Cordesman/Wilner, Iran & The Gulf Military Balance Rev 3
AHC 2/29/12
134
shard perceptions are useful tools, but history warns that wars generally occur because the sides involved so not share the same calculations, perceptions, or values. Similarly, the preceding analysis does not examine the risks Iran might take in using missiles and rockets, committing all of its conventional or forces in a quick or spasmodic conflict, or its willingness to persist and escalate in months or years of confrontation and escalation if its leadership feels its survival is at stake or is willing to take risks that seem “irrational” to outside planners. It is a long distance in miles, time, and culture from Sarajevo, but no one in the West should forget the West’s miscalculations of risk and the consequences of escalation in the 20th Century – much less all of its preceding history. There are no rules that behind Iran or the course of some future conflict – only uncertain probabilities
Implications for US Policy This makes it all too clear that Iran’s asymmetric strategy presents significant challenges to US policy makers, the Arab Gulf states, and other regional powers despite US and allied conventional superiority. Iran is linking the steady expansion of its asymmetric forces to new uses of its conventional forces and is building up its missile and its nuclear capabilities – at least in part – to deter retaliation against its use of asymmetric warfare. While many of Iran’s unconventional assets remain unproven in conflict, as do their capabilities against US forces, Iran has gone to great lengths to expand these forces to deter invasion and to expand its regional influence and reach. Iran almost certainly recognizes that US conventional superiority would give the US the upper hand in a serious conflict where the US can use all of its capabilities to attack the full range of Iranian military forces. In a limited war of attrition, however, assets such as Iran’s light fast attack craft, smart munitions, and submarines, among others, could inflict losses on US forces or those of US regional allies, damage critical infrastructure, and disrupt or halt Gulf commerce with little or no warning. Iran’s robust mine warfare capability and the current weaknesses in the countermine operations capability of the US and Arab Gulf navies could pose a serious threat to the security of the Gulf. Virtually any military or commercial vessel is capable of laying mines if it has the physical capacity to carry them. Consequently, the IRGCN and the Iranian navy are capable of seeding the Gulf and Strait of Hormuz with a large number of mines in a relatively short period of time. Iran would likely seek to use this capability as well as its large arsenal of both modern smart mines and antiquated moored contact mines to deny US forces access to the Gulf and render it impassable to commercial traffic. To properly contain and deter Iranian aggression in the region, the US must prepare for a serious countermine warfare campaign and properly develop the necessary assets to do so. If the US is to successfully neutralize this complex mix of threats that can be used in so many different ways and at some many different levels of escalation, the US must continue to maintain strong forces in the Gulf to contain, deter, and – if necessary – engage Iran’s forces. The US must be able to join with its Arab Gulf allies and decisively win a battle to keep Gulf shipping and exports flowing in in a period of weeks. At the same time, it must be able to join with its Arab Gulf allies in defeating any Iranian efforts to conduct a battle of attrition in the Gulf or near it, and deal with contingencies like Iran’s use of free floating mines, unattributable attacks, and any other form of asymmetric warfare than threatens friendly Gulf states and the flow of world energy exports from the region. 134