Download or read book The Strategic Culture of the Islamic Republic of Iran written by Michael Eisenstadt and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2016-03-06 with total page 56 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) is an unconventional adversary that requires unconventional approaches to planning, strategy, and policy. These approaches must take into account the country's sophisticated culture, the regime's religious-ideological orientation, the abiding importance of Iranian nationalism, and Iran's modern military history. And they must recognize the IRI's unique approach to statecraft, strategy, and the use of force. Doing so is no easy task for Americans, as the United States and Iran are studies in opposites when it comes to culture, values, and politics ... These factors complicate efforts to understand Tehran's behavior and to formulate effective policies toward the Islamic Republic. Iran's political system, moreover, is unique in that it is characterized by parallel structures that are the locus of multiple power centers. These consist of both traditional state and revolutionary institutions: the President and Supreme Leader; the Majles and Guardian Council; the Judiciary and Special Clerical Courts; and the regular military and the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC), with the former often counterbalanced, and sometimes undermined by the actions of the latter. This organizational complexity and the importance of informal influence networks also often renders the functioning of the regime opaque -- even to many of its own members -- making it especially difficult for outsiders to understand what is going on. Finally, planners and policymakers dealing with the IRI should keep in mind three generalizations that can be said of a number of countries, but which are especially true for the Islamic Republic ... With these caveats in mind, this monograph will attempt to identify the salient features of the IRI's strategic culture, and their implications for planning, strategy, and policy"--Introduction.

Download or read book The Strategic Culture of the Islamic Republic of Iran Religion Expediency and Soft Power in an Era of Disruptive Change written by Marine Corps Marine Corps University Press and published by . This book was released on 2019-07-23 with total page 55 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This expanded and revised edition of "The Strategic Culture of the Islamic Republic of Iran," first published by Marine Corps University in 2011, sharpens, fleshes out, and updates analyses and arguments presented in the original edition.In the wake of the nuclear deal between the P5+1/EU and Iran (known formally as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), and in light of the Islamic Republic's growing role in the Middle East, the need for such a publication is greater than ever before. It is my hope that this monograph will fill the need for a primer on the strategic culture of the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) that will provide insights into the factors shaping its regional conduct.Analysts, strategists, and policymakers are told to never "mirror image" when considering the conduct of another country, but they are never told what "image" to put in its place. This publication constitutes an attempt to convey the essential elements of the strategic culture of the IRI to assist these respective communities create an alternative image of "the other."It also represents an attempt to inject culture into the debate about strategy and policy. After more than a decade of combat in Afghanistan and Iraq, the US military understands very well the importance of factoring culture into tactical and operational planning. But there are few signs of a similar recognition of the importance of cultural understanding among planners and policymakers at the strategic and national levels. This monograph attempts to rectify this shortcoming.

Download or read book The Strategic Culture of the Islamic Republic of Iran written by Michael Eisenstadt and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 26 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Defining what is the strategic culture of the Islamic Republic of Iran since 1979 is challenging. Its nature is often contradictory and paradoxical and its meaning elusive. It is framed in large part by Tehran's stratagem to confront its adversaries. The foreign policy of the "strategically lonely" Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) is a byproduct of competition between Islamic universalism and Iranian nationalism. Iran, while feeling threatened by a number of states, including the United States, has ambitions beyond the size of its conventional forces. To address both its perceived threats and satisfy its grand strategic ambitions, Iran relies on armed surrogates, large volunteer forces, a "guerrilla navy", strategic rockets and missiles, and soft power. In the first issue of the MES Monograph Series, the author notes that "strategic culture of the IRI has had profound impact on its approach to statecraft, strategy, and war." Through an examination of Iran's "way of war," the author offers specific suggestions for the United States to better engage or deal with Iran."--Back cover.

Download or read book Iran s Nuclear Hedging Strategy written by Michael Eisenstadt and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2023-04-14 with total page 50 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tehran’s willingness to pause aspects of its nuclear program may offer opportunities to stroke regime concerns about the potential costs of moving forward. Since halting its crash nuclear weapons program in 2003, the Islamic Republic has pursued a cautious hedging strategy that has enabled it to become an advanced nuclear threshold state, while also avoiding a military confrontation with the United States and Israel. Yet Iran’s willingness to pause aspects of its nuclear program in order to ease pressure—and in turn to pursue more urgent objectives—may help Washington constrain Tehran’s nuclear ambitions by amplifying its concerns about the potential risks and costs of proliferating. In this Policy Focus, military analyst Michael Eisenstadt surveys the evolution of Iran’s nuclear hedging strategy and suggests ways for the United States, along with its allies and partners, to shape the regime’s proliferation calculus with the goal of preventing an Iranian breakout and a nuclearized Middle East.

