UNCLASSIFIED//FOUO
 |
Marine Corps Intelligence Activity |
(U) Cultural Influences on Military Effectiveness
(U) Leadership
This section contrasts Iran’s combination of extreme social hierarchy and culture of flattery with the intimacy of peer groups (dowreh).(U) Iran’s hierarchical culture creates complicated relationships between superiors and subordinates. Each side expects the other to be scheming to gain an advantage, even as they pretend to be totally devoted to one another. The distrust between superiors and subordinates undermines collective undertakings and paralyzes innovation and self-initiative because these things are always threatening to superiors. These characteristics are most prevalent in the Artesh.
(U) At the same time, Iranians form extremely intimate connections within peer-groups and families where each participant believes in their equality before God and connects their devotion to their peer as service to God. The IRGC uses this culture to promote self-sacrifice, improvisation, and risk-taking among its members.
(U) Iran is traditionally an extremely hierarchical society, social status is defined by age, occupation, and regional or class origin. Often a person’s manner of speech, gestures, or name alone is a tell-tale mark of his social rank Still, Iran has no history of caste or hereditary nobility; Iranians learn at a young age that even the lowest ranking person in society can rise to the top of social standing. Just as in chess, Iran’s national game, a well-played pawn can defeat the king. Leaps in social stature are achieved through cunning, cleverness, divine providence, or chance, just as through diligence or hard work.
|
(U) Relationships between superiors and subordinates are characterized by deference and gratitude but also by cynicism and manipulation. Iranians expect their social inferiors are scheming somehow to oust or overthrow them, even though they profess allegiance and obedience. Each individual is afraid of being sacked by a superior, swindled by a peer, or deposed by an underling. Ideally, these social relationships are reciprocal and mutually reinforcing, with the inferior providing honor and respect for the superior and the superior providing material rewards or honors to the inferior. A subordinate can force his superior to offer him more benefits by feigning total subservience. The superior’s honor, then, requires that he comply with the request. The result of this distrust is a lack of collective action and initiative on the part of inferiors.
(U) There are two spaces in Iranian culture where truly equal relationships exist and where Iranians expose their inner emotions: in the family, which is the primary unit of socialization, and among the intimate dowreh (circle of peers). The dowreh are small groups, either all male or all female, of people who believe themselves equal and alike in some way. The basis of the dowreh can be common schooling, similar cultural interests, or common allegiance to a person or idea. While the dowreh is informal, each member is obligated to use his influence for everyone else.
(U) It is only within the dowreh or the family that individuals are free from the burdens of ritualized flattery and express their true thoughts and emotions. The dowreh and family connections create a diffuse network of allegiance and leadership within the military ranks that can have greater sway than formal hierarchy and rank.
(U) The IRGC captured the ethos of the dowreh and overturned (at least temporarily) the pre-Revolutionary social hierarchy. Initially, the IRGC was made up entirely of volunteers opposed to the Shah and in the service of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khomeini. This introduced new avenues for innovation, leadership, and social mobility. Unlike the Artesh, the IRGC was conceived as a decentralized popular militia in which there were no defined ranks or hierarchy.
(U) IRGC members owe their allegiance to God and the Supreme Leader, God’s representative on earth. IRGC members (and officers in particular) volunteer to take personal responsibility and initiative to ensure the success of the revolution. The martyrdom ethic stems from the sense of submission to divine commandment, thus absolving the believer of any social responsibilities or consequences. Unlike typical superior-inferior relationships, which are dominated by false flattery and affectation, Iranians show great reverence for those leaders regarded as truly honest and worthy. Ayatollah Khomeini was such a leader, as was Mossadeq, although though they were politically at odds.
(U) Even though the IRGC has adopted more of the professional attitude of the regular military, introduced a traditional system of ranks, and filled its ranks with conscripts, much of this ethos of egalitarian submission persists. The IRGC is less bound than the Artesh to traditional norms of bureaucracy and deference. They are more apt to improvisation, creativity, and leadership by example. For example, the IRGC exploited their morale advantage to send thousands of poorly-trained troops into direct frontal assaults on enemy positions, called “human waves.” However, these characteristics can also lead the IRGC to risky and counterproductive tactics. For example, during the Iran-Iraq war, IRGC members wore beards as an outward sign of their devotion to Islam, even though facial hair hindered the operation of gas masks.
