Иранская ракетная программа и проблемы безопасности на Ближнем Востоке

The Iranian missile program started at the end of the Iran Iraq war to address the threat of the Iraqi missile launches against its territory. At that time, the Iranian regime was particularly jeopardized by the international support to the Iraqi regime, letting it alone to fight a technologically superior enemy. The end of its relations with Western powers deprived Iran from its former defense partners. Moreover, the change of political regime opened large vulnerabilities for the Iranian leadership. This technological gap, the lack of financial resources and the Iranian threat perception as well as the historical context shaped the decision of Iranian leadership to invest into a missile program as asymmetric forces to compensate its conventional weaknesses.
The Iranian regime achieved to find international partners to accompany Iran in its building of the missile program. Nowadays, the Iranian missile arsenal is so developed that international experts estimate that Iran achieved to gather the biggest number of missiles in the Middle East. Despite all the hurdles it keeps on improving the lethality and precision of its weapons as well as domestic production lines, Iran could develop a whole diversified arsenal ranging from very short range rockets to ranges superior to 2,000 km, cruise missiles, Space Launched Vehicles, solid and liquid fuel technologies and drones. Iran developed its arsenal with conventional payloads and coined original doctrinal concepts to fit its objectives. International efforts to cap the development of this missile technology could not impede these improvements. For the Iranian decision makers, the missile program is correlated to the security of the state, ensuring an efficient means of retaliation and attack in case of a direct threat against the stability of its regime.
Moreover, Iran achieved to integrate this asymmetric means of warfare within its hybrid warfare capabilities. The Iranian missile program is doubled with the Iranian development of proxies in the Middle East, ensuring large scale retaliation in the whole region if the Iranian regime is threatened.
The Iranian missile program is not implemented ex-nihilo. It is a reaction arising from the Iranian perceptions of an aggressive regional and international context. However, the Iranian missile program, used directly by Iran or through its proxies can reach a negative echo from regional and international actors and foster the development of defensive and offensive arsenals of Iranian neighbors.
Given this lack of knowledge, the case of the development of the Iranian missile program has not been the object of a main academic work and remains in the sphere of the practice papers and policy briefs. Unfortunately, this angle of research creates gaps in the academic research with the absence of a holistic analysis linking the Iranian strategy, its arsenal and the reaction of the different actors in the Middle East.

Previous work and main researchers:
The works regarding the Iranian missile program and the answers from regional actors in the Middle East are overwhelmed by the release of policy briefs delivered for practitioners. Hence, this topic has not been developed widely specifically at the academic level for research purposes.
The most quoted practitioners on the missile aspects of Iran are Anthony Cordesman, Uzi Rubin, Kenneth Katzman and Steven Hildreth. These experts represent the American and Israeli expertise and highlight the lack representation of Arabic experts. Regarding their reports (mainly for the congress of the United States or for CSIS), their analysis are quite consensual, regarding their common conclusions. These authors quote each other frequently and their researches are used in their respective works. However, their respective profiles are quite different.
Uzi Rubin is one of the very rare experts who benefit from a technical analysis from the Aeronautical Engineering from the Rensseler Polytech Institute and became then the first director of the Israeli defense organization. With Bruce Bechtol, Uzi Rubin is the only expert with an engineering and technical background, giving more weight to his technical analysis.
Kenneth Katzman represents experts coming from the intelligence sphere as the former analyst in the central intelligence. Anthony Cordesman is from the world of private consulting, then public during the American war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Their researches are not based on academic one, but more on the treatment of open sources and international media. The case of Anthony Cordesman is even more surprising with the use of Wikipedia sources in technical matters. It can be explained by the absence of clear data released by the Iranian government on the features of its missile capabilities. He himself highlighted that the Iranian regime tries to conceal some aspects of its missile capabilities, through the use of the various names for the same systems and the hide of their technical differences.