Download or read book Crossing Nuclear Thresholds written by Jeannie L. Johnson and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-04-25 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ​This book applies the cutting-edge socio-cultural model Cultural Topography Analytic Framework (CTAF) pioneered in the authors’ earlier volume Strategic Culture and Weapons of Mass Destruction: Culturally Based Insights into Comparative National Security Policymaking (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009) with an eye towards isolating those vectors of nuclear decision-making on which the US might exert influence within a foreign state. The case studies included in this volume tackle a number of the nuclear challenges—termed “nuclear thresholds”—likely to be faced by the US and identify the most promising points of leverage available to American policymakers in ameliorating a wide range of over-the-horizon nuclear challenges. Because near and medium-term nuclear thresholds are likely to involve both allies and adversaries simultaneously, meaning that US response will require strategies tailored to both the perception of threat experienced by the actors in question, the value the actors place on their relationship with the US, and the domestic context driving decision-making. This volume offers a nuanced look at each actor’s identity, national norms, values, and perceptual lens in order to offer culturally-focused insights into behavior and intentions.

Download or read book Iranian Strategic Influence written by W.A. Rivera and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2021-11-26 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the strategic culture of resistance has dominated Iran’s strategic objective and foreign policy preference formation. Iran is a revisionist state that lacks overwhelming military and economic dominance in its near abroad, as such two pillars have emerged to support and export their strategic culture of resistance. These are Adaptive Resistance (pragmatism) and Designed Redundancy (deniability and insulation). These two themes of resistance provide content and structure to their strategic Influence campaigns, where “strategic Influence is the use of the elements of national power—diplomatic, military, economic, with and through information—to shape the information and operational environment in order to erode the will of the enemy…. This ‘new’ way of war is predicated on building narratives, activating identities, mobilizing proxies, and disorienting targets through the use of information in service of strategic goals.” Strategic influence is the way in which elements of the strategic culture of resistance are executed in Iran’s near abroad. To combat and defeat strategic influence campaigns, it is necessary to understand both the strategic cultural factors at play and the strategic influence campaigns that Iran deploys.

Download or read book Unfulfilled Aspirations written by Adham Saouli and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-03-30 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The concepts and theories of what constitutes a 'Middle Power' have played a key part in explaining the identity, behavior and foreign policy roles of many states in the international system, including the United Kingdom, France, Australia and Brazil. But, with a few exceptions, these frameworks have failed to travel to scholarship on the Middle East, despite the theoretical and empirical potential that they offer for understanding regional dynamics. The first of its kind, this volume addresses that major gap by interrogating the conceptual, theoretical and empirical underpinnings of the concept of 'Middle Power' at a regional level. Composed of nine chapters, Unfulfilled Aspirations offers the conceptual and theoretical tools to examine 'Middle Powerhood' in the Middle East, as well as insightful empirical analyses of both 'traditional' Middle Powers in the region (Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Algeria) and new, aspiring ones (Qatar, the UAE). The contributors reveal that the Middle Powers of the Middle East have failed, despite their best efforts, to fulfill their regional aspirations.

Download or read book Power Perception and Politics in the Making of Iranian Grand Strategy written by Kevjn Lim and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2022-07-04 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explains changes to Iranian grand strategy over the past four decades, and it does so by advancing a multicausal model that unifies the three main paradigms of International Relations (IR) theory. Hence, ideas (constructivism) mediate between the structure of material capabilities (realism) and agents (liberalism) and interact with each to produce, respectively, threat perception and political preferences. Using these two explanatory factors, the author demonstrates how the Islamic Republic’s grand strategy has systematically varied over time to produce a mix of outcomes that includes balancing, expansionism, bandwagoning, appeasement, engagement and retrenchment. Beyond its theoretical contribution, this book is policy-relevant in that it explains – and predicts – the external conduct of what is arguably the Middle East’s most consequential actor, with implications reverberating far beyond the region. Academic in conception and rigor, the book is intended not only for specialists and practitioners but appeals to the lay reader interested in the broader Middle East/West Asia, the region’s relationship with major powers, and regional conflict dynamics.

