Cordesman/Wilner, Iran & The Gulf Military Balance Rev 3
AHC 2/29/12
42
No matter how much progress Iran has made, it will be vulnerable to a mix of US targeting capabilities, and electronic warfare and suppression methods.
Iran is a big country and has poor low altitude coverage of many areas. Many US fighters and the B-1 – as well as southern Gulf and Israeli strike fighters – could penetrate deeply and sometimes to stand-off air-tosurface missile range against a variety of Iranian targets.
While Israel might be fuel-refueling limited in flying complex penetration corridors from unpredictable routes, the US would face less serious problems.
Iran would have serious problems in trying to operate both air defense aircraft and surface-based missiles in the same areas in an environment where the US used its full attack and electronic warfare capabilities.
Many US capabilities are transferrable to southern Gulf fighters and air forces in the form of anti-radiation missiles, electronic warfare pods, and to the Saudi AWACS.
US cruise missiles, F-22 fighters, and B-2 bombers could penetrate most Iranian defenses, and the F-35 will soon add to that capability.
Once Iran’s air defenses were suppressed, the US and Southern Gulf air forces would have considerable freedom to restrike Iran at any time. Iran could try to deploy covert replacements, but would face serious problems in terms of UAV and satellite dictation and would still be vulnerable to any SEAD technique that worked in the initial US and/or Southern Gulf SEAD attacks.
It should again be stressed that these comments apply to sustained levels of combat over time where the US is present or Southern Gulf air forces are prepared, properly trained, and made interoperable by either US support or reforms that are still very much a matter of discussion rather than implementation. The Southern Gulf Problem and Surface-to-Air Missile Defense Figure III.7 shows Saudi Arabia and the smaller Southern Gulf states have a wide mix of far more modern surface-to-air missile assets than Iran, including upgraded IHawks, advanced versions of the Patriot with some missile defense capability, and more modern short-range systems than any Iranian system other than Iran’s 27-32 operational Tor-M1s. These systems are considerably more capable than most of Iran’s holdings, but many have been deployed in ways that offer limited interoperability with other Gulf states. Their effectiveness is also limited in some cases by a lack of effective long-range sensors, battle management systems training and readiness, and strategic depth. Once again, however, that the Southern Gulf states stressed the need for more coordination and interoperability in these areas of military cooperation at the Gulf Cooperation Council meeting in December 2011. Moreover, the forces shown in Figure III.7 – and all of Figures III.3 to III.13 - do not include the massive air, surface-to-air missile, and ballistic missile defense forces the US could deploy. They also do not take account of the US ability to provide the GCC states and Iraq with IS&R, maritime surveillance, air control and warning, and missile defense data and command and control capabilities. In practice, this could give combination of Gulf and US forces a decisive advantage, and one the US could reinforce with land-based surface-to-air and missile defense systems of its own and missile defense cruisers. This does, however, require both Southern Gulf willingness to call for such support, and much would depend on warning time and the quality and realism of contingency planning, simulations, and at least command post exercises. 42