(U) Doctrine and Strategy
Section describes the difference between the Artesh and IRGC doctrines.(U) A military's fundamental doctrine is the core set of beliefs about the best way to conduct military affairs. These beliefs are informed by the cultural history of those who organize the military and their interpretation of historical experience. In Iran, the Artesh and the IRGC draw on two different sets of historical and mythical experiences within Iranian culture to develop their doctrine. The Artesh draws on Iran’s imperial legacy while the IRGC draws on the revolutionary tradition in Shi'ism. For many Iranians, the imperial and Shi’a cultural narratives are not separate, but are unified as a greater Iranian cultural history. The lessons and beliefs derived from one complement or reinforce the other. For the Artesh and the IRGC, then, focusing on one particular strand of historical experience does not require the denial of the other.
(U) The center of the Iranian imperial legacy is the myth of Rustam, the central hero of the Shahnameh, who protected the Shahs of Iran from barbarian invasion. The lesson frequently drawn from the story of Rustam is that it is good to be strong, but more important to be smart. Rustam is a great and honorable warrior who resorted to trickery and guile when necessary. This notion of tempering strength with cunning is also similar to chess, a game Iranians interpret as a close analogue to human strategic interactions: overpowering an enemy is rare, but careful planning through numerous scenarios, feigns, traps, and the judicious application of force can lead to ultimate victory. The Artesh’s conduct during the Iran-Iraq War was consistent with this understanding of warfare. The Artesh planned its maneuvers carefully and cautiously. Once the Iraq forces had been expelled from Iranian territory, the Artesh was content to fight a war of attrition until Iraq came to negotiate a peace settlement.
(U) The center of the Shi’a revolutionary experience is the figure of Imam Husayn and his martyrdom at Karbala. While there are many interpretations of the lessons of Imam Husayn’s death, Khomeini’s revolutionary ideology held that Husayn accepted death in order to confront an unjust oppressor. Husayn achieved a symbolic victory even though he and almost all of his companions were killed. The story of Husayn shows that zeal and faith can overcome an adversary’s numerical and technical superiority. This doctrine influenced the IRGC’s conduct in the Iran-Iraq War in a number of ways: First, it promoted the use of suicide missions and human wave assaults in which poorly trained but highly motivated troops were sent to attack Iraqi positions. Those who undertook these missions were considered martyrs and exemplars to future Iranians; second, it influenced the IRGC notion of a people’s war and their faith that civilians (both Iranian and Iraqi) would support their campaign against injustice. While the experience of combat during the 1980s dampened the IRGC's conviction that high morale could always overcome superior technical skill, the IRGC still exhibits its doctrinal emphasis on zealotry through its relationship with the Basij.
(U) The Artesh sees Iran as not just as a state but also a grand civilization and empire whose cultural reach extends beyond its political borders. Iran’s Arab and Turkic neighbors are deemed culturally inferior, even if they are militarily superior. So long as Iranians preserve their cultural heritage, mere military defeats are inconsequential, since all invaders eventually accede to Iranian culture. The IRGC’s revolutionary Shi’a legacy sees Iran as the standard-bearer for oppressed Muslims. Additionally, it interprets theUnited States as a modern day tyrant, an incarnation of Husayn's murderer. Conflict between the United States and Iran, therefore, is perpetual until the coming of the messiah, although it is not necessarily always violent. Implicit in these strategic views are different conceptions of the scope and nature of conflict. The Artesh fights primarily regional foes, imperial Iran’s traditional enemies, while the IRGC sees itself operating in a global theater between good and evil. There is agreement in both branches of the service, though, that challenges to Iran’s cultural integrity through attempts to influence Muslim “hearts and minds” are a grave threat.
(U) Since the Iran-Iraq War, the Artesh and IRGC have harmonized their doctrines. They recognize the United States as Iran's greatest security threat and acknowledge that Iran is incapable of winning a conventional war with the United States. Rather, they have adopted a doctrine of deterrence toward the United States that aims to raise the cost of warfare. Consistent with both the imperial legacy’s emphasis on guile and the Shi’a revolutionary legacy’s emphasis on the importance of morale, both branches aim to exploit perceived asymmetries between the United States and Iran, including launching a global guerrilla campaign using Iranian assets abroad, mobilization of the Basij, and focusing on strategic corridors. This campaign would combine naval, air, and land warfare on a variety of fronts.
(U) Operational Planning
Section describes Iranian plans and contingency plans during the Iran-Iraq War.(U) The Iranian military is known for elaborate and careful operational planning. This includes developing contingency plans. Iranian operations of 1981 to 1982, the offensives against Basra in 1982 and 1987, and the seizure of al-Faw in 1986 were all extremely well-planned operations. This draws on the lessons of chess, where the best player draws up several plans of attack to be prepared for every possible move the enemy can make.