Download or read book Losing Legitimacy written by Clifton W. Sherrill and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2018-09-15 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book contends that the transition of leadership from Ayatollah Ali Khamenei will result in a crisis of legitimacy for the Islamic Republic of Iran. Using Max Weber’s typology of legitimacy, the book explains that the Islamic Republic’s legitimacy was based on the charismatic authority of the regime’s founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Since Khomeini’s death in 1989, the regime has failed to develop the rule of law necessary for legal-rational authority. Moreover, it abandoned the logical underpinnings justifying clerical rule when a mid-ranking cleric rather than a Grand Ayatollah was placed in the position of Supreme Leader. With neither a legal basis nor a traditional basis of authority, the new leader relied extensively on the cover of Khomeini’s charismatic shadow for legitimacy. After nearly four decades, this shadow is fading. Not only will Khamenei’s successor lack the same direct ties to Khomeini, but the demographic and societal changes in Iran have made the charisma of Khomeini a historical concept rather than a viscerally felt experience. First the book analyzes the likely succession scenarios, finding the most probable outcome is the appointment of a hardline conservative backed by the regime’s security forces. Next, the regime’s economic, political, and social failures are presented, in order to explain why the new leader is likely to try to return to a traditional basis of legitimacy – religion. Thereafter, the book explains how this hardliner focus on religion is likely to result in an aggressive Iranian foreign policy toward the United States, Israel, and Saudi Arabia, impacting the region’s security.

Download or read book Deterring Iran after the Nuclear Deal written by Kathleen H. Hicks and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2017-03-29 with total page 122 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite a U.S. focus on securing an international deal to curb Iran’s nuclear development for the last several years, the United States lacks a strategy to combat the full range of Iranian activities that threaten the interests of the United States and its allies but fall short of conventional warfare. In this report, CSIS’s International Security Program sets forth analysis of Iran’s strategy, motivations, military, and paramilitary capabilities and evaluates the effects of Iranian behavior on key U.S. partners. The study leverages the expertise of contributing authors at CSIS, the American Enterprise Institute, the Center for Naval Analyses, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Harvard University and the University of Hawaii to inform its analysis. The study proposes a framework for deterring Iran, including practical recommendations for the U.S. administration and Congress that would enhance the security of the United States and its allies and partners.

Download or read book Power and Complacency written by Phillip T. Lohaus and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2021-07 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The United States is at a crossroads. Despite a defense budget that dwarfs that of any of the nation's rivals, the marginal return on this investment has decreased dramatically since the end of World War II. Why? Why have America's rivals, despite inferior resources, increasingly set the terms of international competition? How might America's leaders reconsider the application of power to ensure a favorable place on an increasingly crowded global stage? By tracing the geographic and historical development of four global actors--Russia, Iran, China, and the United States--Phillip T. Lohaus illuminates four equally distinct approaches to competition outside of warfare. He argues that while America's actions may have birthed information as a currency of power, the nation's failure to fully grasp the implications of this transition has created critical opportunities for its rivals to increase their power at the expense of the United States. The American way of competition, rooted in a scientific understanding of warfare, may impede effectiveness in the amorphous and unscientific landscape of twenty-first-century competition. From Rome to Britain, complacency has contributed to the downfall of many empires. Yet the slow bleed of American power may still be stanched by an approach to competition that emphasizes subtlety, diffusion, and ubiquity. America has developed and used these tools in the past--its very survival may hinge on returning to them. Power and Complacency defines the differing perspectives of America's international conflicts and offers possible solutions for reformulating its superpower strengths.

Download or read book Regional and International Powers in the Gulf Security written by Alaa Al-Din Arafat and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-04-21 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book discusses the threats and challenges facing the Persian Gulf and the future security in the region, providing an overview of the major regional and extra-regional actors in Gulf security. It argues that except for Iran, no regional or extra-regional actors, including the United States, China, India and Russia, have developed a strategy for Persian Gulf security, and only Turkey has expressed a willingness to provide security for the region. Importantly, the major threats to Persian Gulf security are nonconventional, rather than external, threats to Iranian hegemony or the balance of power. In conclusion, it predicts that the power struggle in the Persian Gulf in the coming decades will be between Iran and Turkey, and not between Iran and Saudi Arabia. This book is of interest to diplomats, journalists, international affairs specialists, strategists and scholars of Gulf politics and security and defence studies.

