Iran Prepares for Asymetrical Warfare

Great Debates
1

Iran’s Mosaic Doctrine - An Unrestricted Army

To boil it all down, Iran is well aware that it is no match for a conventional war against the US or Israel. So on one hand they are working hard towards deterrents such as long range missiles and nukes.

But now they’re going one step further and starting to reorganize the Islamic Revolutionary Guard to prepare for an insurgency, instead of hoping it develops accidentally. There is a move away from the traditional top down command structure (which is easily broken), towards smaller and more independent fighting units working towards a common goal.

Considering that there have been many discussions about how a war with US, Israel, and Iran would play out, does this change things?

And more specifically, are we witnessing a shift in how future armies will develop? As US military might continues to grow, it becomes apparent that few countries would stand a chance going tank to tank with them. Air superiority would be impossible to ascertain. And as far as I can tell China is the only country really working on a Navy any more (this point isn’t all that relevant, just finishing the concept).

It seems like history repeating itself: the British developed and honed exceptional standing armies (starting with the long bow, then towards musket groups) as well as naval superiority (back when that really mattered). In response, insurgent groups developed and eventually won (think Scotland, America, parts of Africa). The army the British developed was meant to fight against other armies, not guerrillas. When the nature of war shifted, the British took huge set backs.

Looking back on the recent war between Hezbollah and Israel. And organized insurgency proved to be extremely effective against a high-tech military. The commander of the Israel Air Force took a lot of flack for being completely ineffectual in terms of the bombing campaign. Even their most advanced anti-missile navy ship was crippled by a homemade rocket. And their troops got bogged down, taking heavy casualties, as they tried to move across the boarder.

Now that the US has stepped so far ahead with military superiority, are we about to see a shift, essentially making it all worthless?

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Um…Scotland lost. Twice. The second time (the '45) was exceptionally bad in fact.

Anyway:

My overall guess on this is that Iran is preparing for the last war (and one unlikely to happen). When the US went into Afghanistan and Iraq our force structure and tactics were still oriented towards more set piece type battles against symmetrical forces. However, after nearly a decade the US has evolved new tactics and weapons systems that have greatly enhanced our abilities to fight such a war. In fact, I’d argue that our current military is more oriented towards fighting asymmetric war than it is towards fighting a traditional battle.

The other thing the US learned in our near decade of pain is…we don’t really want to fight these kinds of wars if we don’t have to. I seriously doubt that, short of Iran attacking us, there would be any way in hell that you could get the people in the US to get behind ANOTHER invasion of a country in our around the ME (or anywhere else). And this leaves aside the monumental unlikelihood that Obama would even ask to send in such a force. Toss a few tomahawks or authorize and airstrike against Iran’s nuclear program? Unlikely but possible. Invade? Not a chance in hell. Same goes for Israel. They don’t have the ability to GET an army to Iran in order to invade, so any fighting that would happen would be air strikes and missiles…and decentralizing your army and turning it into an instant insurgency is not going to be particularly effective against those kinds of things.

The other thing is that by decentralizing their army the Iranian’s are, perhaps, opening themselves up to other, more internal vulnerabilities. And, IMHO, they are already on shaky enough ground politically that this doesn’t seem like a very good idea to me. They are planning to not only fight the last war, but it’s a war that is not very likely to happen…and by doing so, they may actually be setting themselves up for something like a civil war. Doesn’t seem like a very wise idea to me.

-XT

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Oh, I do hope they don’t realize the social results of turning the Revolutionary Guard to small and independent commands. Please let them do it.

4

Hezbollah therefore were not ‘insurgents’. Neither were/are they in any way ‘unorganised’.

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Which is the point of Iran bragging about its preparations for such a war. I doubt they particularly want to fight such a war themselves, or even think they can win. But by talking up how painful they can make it, it makes it look even less appetizing to the US or other modern powers.

And the Iranian armies alway been famously fragmented. They have three redundant military commands already including a paramilitary already devoted to cracking down on domestic unrest, I think hoping that the current restructuring somehow lessens their ability to deal with internal descent is wishful thinking.

6

Iran has learned from the Iraq playbook. Their defence policy and publicising of it is extremely sensible.

The next time some lunatic republican president feels the need to attack some place on specious grounds they might think twice if they realise that they face Iraq squared once the Mission Accomplished banner is unfurled.