It is noticeable that none Western and Israeli experts use analysis from other actors of the Middle Eastern system and compare their point of view. Stéphane Delory in France, one expert in arms control and proliferation brought original conclusions allied with his technical expertise that could be used in the reports of American ones. Likewise, the report of Mohamed Kadry Said is based on his military expertise among the Egyptian army. His knowledge in air defense in the region is valuable to understand why missiles are used massively in the Middle East. Nevertheless, the bunch of analysts interviewed and reported are American, with very often a limited knowledge in Arabic and none in Persian (among the list of sources resented only a few scholars speak Persian). This is one weakness of the expertise which can handle very technical topics with a relative precision for the first sources used and with no knowledge in Persian to understand one of the most important components of the Iranian missile strategy: internal threat perceptions that determine the strategy of main powers in the region.
To palliate these gaps, some Iranian experts were used for this work. The analysis of Abdolrasool Divsalar were found particularly useful to explain the “cognitive context of strategic thinking” highlighting the variables that determine the shape of the Iranian strategic thinking. His expertise in Iranian internal politics and strategic thinking helped me to shape my hypotheses and to improve my researches on the Iranian missile strategy.
Finally, the Iranian missile program and the use of proxies as well as the evolution of the reactions from the Middle Eastern actors are evolving on a very rapid pace. For the moment, no academic articles could have been released on the very recent events on the strikes in Saudi Arabia in 2019 for example or on the first military space launched vehicle or on the consequences of the killings of Qassem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis. In this research work, a lot of recent newspapers articles were used in order to fill in this gap and to deal with the most recent sources on the evolutions of the Iranian missile program. These newspapers include official newspapers from Israel (such as i24 news, the Jerusalem Post, the Times of Israel) which are among the quickest to deliver information. Saudi sources are really scarcer and some blogs are more comprehensive than official news. Al Arabiya was quick and precise enough to use it in the framework of this research. Iranian and Iraqi newspapers were also used such as Radio Farda, Iran Focus, and the National Iraqi News Agency, to quote some of them. International Western newspapers such as CNN, BBC news or the New York Times were exploited as well. However, even newspapers lack rapidity and for the purpose of this research, I used a lot of Twitter sources in order to get more precise information. I used mainly official Twitter accounts from Iran such as the groups on IRGC, Pasdaran, Sepah news or official Twitter accounts from the proxies (Hezbollah, Al Masirah for example) in order to extend the point of views of my analysis. These sources are not 100% reliable due to the political interpretation of the information presented which are not always true. However, it can help to get a first information which is confirmed or not through the work of analysts and researchers.
Anthony Cordesman and Fabian Hinz are the quickest authors who analyzed these very recent evolutions in very comprehensive works. Fabian Hinz delivered comprehensive information on the very recent Space program in April 2020. This researcher from the James Martin for non-proliferation studies is also an expert in OSINT techniques (Open sources intelligence) which helped me a lot to gather the most precise information possible on the evolution of the Iranian missile program.
Anthony Cordesman also uses open sources in his analysis, relying less on academic work. He seems to be the only author who could determine evolution of the use of the Iranian cruise missiles allied with its drone capabilities, changing according to him, the nature of warfare. Nobody else has seen such evolution except him showing the gap in the analysis of the other authors. The work of these two scholars’ particularly helped me to keep my researches permanently updated with very useful ramifications between the technological improvements and the strategic and security consequences in the region.
Anthony Cordesman is also the one very scarce author who highlighted the links between the Iranian missile program and hybrid capabilities. He linked these two elements to the very specific situation of naval confrontation in the Persian Gulf through the use Iranian nonmilitary vessels to threaten the transit of oil in this sensitive region. In an article, Melissa G. Dalton established the very same link through the use of proxies in the region. Missile capabilities can be used in both situation but is more widely used in the framework of the Iranian network of proxies. There is almost no article on the hybrid nature of the Iranian proxies and the inclusion of the Iranian asymmetric tools, rockets and missiles among hybrid actors.