Download or read book ISIS written by Brian L. Steed and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2019-10-01 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This illuminating work offers readers a comprehensive overview of ISIS, with more than 100 in-depth articles on a variety of topics related to the notorious terrorist group, and more than a dozen key primary source documents. ISIS formed through a combination of a rise in violent extremist ideologies demonstrated on September 11, 2001; the invasion of Iraq; and the Syrian Civil War. ISIS is possibly the most important conflict group and phenomena of the last half century, and understanding its source and success is crucial to functioning in the world today. This book provides insight into ISIS from its beginnings to the present, through coverage of its people, organizations, and operations. The book begins with an overview of ISIS, which provides context for each of the reference entries that follow. The introductory material also includes entries on the causes and consequences of the conflict between ISIS and the West. The book contains more than 100 reference entries on general and specific topics ranging from key leaders to major terrorist attacks and affiliated organizations. It also includes a carefully curated selection of primary sources that come from a variety of sources including national-level strategy documents, presidential addresses, and ISIS itself. The book concludes with a detailed chronology and annotated bibliography.

Download or read book Security at a Price written by Nicholas Khoo and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2017-10-26 with total page 175 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume in the Weapons of Mass Destruction series makes the case that the United States’ expansive missile defence policy has eroded both its own security and that of its allies. These findings are based on an examination of the response of a number of key states to U.S. policy, including Russia, China, North Korea and Iran. Situating their argument in the theoretical debate on balancing in unipolarity, the authors contrast their view to influential perspectives that see little evidence of hard balancing against the U.S. in the post-Cold War era. Adopting a neorealist perspective, the authors demonstrate the clear presence of this inter-state practice, providing insight into the international politics of unipolarity, showing how hard balancing and security dilemma-related dynamics operate in the contemporary strategic environment.

Download or read book Military Institution in Iran Between Revolution and Statehood written by Mohammed Saqr Alsulami and published by Partridge Publishing Singapore. This book was released on 2021-02-05 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “The Military Institution Between Revolution and Statehood” is divided into seven chapters, comprised of studies that were submitted at a workshop held by the International Institute for Iranian Studies (Rasanah) in Riyadh on May 8, 2017. The first study is entitled “The Ideological Dimension of the Military Institution.” The second study addresses the relationship between the institution of the military and the political system in light of the compatibility theory. The third study analyses the military doctrine of the Iranian Armed Forces. The fourth study sheds lights on Iranian military capabilities and deployment plans. The fifth study is entitled “The Militarization of Shiism.” The sixth study discusses the assessment of the Iranian military doctrine and the military leadership. Finally, the seventh study addresses the economic activities of the Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) as well as its tools and the implications for Iran and the region. The book ends with the outcomes and recommendations of the workshop. Notably, the book is edited by Dr. Mohammad bin Saqr Alsulami and Dr. Fathy Abu Bakr Almaraghi.

Download or read book Secret Wars written by Austin Carson and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-06-09 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Secret Wars is the first book to systematically analyze the ways powerful states covertly participate in foreign wars, showing a recurring pattern of such behavior stretching from World War I to U.S.-occupied Iraq. Investigating what governments keep secret during wars and why, Austin Carson argues that leaders maintain the secrecy of state involvement as a response to the persistent concern of limiting war. Keeping interventions “backstage” helps control escalation dynamics, insulating leaders from domestic pressures while communicating their interest in keeping a war contained. Carson shows that covert interventions can help control escalation, but they are almost always detected by other major powers. However, the shared value of limiting war can lead adversaries to keep secret the interventions they detect, as when American leaders concealed clashes with Soviet pilots during the Korean War. Escalation concerns can also cause leaders to ignore covert interventions that have become an open secret. From Nazi Germany’s role in the Spanish Civil War to American covert operations during the Vietnam War, Carson presents new insights about some of the most influential conflicts of the twentieth century. Parting the curtain on the secret side of modern war, Secret Wars provides important lessons about how rival state powers collude and compete, and the ways in which they avoid outright military confrontations.

Download or read book The Strategic Culture of the Islamic Republic of Iran Operational and Policy Implications written by Marine Corps Marine Corps University Press and published by . This book was released on 2019-07-23 with total page 24 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) is an unconventional adversary that requires unconventional approaches in planning, strategy and policy. These approaches must take into account the country's sophisticated culture, the regime's religious-ideological orientation, and the country's modern military history. And they must account for its unique approach to statecraft, strategy, and the use of force. Iran's political system is characterized by parallel structures that are the locus of multiple power centers. These consist of both traditional and revolutionary institutions: the President and Supreme Leader; the Majles and Guardian Council; the Judiciary and Special Clerical Courts; and the regular military and the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC). Due to this organizational complexity and the importance of informal influence networks, the functioning of the regime is often opaque--even to many of its members.