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This could have humorous consequences for the ruling clerics. :slight_smile:

8

You make a good point, and if the U.S continued using the failing tactics that were used in iraq, then we certainly would have a hard time of it. It is my hope though, that we will learn not to deal with wars in the way did when we went to iraq. Our military decimated any iraqi government forces, but failed to see that a near jihad would be called on the invasion force.

Now, with a bit more experience in fighting this type of war, and with a little insight, I would say that our standing army could manage a war with iran if it came to that, but again, only if we learned from the mistakes we have made in iraq.

9

The question of when insurgencies win or are defeated are essentially not functions directly tied to the strength of an opposing military. There are many, many insurgencies that have been defeated by a variety of means, but in the end, politics is the key weapon.

The OP seems to be saying that insurgencies defeat organized military like some kind of rock-paper-scissors game. Not true.

Look at Northern Ireland, the Philippines, Malaysia, and maybe even the Greek civil war. Heck, give it five more years, and we will have a better perspective if the Iraq insurgency succeeded or failed.

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I doubt that a good military will be useless anytime in the near future. Iran has to change their tactics precisely because of our superiority, so having a weaker military would probably encourage some other type of buildup.

I’m glad their doing this, both because smaller independent command structures are harder for the mullahs to dominate, and such a move may give pause to some future Pubbie president

11

:confused: What are they thinking?! The U.S. isn’t about to invade Iran, not with Obama in charge and not with our resources stretched as they are and not with everybody sick of the Iraq fiasco. And what other country would?!

12

As far as Israel is concerned, it’s a moot point; it has no ability to invade Iran if it wanted to, and a decentralized force is useless against air strikes and commando raids. The only thing this will do is bite them in the ass.

While I agree with your main points, I have to make a few minor corrections:

First of all, the air force was hardly ineffectual - after all, it managed to destroy Hizballah’s entire long and medium range missile arsenal within the first hour of the war. What it had was a major problem with the small short-range missiles like the Katyusha, which could be taken out of the residential homes they were hidden in, set up and launched within 10 minutes; there was simply no way do respond to them quickly enough. Plus, there were numerous problems with providing support to the ground forces, but that’s an unrelated issue(and one they’ve been working to rectify since).

Second of all, the missile that hit the Hanit wasn’t homemade, it was an advanced antiship missile, probably a Chinese C-802, and the only reason it got through the ship’s defenses is that the idiot of a captain forgot to turn them on. Still, the fact that such advanced hardware can reach a guerilla organization is very worrying - it means no vehicle is safe, no matter how high-tech.

Lastly it’s true that ground troops encountered much heavier resistance than expected, a situation excaberated by the IDF’s own organizational and training failures. But while casualties were heavier than they should have been, they were still objectively low, and much lower than Hizballah itself suffered. The forces may of encountered some hiccups, and had to deal with some serious doctrinal and leadership problems, but they never really stopped advancing until the ceasefire.

One interesting point is this: Hizballah was effective not just because it was a guerilla force, but because it was a *well organized and well trained guerilla *force - much better organized and trained than what the IDF was used to facing in the Territories (or, I daresay, the U.S. is used to facing in Iraq and Afghanistan). Regular military tactics weren’t effective, but regular counterinsurgency methods weren’t effective, either. That’s mainly why Israel stumbled as badly as they did, especially at the beginning: they thought they were fighting Hamas, but instead, they were fighting a trained military force employing Hamas tactics.
Seco

13

This sounds like good news, to me. A decentralized force might be better at fighting off occupiers, but it’s not as good for offense. So this is no threat to us or our allies unless we’re stupid enough to invade Iran, and then it’s our own damn fault.

14

Something similar could have been said after Vietnam; but eventually, we forgot any lessons we learned and invaded Iraq. America has been Iran’s enemy for decades; the Iranians have no reason to assume that we won’t still be their enemy after Obama goes away.

Pretty meaningless, since they haven’t shown much interest in attacking us anyway. We are the ones prone to wars of aggression far more than them, not to mention being so much stronger that they’d never try anyway.

15

So now we need another 5 years?

The key point in this evaluation is that Iraq stumbled into an insurgency almost completely by accident, only slightly borrowing from successes in Afghanistan. And even still, that war shows how a vastly superior army can travel 300+ miles from Kuwait to Baghdad in 6 weeks (a considerable distance in military terms), but is stilled mired in violence 7 years later.

