine’s
reliance on the war of attrition
could have only provided
deterrence against large
campaigns, such as possible
attacks by the U.S. or a U.S.-led
coalition, which would
eventually lead to a large-scale
invasion of Iran.
In contrast, the second
generation of Iranian military
doctrine, developed through
2011-2014, was in response to
emerging threats coming from
the Gulf Cooperation Council
(GCC) countries, Israel, and ISIS.
It no longer considered a U.S.
invasion to be an imminent
threat. The doctrine kept the
defensive nature of the Iranian
military, while second strikes
relied on external strategic
depth and firepower
accommodated by Iran’s proxy
networks and stand-off
missiles. The secretary of Iran’s
Supreme National Security
Council, Rear Admiral Ali
Shamkhani, admits that the
value of a second strike is as a
means of deterrence.
However, Trump’s maximum
pressure is changing Iran’s
threat assessments, leading to
revisions in the Iranian military
doctrine. Additionally, the
second generation doctrine was
developed before the current
GCC-Israeli alliance had been
forged. The emerging third
generation doctrine is based on
the idea that the limited second
strike doctrine will not be able
to deter attacks coming from
the united alliance of the U.S.,
GCC, and Israel. Recent
escalations are increasing the
pace of these doctrinal
adjustments.
The still-developing doctrine is
characterized by an Iranian
willingness to further expand
the battle zone, while
surprising the enemy with the
intensity of offensive actions
outside Iranian territories. On
April 25, the chief
spokesperson for the Iranian
military announced that Iran
will not follow a defensive
strategy against a U.S. attack.
The revision appears to be a
shift from the current limited
second strike doctrine to a
“massive retaliation” doctrine.
Unlike the classic 1954 Dulles
massive retaliation doctrine,
Iran’s version is not based on
nuclear capabilities. Instead, it
will be likely based on two core
concepts: expanding strategic
depth by extending the
geography of the war zone and
surprising the enemy with the
lethality of the battle space. The
latter is achieved through
massive firepower. With the
new doctrine Iran wishes to
take the initiative in defining
battle space conditions and
places, thus engaging
adversaries in coercive war
outside and inside its territories
to inflict intolerable costs. This
is clearly a turning point in
Iran’s strategic thinking, as it
merges the first generation
concept of war of attrition with
the second generation concept
of external strategic depth.
Already, Iran has been
successful in stretching its
military footprint into
Mediterranean ports. Now, it is
willing to redefine its
understanding of strategic
depth to inflict global costs on
adversaries further into the Red
Sea and North Africa. Some
observers believe that the
current regional security
context lends itself to such
geographical expansion. Gen.
Salami has always been in favor
of strategic improvements in
Iran’s missile program, to
increase the lethality and range
of Iran’s offensives. The latter is
a critical element that changes
both the scope and the quality
of Iran’s method of warfare.
Iran’s missile break-out time to
operationalize missiles with a
range greater than 2500 km
could be shorter than what the
U.S. anticipates. The operational
requirements of the new
doctrine include further
improvements in hybrid
warfare tactics, extended
offensive A2/AD capabilities and
a boost in firepower. Thus, Iran
will take the initiative to
improve both the offensive
capacities and the geographical
diversity of its proxies, while
adding to the quantity,
accuracy, and range of its
missile stockpiles. This implies
that Iran’s missile proliferation
logic should change.
Contrary to its stated goals, the
Trump administration’s
“maximum pressure” campaign
is pushing Tehran to more
effectively use its military
resources. Fear of losing
deterrence capacity is forcing
the country to shift its military
doctrine to an offensive
orientation. The U.S. already
faces serious technological and
operational unanswered
challenges to a decisive victory
in any war with Iran, while this
new Iranian doctrinal
adjustment will force the U.S. to
fight in a much larger war zone
with higher casualties than
anticipated. Apart from its
catastrophic regional
consequences, this Iranian
doctrine could consume major
U.S. military assets indefinitely,
strategically undermining U.S.
global power projection
capacity.
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doctrine/