The conclusions delivered among Western experts are quite consensual. According to them, there is a fear to see the Iranian missiles more performant through the increase of their accuracy and payload, increasing their lethality and geographical scope. For the bulk of experts, the increasing of Iranian capabilities and the acquisition of this technology is only a question of time. The change in the accuracy of the Iranian missile is the most probable driver for the increasing of the military threats in the region. There is no consensus on the possibility to use Weapons of Mass Destruction as a payload, due to the opacity of information available. These prospects are nevertheless systematically examined in addition to the development of the nuclear program of Iran and the advantages and drawbacks of this tactic. Moreover, the nature of the Iranian strategy remains controversial. Most authors are questioning the role of missiles in Iran as offensive, defensive ones, operational or purely psychological. These difficulties are probably stemming from the impossibility to distinguish the real arsenal and missile technology available from Iranian sources and all the propaganda related to them. Psychological and operational aspects are intertwined in most analyses, more specifically if they are mainly targeted on the technical aspects of the Iranian program.
Most of authors recognize that the development of the missile technology is used to palliate the weakness of the Iranian air force and to challenge the more advanced armies in the region (particularly Saudi Arabia and Israel) through the use of an asymmetrical and psychological weapon.
The use of Iranian proxies is also the object of the consensual conclusions. Iran would use it to encircle Israel and to open and new axis of allies to challenge American allies in the region (such as the Gulf States and Israel. Iran is thus willing to foster the emergence of organized armed groups which would fight in proxy wars and weaken the enemies without earning direct retaliation on its territory. Unfortunately, there are some gaps on the specific cooperation between Iran and the regional proxies in the framework of the missile program. For example, only one academic article treats specifically the transfer of missile technology from Iran to Hezbollah . Other articles treat this question mixed with other topics, such as the evolution of the Hezbollah structure or strategy. Very few policy briefs exist on the Hezbollah missile arsenal. Likewise, there are almost no academic resources or policy briefs of the Syrian and Iraqi missile arsenals whereas their development dates back from the 1980’s.
The goal for the use of the Iranian missile arsenal is unanimously accepted as well. For scholars, the goal is mainly defensive and aims at keeping the integrity of the Iranian borders. Iran feels threatened by the military presence of the USA and the increasingly sophisticated arsenal of its neighbors.
For Iran, decreasing the security of its regional allies would increase its own one and avoids the alliances of the regional enemies with the USA through a constant military pressure against them, directly or through the use of proxies.
The consequence of this situation would be according to various research works, the growing regional arms race or the possibility for the Western powers to strike preventively Iran in order to destroy the possible missile arsenal, nuclear or WMD payloads.
Gaps detected in the previous researches
In the research works quoted before, there is very scarcely any literature linking the Iranian strategic thinking with the technical aspects of Iranian missiles and their strategic consequences in the Middle East. The technical and strategic aspects are very often separated between articles related to the description of the missile arsenals and the one dealing with the Iranian foreign policy.
Very little articles link the strategic aspects of the Iranian missile program and their technological features. If the rationale behind the Iranian missile program is not emphasized, it can cause miscalculations in the answer provided to the Iranian missile threats.
As some authors highlighted it, the previous American operations and the Gulf war highlighted the vulnerability of the Iranian army and asymmetrical means were used in order to fit with limited financial possibilities and with the deterrence strategy adopted. The goal of this deterrent strategy is to ensure the internal stability of the regime and to prioritize the internal security rather than the external one. Therefore, technology, does not determine the Iranian strategy but Iranian strategy shapes the missile tactics.
