The Iranian Way of War

<p>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.</p><p>This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore you will see the original copyright references library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world) and other notations in the work.</p><p>This work is in the public domain in the United States of America and possibly other nations. Within the United States you may freely copy and distribute this work as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.</p><p>As a reproduction of a historical artifact this work may contain missing or blurred pages poor pictures errant marks etc. Scholars believe and we concur that this work is important enough to be preserved reproduced and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.</p><br>