The Iranian Way of War (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781025113395)

This thesis proposes a general model to describe how culture impacts the way nations fight and applies it to the specific Iranian case. According to the model, military style has three inputs, cultural themes, military structure and recent historical experience. Cultural themes are derived from broad historical themes in turn. Through analysis of English-language literature on Iranian history, culture, politics and military history, the thesis identifies key Iranian historical experiences, cultural themes and military structure. There are five Iranian historical themes including imperial heritage, foreign domination, autocracy, petro-dollars and Shia Islam. The seven cultural themes that result from the historical themes are, Persian pride, Orwellian hatred, conspiracy theorists, dissimulation, acceptance of authority, martyrdom complex and corruption. The three main elements of recent historical experience are the Iran-Iraq war, US conventional primacy and the Islamic revolution. The four elements of Iranian military structure include dual militaries, infantry heavy, inexperienced conscript force and limited logistics. The seven elements of Iranian military style that result are flowing tactics, limited combined arms, man over machine, rigid operations, fanaticism, asymmetry and loyalty over professionalism. The thesis concludes that whilst a number of the themes identified can be found in the strategic cultures of other actors, the combination of the themes identified makes the Iranian way of war unique, and therefore should be studied by strategists and military planners.

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