(U) Intelligence
This Section describes Iran’s proclivity for intelligence collection, but also for paranoid analysis.(U) Iran is an avid intelligence collector, but often its analysis is flawed by the persistent cultural patterns of xenophobia (fear of anything foreign) and paranoia. Iranians prefer a convoluted explanation of an event, based on the existence of hidden hands and unseen powers to straightforward explanations. The IRGC and the Artesh maintain their own intelligence sections alongside Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Operations, but IRGC's influence extends to a number of different agencies.
(U) Small Unit Skills
Section describes how IRGC officers emerged as local commanders with great small unit skills, while Artesh is less skilled in small unit maneuvering.(U) The small unit skills vary greatly in the Iranian military. Some units in the Artesh and the IRGC are of extremely high quality, able to act independently. However, considering hierarchical leadership structures in the Artesh, most junior commanders are unable or unwilling to improvise or take initiative beyond what is explicitly demanded by superiors.
(U) This is less often the case among senior IRGC officers, who emerged as local guerrilla commanders in the early days of the Revolution. They often rose to prominence through their own ingenuity and initiative during the Iran-Iraq War and often see the usefulness of empowering units under them.
(U) Logistics and Maintenance
Describes low technical skill of Artesh and IRGC conscripts, which is made up for by IRGC ability to improvise logistical solutions.(U) The technical background of most Iranian conscripts, NCOs, and junior officers is insufficient to operate or maintain sophisticated foreign equipment. Shortages of basic supplies mean that only frontline troops are fully equipped, and little is left over for training or reserve forces. Conscripts with little motivation or little training often fill logistical and maintenance positions. Most want to leave the military as soon as their conscription term is up.
(U) In the 1970s, when Iran spent billions on the best U.S. weapons, U.S. military observers remarked that basic maintenance and logistical functions were haphazard. During the Iran-Iraq War, the military had to improvise a logistics and maintenance program to make up for the lack of American technical expertise and information flow. There is little reason to believe Iran’s capability has improved.
(U) During the Iran-Iraq War, Basij units and some IRGC units received only weapons and uniforms, not food or shelter. Religious leaders at the home front raised donations to support locally-raised units. While the IRGC has transitioned to a centrally-administered provisioning system, the Basij volunteers are still funded on a local basis, making the Basij units more closely aligned with specific ayatollahs and religious leaders who fund them.
(U) Training
This section describes training of IRGC, Artesh, and Basij units.(U) The Iranian military has shown great variation in its approach to training. In general, Iranian training is of much higher quality than that of Arab armies. This is a carry-over from training experience with the United States in the 1960s and 1970s. Many exercises run at night and in conditions of difficult weather and terrain. Still, some ground training exercises consist mainly of preplanned operations that invariably end in Iranian success. There is little emphasis on realistic exercises where the opposition has superior forces or a real chance of victory.
(U) The military has had difficulty integrating the training of the Artesh and IRGC due to their different institutional cultures. The Artesh regard the IRGC as under trained and unprofessional, while the IRGC see the Artesh as elitist, hierarchical, and ideologically suspect. Since the 1990s, there has been an increased emphasis on joint operations between the IRGC and the regular military, as well as inter-service operations that integrate the navy, army, and air force of the Artesh and IRGC. The air force uses realistic large-formation war-gaming scenarios involving amphibious landing and coordination with naval forces. The IRGC has developed at least some units whose professional ethic, training, and culture are comparable to the Artesh.
(U) The Artesh and IRGC maintain separate military academies and command colleges. The IRGC has a more elaborate training and education program. These begin with IRGC high schools located in every administrative unit in the country. The curriculum combines military education administered by the IRGC, regular studies taught by the Ministry of Education, and religious training given by clerics dispatched from the seminaries at Qom. The program lasts two and a half years and includes time in an IRGC training camp.
(U) In 1986, the IRGC opened Imam Hosein University, which graduated 800 students in 1988 trained in military science, engineering, management, and medical sciences. This university is now considered a top-tier university in Iran; students who are accepted agree to a number of years in service in the IRGC after graduation. This is complemented by a military think tank. The IRGC has also developed purely military training programs for underwater operations, flight schools, demolitions, and possibly other technical specialties. Many of the intimate connections between junior officers are developed in these settings. The education and training provided by the IRGC produces quality IRGC officers. The Artesh has no equivalent structure
|
(U) The IRGC is also responsible for training and indoctrinating the Basij. During the Iran-Iraq war, the IRGC training of Basij teenagers consisted of a mixture of brain washing and bribery. They brought their recruits from poor high schools or from religious schools. Those who refused to volunteer for service were vilified and asked if their parents were good Muslims. Young Basij recruits were kept isolated from their parents during training. The IRGC provided an incentive for parents to encourage their children to join the Basij by offering 6,000 tumans (then the monthly wage of the average Iranian) for service. Special financial subsidies were given if their child died in action. While this type and intensity of training is no longer in widespread use, the capability remains. The Basij training now focuses on military competency, particularly suppressing urban unrest. While the Basij are still mainly recruited from high school drop-outs, some are now taken from within the ranks of the IRGC. There are some reports that IRGC training of the Basij during the Iran-Iraq War was far more coercive, including forcing teenagers to raise and then slaughter animals to prove their imperviousness to emotional distress.