However, Western scholars tend to grant too much importance to the technological features of the Iranian missile program, without analyzing the strategy of Iran first, but to analyze its arsenal and then to deduce the strategy of Iran. Anthony Cordesman in Iran’s Rocket and Missile Forces and Strategic Options did the same, when he is assessing the technical capability of Iran. Most Western analysis on the Iranian missile technology tends to estimate that missiles can shape by themselves the strategy of one power. This is a materialistic and Western vision of war, coming from the American operations during the 90’s with concepts outlining that the United States should intervene only when it could bring overwhelming force to bear on the enemy. The force would be brought by the technological superiority of the United States. The deployment of massive air force during the Gulf wars and in the operations in Kosovo emphasizes that the technical perfectibility leads to the resolution of the conflict. The building of the tactics around the technological monism is very frequent in the United States due to their strategic culture. The policy briefs are targeted only on these technical aspects in order to assess the potentiality of Iranian the region and what should be done with technical means to stop it and overwhelm it. However, this mistake fails to assess properly the psychological effects of the weapons, according to the Iranian strategy which characterize their forces. Therefore, the policy briefs and research work can lead the decision makers on the wrong solution if they base only their assessment of the Iranian missile strength on their technological features only
This mistake explains the overwhelming quantity of policy briefs in comparison with academic articles. This topic has indeed, wide practical consequences. However, the impossibility to assess anything else except the technical issues and the tactical consequences of the technological development of the missile program hampers the researchers to catch the whole picture of the strategy of Iran. Policy briefs are limited by their practic and factual analysis, not including all the other elements of the Iranian strategy very often short termist and technical solutions. The Policy paper of Timothy Stafford is a case in point of this misunderstanding by proposing only economic and constraining sanctions to stop the Iranian missile program while Iran seems to react more on security issues.
Very few authors analyzed this situation through the shifting of the balance of power in the region leading to the fragmentation of the security context. Except Ron Tira and Mohamed Kadry Said, very few researchers analyzed the deterioration on the security in the Middle East as one of the most important variable in the building of the Iranian strategy and operational tactics. This deterioration is in the same time the cause and the consequence of the Iranian missile deployment leading to negative effects for the Iranian security on the long run. Likewise, no authors made any correlation between the degradation of the security in the Middle East and the military commitment of the USA which can backfire as well and deepen and complicates the future military operations.
These mistakes lead to the wrong assessment of the Iranian strategy and the situation in the Middle East. First, a lot of papers are tackling to define the nature of the Iranian strategy. Unfortunately, this is done through a classification into specific categories: offensive, defensive, and asymmetrical whereas most of strategies are a mixed between defense and offense and there is no possibility to separate in clear categories.
Then, it leads to the misunderstanding of the Iranian behavior and attitude. It is very often seen as an irrational actor or as a rogue state. Several policy briefs qualify Iran in such a way. It leads to the impossibility to understand the roots of the missile proliferation in this country and in the whole Middle East and to catch the whole picture. This is symptomatic of an atomistic vision of the situation and the impossibility to consider the attitude of Iran as a rational choice determined by visible and systemic causes.
The choice of Iran, as well as other actors in the region is due to the belief that their existence is under threat and the degradation of the security in the region. The whole security situation needs then to be taken into account.
This gap is visible also in the way the authors understand the pattern of acquisition and proliferation in the Middle East. Very often, the image used to describe the proliferation spillover is the image of a virus and contamination . This leads to the misunderstanding of the situation, as if the proliferation of missiles were due to the presence of an “infected” or rogue state, as a blue sky threat, whereas the situation requires a deeper analysis of the security system in the Middle East to see why states are using this technology and its consequences. Most of researchers use just one part of the situation to solve one hypothetic problem without having a look on the deep causes. The proper image used by rare authors is more the image of cancer disease embodying the logical of arms race in the Middle East.
The geographic origin of the researchers here plays an important role in the understanding of the Middle Eastern missile race. Israeli and American sources were used with caution in this research work. Indeed, regarding the current context between Iran and these countries, the information delivered in researches from these states can be biased or politically misused or treated through a very specific angle.
The Iranian missile proliferation comes from the fragmentation of the security context in the region. According to the point of view of the authors, not all factors of the destabilization of the system leading to the missile race are conveyed. The American researchers’ don’t speak in detail about the impact of the American air operations in the region on the building of the Iranian strategy, neither on the exports of technology to American allies that can destabilize the system as well. Once again, it places Iran in a role of irrational actor led by bellicose feelings without considering the whole picture with every actor. For example, there is very little writing on the role of the selling of weapons by the USA to the regional actors and the security consequences in the region.
In practical researches, the roles of China and Russia are very often described as threats for the stability in the region through the transfer of weapons and technology, whereas the United States are seen as the one which are threatened and must dig this security gaps . The United States policy is not depicted as the origins of several destabilizing factors.
