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FOREIGN WEAPONS, IRANIAN THREATS: THE CASPIAN BASIN IN IRAN'S GUNSIGHTS
CENTRAL ASIA - CAUCASUS ANALYST
Wednesday / April 19, 2006
By Stephen Blank
As the tension surrounding Iran grows, the possibility of military
action in and around its territory also grows commensurately. While
most attention focuses on conflict scenarios in Iran, the Gulf, or the
Straits of Hormuz because of their strategic significance; a fuller
assessment cannot and should not neglect the Caspian dimension of this
crisis. This is because Iran's present capabilities and the possible
development of a nuclear weapon are ultimately fungible. Although
today America and Israel are its main enemies and the likely target of
Iranian scenarios, the Iranian strategic calculus, like every other
government's, is not immutable for all time. Therefore these
capabilities could ultimately be targeted on Central Asian, Caucasian
states, Arab states in and around the Persian Gulf, Russia, or
Turkey. Turkey is already revising its force structures to deal with
the possible consequences of Iranian nuclearization.
BACKGROUND: Although its policies in the Caspian basin have generally
been circumspect, Iran is not necessarily a status quo power in this
region. It attacked Azerbaijani oil platforms in 2001 and subsequently
threatened Kazakh explorations in the Caspian in disputes over who
owns that sea's waters. Since then, in 2002 the U.S. Central Command
(USCENTCOM) uncovered intelligence showing that elements of Iran's
clerical army, the Pasdaran, were secretly providing training and
logistic support to the al-Qaeda affiliated Islamic Movement of
Uzbekistan. Iran is also tied to support for radical religious and
separatist movements in Azerbaijan, and in 2005 the London Sunday
Telegraph reported that Pasdaran had begun secretly training Chechen
rebels in sophisticated terror techniques to enable them to carry out
more effective attacks against Russian forces. These examples
illustrate the multifarious nature of the geopolitical threats to
security in this region and Iran's capability to seriously expand
them. And since the ability of all states and energy producers to
survive and/or produce that energy is tied to the presence or absence
of such shocks, the geostrategic situation here is crucial beyond
Central Asia's borders.
Iran's threats include the use of conventional or potentially nuclear
weapons to threaten local governments and to provide what might be
called extended deterrence for insurgent groups among them whom it
already has cultivated and supported. Although Iran's conventional
arsenal pales relative to those of Moscow and Washington; a nuclear
capability greatly augments its deterrence capability and potentially
frees it as it did Pakistan to conduct guerrilla campaigns against
hostile governments in its neighborhood. In its most recent exercises
conducted in the Straits of Hormuz, named `Holy Prophet', in the first
week of April 2006, Iran attempted to send Washington a message of its
capability made up of what has also become habitual Iranian boasting
about its new conventional capabilities. While virtually every foreign
analyst dismissed the announcement of new weapons as nothing new or as
being mainly for domestic and local consumption, the fact remains that
even if these weapons are not as potent as Iran claims they are,
possession of them enhances its capabilities in the Caspian Sea as
well as in the Straits of Hormuz. In those exercises Iran claimed to
have tested a new radar-invisible, stealth multiple-head ballistic
missile, Fajr-3 with a range of 1200 Kilometers, the Kowsar land to
sea anti-ship missile. It also claims to have tested the world's
fastest torpedo, a rocket-propelled torpedo called the Hoot (whale),
from which no ship can escape, evidently based on the Russian Shkval,
and a `super-modern flying boat', possibly a derivation from a Russian
wing in ground platform (WIG), as well as jets and helicopters.
Although Iran claims to have made all these new missiles itself, again
foreign analysts believe that they largely derive from Russian,
Chinese, or North Korean models or from assistance provided through
the acquisition of Western technology, not domestic ingenuity.
IMPLICATIONS: The address of the recent Iranian saber-rattling is
clear: General Yahya Rahim Safavi, head of the elite Revolutionary
Guards, said on April 5 that the U.S. must recognize Iran as a big
regional power. Since Iran's capabilities to attack shipping and
energy platforms in the Caspian, threaten neighboring governments with
missiles, and defend against their air attacks are real enough, if
they were buttressed by nuclear weapons Iran's ability to incite
mischief in the area would grow enormously. Azerbaijan in particular
is already increasingly uneasy about what might happen if the United
States and Iran come to blows. In advance of President Ilham Aliyev's
U.S. visit in late April, the Azerbaijani media candidly referred to
perceptions of intense U.S. pressure to join an anti-Iranian alliance
despite statements by Deputy Foreign Minister Araz Azimov that
Azerbaijan would not join a coalition against any particular
power. Nonetheless, Azimov did indicate Baku's concern about Iranian
activities in the disputed sector of the Caspian Sea. He also made
clear that Iran's nuclear program as well as the Armenian nuclear
power reactor evoke serious apprehensions in Azerbaijan.