And drawing a comparison with the Israel/Lebanon war (thanks Alessan excellent insight), that was a scenario that Hezbollah planned for. Decentralized ground forces, working semi-independently.

So you look at the difficulty Israel had moving an extremely short distance (much less than 50 miles), taking unexpectedly high casualties. For a modern day army, I expect our acceptance for causalities will continue to fall.

Then carry that forward. Iran is considerably larger than both Iraq and Afghanistan. If the Iraq insurgency had been even slightly more prepared, reason dictates the US might still be struggling its way up the Euphrates.

Eventually, if our resolve keeps us in Iraq long enough, we’ll quell the resistance. But for future wars there is a very real possibility that an organized and prepared insurgency could repel a substantially superior army.

16

Assuming that’s the case (instead of the reverse, which is that Iran, or at least it’s post-Revolutionary leadership is an enemy of the US, and that they have deliberately stoked that animosity, despite the fact that given their druthers, most American’s wouldn’t give a shit about Iran or even be able to find it on a map if THEY didn’t keep the pot simmering), then it sort of underlines how silly they are being. Put simply, we haven’t exactly been implacable foes, bent on their destruction.

My guess is that if Iran stopped trying to pursue nuclear weapons of their own they would likely fall completely off most American’s radars (including most American politicians radars), and they would stay there. Which is sort of the point. The current Iranian leadership doesn’t WANT to fall off America’s radar, and they want to keep the Iranian people focused on a supposed external threat because it will distract them from all the internal problems they are having. Unlike you, the Iranian leadership knows with quite a bit of certainty that the US isn’t poised to invade any day now…or any year now. At most, they MIGHT (and that’s a big ‘might’) draw a US air strike or conventional missile strike against their nuclear program (I’d say at a probability only slightly above ‘snowballs chance in hell’). But anything short of a direct attack on the US isn’t going to bring about an invasion…and if said attack happened any time in the next 5 years or so we couldn’t invade regardless. The cupboard is bare and will be until we can bring the armies home from Iraq and Afghanistan and rebuild our stocks, reform and retrain the troops and have some time to see if our economy collapses from the current weight before adding an additional war to see if the camel will finally buckle…

-XT

17

Before you get too huffy, keep in mind that I have opposed the Iraq war consistently for as long as that stupid idea was out there.

That being said, even I – who think it was a disastrous waste of blood and treasure – am not so bold as to be able to predict how Iraq will look in five years. After all the needless bloodshed, it could very well be that Iraq ends up with a marginally competent, fairly corrupt, but also pretty stable government that does not reflect the Al Qaeda insurgency nor the Saddam Baathist insurgency that sought to overthrow the government that the US installed there. If Al Qaeda and the Baathists fail to overthrow the established government, then by definition, their insurgencies have failed.

Right, so you seem to be saying that the insurgency in Iraq is failing. Which is my point.

You’re also saying that other insurgencies could succeed. So what? I never said that insurgencies always fail. Some win, some lose. That doesn’t mean a modern army is obsolete.

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First off, Iran has been making contingencies for U.S. invasion or attack for years now – for reasons which shouldn’t have to be laid out. And although it may be unlikely the U.S. or her allies will attack Iran in the near future that’s a small consolation. What about the next decade? It’s always good to be prepared.

And finally, I have no idea what Obama being president has to do with anything. Like he’s a pacifist boy scout or something. Being POTUS puts you into a similar moral field as Luis Garavito or the BTK killer. Pretty sure that’s in the job description.

19

Russia.

The fact that they are no long Communist is irrevelant.

Russia, since the days of the Czars, through Lennin, Stalin, & the rest, & right up to today…needs a warm water port. And has looked to the Persian Gulf for it.

They have internal troubles, true.
But unethical leaders can unite a nation with a war.

20

What makes you think that? Resistance movements can last indefinitely; centuries of occupation by the British Empire didn’t convince their victims to give up. We could be there for a thousand years, and I’d expect resistance.

Nonsense. We’ve been their enemy since before the present government existed.

Of course not; we are the enemies of much of the planet; we aren’t just focused on them. That didn’t keep us from, for example, funding Saddam in a proxy war against them or funding terrorist groups inside their border.

Nonsense. The fate of Saddam and Iraq demonstrates that it doesn’t matter if you don’t have nukes, doesn’t matter if you try to negotiate, doesn’t matte if you try to cooperate. And we’ve been their enemy for decades longer than they’ve been trying for nukes.