Moreover, even the most technical analysis cannot be taken for granted. Indeed, the technical expertise cannot serve the basis to assess the technical arsenal of Iran due to the impossibility to access through open sources to the real missile technology and operational capabilities of Iran. There are then real difficulties also to assess whether the Iranian arsenal is one part of its propaganda and its features enhanced in its speeches or if it is as such in the reality. Almost every Western scholar hinges their appreciation of the Iranian threat on the statement of James Clapper, the former head of the American national Intelligence stating that Iran is the biggest missile arsenal in the Middle East. It is very difficult to assess from open sources the validity of this statement and Iran can use through its propaganda more impressive threats in order to frighten the neighboring countries. James Clapper could have had access on the ground to this information in the framework of his previous job, but it remains non verifiable by the researchers using also dubious sources in their analysis (Wikipedia for Anthony Cordesman, or other news from articles). The cases of Syria and Iran can be only loosely assessed and they could be often overestimated or politically oriented in the statements destined to decision makers. Once again, it hinders the elaboration of a rational analysis of the Iranian arsenal and strategy and it becomes complicated to distinguish the real operational capabilities of Iran and the ones used for propaganda purposes.
The main gap of this previous research work is the lack holistic analysis including the Iranian strategic concepts, the historical background, the technical and institutional means and the reactions from the regional neighbors. All these issues are treated very often separately and hinder the possibility to obtain a clear and comprehensive vision. In addition, Iran is very often perceived as an irrational actor, hampering the elaboration of correct conclusions regarding the Iranian missile program. Moreover, most of academic articles are outdated regarding the very recent evolutions of the Iranian missile program.
Within this research work, I will endeavor to palliate these gaps and provide a comprehensive answer to my research question. I will do my utmost to determine the security issues related to the Iranian missile program in the Middle East.
In the framework of this work, I studied the Iranian strategy and the historical background of the formation of the current Iranian regime as well as the Iran-Iraq war and its military organizations in order to understand the determinants of the Iranian military strategy. I tried to look more precisely on the formation Iranian threat perceptions which, I think is the departure source of the security issues related to the Iranian missile program. The Iranian missile capabilities were studied as well as the various ways for Iran to obtain the components and technology to develop these capabilities. I tried also to determine the collaboration of Iran with each of its proxies in the framework of the Iranian missile program and the potential security issues related. Finally, I endeavored to encompass the regional actors’ answers to these threats from Iran and its proxies and the possible security issues in the region. Finally, I tried to determine whether the reactions from the USA regarding the Iranian missile program could help to decrease the current level of tension in the region or not.
In this dissertation, I have chosen not to treat the arms control issues as an object of research since this dissertation is more targeted on strategic issues. Another dissertation could be dedicated on such topic regarding Iran and it would exceed the boundaries of the present research. The examples of missile components acquisition and smuggling were more used to explain the links between Iran and other international partners and to outline the level of collaboration between them and also the possible security threats that are involved in the smuggling roads in the Middle East. Regarding the issues related to the JCPOA, I have decided not to treat it as such but more to use it as an indicator of the current level of confrontation between Iran and the USA.
Goal of this research
The goal of this dissertation is to determine how the Iranian missile program shapes the security environment in the Middle East.
3 Chapters are dedicated to answer this question. The first one aims at explaining the Iranian missile strategy. It exposes the context in which this program emerged, the Iranian threat perceptions, the missile capabilities and the consequences of the development of such arsenal for the own Iranian security.
The second chapter explains the security threats that the Iranian missile program poses in the Middle East. It demonstrates on the one hand the issues that are triggered by the direct use of these weapons by Iran and its proxies in the region. On the other hand, it aims at explaining the security issues triggered by the answer from the regional actors’ reactions to the Iranian missile program.
The last chapter aims at demonstrating the security consequences of the answer of International actors on the Iranian missile program and determine whether they achieved to control the increasing level of confrontation or on the contrary fueled it.