At the same time, the Azerbaijani press reports charged that if
Azerbaijan did ally itself with Washington and allow U.S. forces
overflight and even limited basing rights there, Iran would probably
hit it with multiple acts of sabotage and insurgency form within. Iran
could also invade its air space and strike it with its missiles,
including its oil industry. Azerbaijan's Minister of National
Security, Eldar Makhmudov, also charged that Al-Qaeda was seeking to
recruit local girls to be Shakhids, (martyrs) and carry out suicide
terrorist operations. It is hardly inconceivable that Iran could also
recruit terrorists from within Azerbaijan for such purposes based on
existing or future cells that it develops within the country.
CONCLUSIONS: Even a cursory assessment of Iran's present capabilities
makes clear that it does have the means to make a great deal of
trouble for many South Caucasian and Central Asian governments and
even for Russia, especially in the North Caucasus. The pressure
generated by Iran's nuclearization and America's determination to
prevent it are also narrowing the space for maneuver available to
local governments. But if Iran were to successfully become a nuclear
power, their space for maneuver would narrow even further. It is quite
clear that a nuclear capability, added to Iran's regionally potent and
growing conventional capability, and its highly developed terrorist
connections constitutes a considerable threat capability directed
against all of its neighbors, and not just in the Gulf. This
development also bears out the old axiom and paradox that nuclear
capability and deterrence actually in some sense heighten the
possibility for conventional wars at smaller scales of the spectrum of
conflict. Iran's growing capabilities and unmitigated belligerence
highlights the folly of the Russian and Chinese policies of supplying
it lavishly with weapons and technology. As Russian analysts are now
coming to realize more than ever before, the capabilities transferred
to Iran could be used to threaten Moscow's vital interests and
possibly even Beijing's as well. Whatever the consequences of Iran's
nuclearization or of the campaign to stop it might be in the Middle
East and Persian Gulf, they will be no less important insofar as the
Caspian littoral and Greater Central Asia are concerned.
AUTHOR'S BIO: Professor Stephen Blank, Strategic Studies Institute,
U.S. Army War College, Carlisle Barracks, PA. The views expressed here
do not represent those of the U.S. Army, Defense Dept. or the
U.S. Government.
http://www.cacianalyst.org/view_article.php?artic leid=4171
CENTRAL ASIA - CAUCASUS ANALYST
Wednesday / April 19, 2006
By Stephen Blank
As the tension surrounding Iran grows, the possibility of military
action in and around its territory also grows commensurately. While
most attention focuses on conflict scenarios in Iran, the Gulf, or the
Straits of Hormuz because of their strategic significance; a fuller
assessment cannot and should not neglect the Caspian dimension of this
crisis. This is because Iran's present capabilities and the possible
development of a nuclear weapon are ultimately fungible. Although
today America and Israel are its main enemies and the likely target of
Iranian scenarios, the Iranian strategic calculus, like every other
government's, is not immutable for all time. Therefore these
capabilities could ultimately be targeted on Central Asian, Caucasian
states, Arab states in and around the Persian Gulf, Russia, or
Turkey. Turkey is already revising its force structures to deal with
the possible consequences of Iranian nuclearization.
BACKGROUND: Although its policies in the Caspian basin have generally
been circumspect, Iran is not necessarily a status quo power in this
region. It attacked Azerbaijani oil platforms in 2001 and subsequently
threatened Kazakh explorations in the Caspian in disputes over who
owns that sea's waters. Since then, in 2002 the U.S. Central Command
(USCENTCOM) uncovered intelligence showing that elements of Iran's
clerical army, the Pasdaran, were secretly providing training and
logistic support to the al-Qaeda affiliated Islamic Movement of
Uzbekistan. Iran is also tied to support for radical religious and
separatist movements in Azerbaijan, and in 2005 the London Sunday
Telegraph reported that Pasdaran had begun secretly training Chechen
rebels in sophisticated terror techniques to enable them to carry out
more effective attacks against Russian forces. These examples
illustrate the multifarious nature of the geopolitical threats to
security in this region and Iran's capability to seriously expand
them. And since the ability of all states and energy producers to
survive and/or produce that energy is tied to the presence or absence
of such shocks, the geostrategic situation here is crucial beyond
Central Asia's borders.
Iran's threats include the use of conventional or potentially nuclear
weapons to threaten local governments and to provide what might be
called extended deterrence for insurgent groups among them whom it
already has cultivated and supported. Although Iran's conventional
arsenal pales relative to those of Moscow and Washington; a nuclear
capability greatly augments its deterrence capability and potentially
frees it as it did Pakistan to conduct guerrilla campaigns against
hostile governments in its neighborhood. In its most recent exercises
conducted in the Straits of Hormuz, named `Holy Prophet', in the first
week of April 2006, Iran attempted to send Washington a message of its
capability made up of what has also become habitual Iranian boasting
about its new conventional capabilities. While virtually every foreign
analyst dismissed the announcement of new weapons as nothing new or as
being mainly for domestic and local consumption, the fact remains that
even if these weapons are not as potent as Iran claims they are,
possession of them enhances its capabilities in the Caspian Sea as
well as in the Straits of Hormuz. In those exercises Iran claimed to
have tested a new radar-invisible, stealth multiple-head ballistic
missile, Fajr-3 with a range of 1200 Kilometers, the Kowsar land to
sea anti-ship missile. It also claims to have tested the world's
fastest torpedo, a rocket-propelled torpedo called the Hoot (whale),
from which no ship can escape, evidently based on the Russian Shkval,
and a `super-modern flying boat', possibly a derivation from a Russian
wing in ground platform (WIG), as well as jets and helicopters.
Although Iran claims to have made all these new missiles itself, again
foreign analysts believe that they largely derive from Russian,
Chinese, or North Korean models or from assistance provided through
the acquisition of Western technology, not domestic ingenuity.
IMPLICATIONS: The address of the recent Iranian saber-rattling is
clear: General Yahya Rahim Safavi, head of the elite Revolutionary
Guards, said on April 5 that the U.S. must recognize Iran as a big
regional power. Since Iran's capabilities to attack shipping and
energy platforms in the Caspian, threaten neighboring governments with
missiles, and defend against their air attacks are real enough, if
they were buttressed by nuclear weapons Iran's ability to incite
mischief in the area would grow enormously. Azerbaijan in particular
is already increasingly uneasy about what might happen if the United
States and Iran come to blows. In advance of President Ilham Aliyev's
U.S. visit in late April, the Azerbaijani media candidly referred to
perceptions of intense U.S. pressure to join an anti-Iranian alliance
despite statements by Deputy Foreign Minister Araz Azimov that
Azerbaijan would not join a coalition against any particular
power. Nonetheless, Azimov did indicate Baku's concern about Iranian
activities in the disputed sector of the Caspian Sea. He also made
clear that Iran's nuclear program as well as the Armenian nuclear
power reactor evoke serious apprehensions in Azerbaijan.
At the same time, the Azerbaijani press reports charged that if
Azerbaijan did ally itself with Washington and allow U.S. forces
overflight and even limited basing rights there, Iran would probably
hit it with multiple acts of sabotage and insurgency form within. Iran
could also invade its air space and strike it with its missiles,
including its oil industry. Azerbaijan's Minister of National
Security, Eldar Makhmudov, also charged that Al-Qaeda was seeking to
recruit local girls to be Shakhids, (martyrs) and carry out suicide
terrorist operations. It is hardly inconceivable that Iran could also
recruit terrorists from within Azerbaijan for such purposes based on
existing or future cells that it develops within the country.
CONCLUSIONS: Even a cursory assessment of Iran's present capabilities
makes clear that it does have the means to make a great deal of
trouble for many South Caucasian and Central Asian governments and
even for Russia, especially in the North Caucasus. The pressure
generated by Iran's nuclearization and America's determination to
prevent it are also narrowing the space for maneuver available to
local governments. But if Iran were to successfully become a nuclear
power, their space for maneuver would narrow even further. It is quite
clear that a nuclear capability, added to Iran's regionally potent and
growing conventional capability, and its highly developed terrorist
connections constitutes a considerable threat capability directed
against all of its neighbors, and not just in the Gulf. This
development also bears out the old axiom and paradox that nuclear
capability and deterrence actually in some sense heighten the
possibility for conventional wars at smaller scales of the spectrum of
conflict. Iran's growing capabilities and unmitigated belligerence
highlights the folly of the Russian and Chinese policies of supplying
it lavishly with weapons and technology. As Russian analysts are now
coming to realize more than ever before, the capabilities transferred
to Iran could be used to threaten Moscow's vital interests and
possibly even Beijing's as well. Whatever the consequences of Iran's
nuclearization or of the campaign to stop it might be in the Middle
East and Persian Gulf, they will be no less important insofar as the
Caspian littoral and Greater Central Asia are concerned.
AUTHOR'S BIO: Professor Stephen Blank, Strategic Studies Institute,
U.S. Army War College, Carlisle Barracks, PA. The views expressed here
do not represent those of the U.S. Army, Defense Dept. or the
U.S. Government.
http://www.cacianalyst.org/view_article.php?artic leid=4171