Sidebar Ahram Ariel(U) Unit Cohesion and Morale
This section describes the diminishing morale of the Iranian armed forces since the Iran-Iraq War and the conditions of conscripts in the Artesh and IRGC.(U) Morale and cohesion in the Iranian military has diminished since the 1979 Revolution and the Iran-Iraq War, but is still difficult to gauge. Today’s conscripts and junior officers are the “grandchildren of the revolution,” born and raised under the Islamic Republic. On one hand, they have been trained at every level of schooling to revere the 1979 Revolution and Ayatollah Khomeini and support the system of the divinely sanctioned system of government he created. On the other hand, this same generation is witness to the regime’s failure to provide economic and political improvement in Iran. The regime still feels the need to dispatch religious officials to keep up the indoctrination and root out disobedience.
(U) Among members of the IRGC and the Basij the situation is different. These groups have close ideological, familial, and economic ties with the clerical regime. They have more to gain from good service and more to lose if the regime falters. They are more religious in their devotion to the Islamic Republic. Furthermore, they can use their service time as a spring-board to positions of economic and political power. However, even within the IRGC, junior officers and other career personnel are too young to have experienced the Revolution or to have seen combat in the Iran-Iraq War.
(U) The situation among enlisted men in both the Artesh and the IRGC is uncertain. About 80 percent of Artesh personnel and 60 percent of the IRGC are conscripts who serve 22 to 24 months in active duty; navy and air force personnel are mainly volunteers. While Artesh has been the typical destination for conscripts, the IRGC, too, augments its ranks through the draft. Some of the more ideologically fervent volunteer for the IRGC officer corps, but it is not clear if there is anything beyond a random assignment between the IRGC and the Artesh for conscripts. This means that some otherwise irreligious conscripts are forced to adopt more rigid religious habits during their service in the IRGC, which could cause some discontent and alienation. Most conscripts try to return home at night rather than sleep in the barracks. Not being allowed to leave military exercises in the evening and being confined to barracks for a night is considered a punishment. There are reports that some conscripts feel service in the Artesh is more arduous because it involves more physical labor such as marching, while discipline in the IRGC is more lax, allowing conscripts to get home more often.
Sidebar(U) Iranian exile organizations suggest that about 70 percent of the men in both services supported the reformist candidate Mohammed Khatami in 1994, the same rate as the general population. While this is not surprising for the Artesh, it is for the IRGC, which is supposed to be extremely loyal to clerical conservatives. In the 1990s, new IRGC units had to be formed that were more obedient to the Supreme Leader.
Ahram Ariel(U) Technology and Innovation
This section describes Iranian desire for top technology but also to be authentic and home-grown. Also, this section describes the effect of Occidentosis and West-toxification on the IRGC’s doubt about the importance of technology.(U) The Iranian military has an ambivalent attitude on the utility of technological innovation. This is driven by the conflicting heritage of Iran’s contact with western technology, which can strengthen the Iranian state but contradict Muslim doctrine. Since the Iran-Iraq War, the Iranian military has taken pride in developing its own weapons systems, proving that Iranians were capable of matching the technological achievements of the West and no longer had to rely on superpowers like the United States
|
(U) The Artesh focuses on the need to have the most modern and effective weapons possible. The IRGC, on the other had, has doubts about the ultimate efficacy of high technology versus high morale during warfare. Part of the notion of West-toxification is that reliance on Western machines strips Iranians of their spirit and humanity. They become more like machines than men. Simply importing high technology wholesale was too easy and resulted in ostracizing the Iranian from his true culture. Soldiers who rely on the Western weapons lose their dignity as Muslims. Producing weapons domestically, rather then importing them, alleviates some of the anxiety about their dehumanizing effects; the IRGC succeeded in 1979 and the Iran-Iraq War using improvised weapons and techniques. In the IRGC’s culture, faith in Islam and willingness for self-sacrifice can be just as decisive (if not more so) than technological and material advantage. The Basij, whose training is more oriented toward indoctrination rather than weapons training, represent the ultimate expression of this belief in popular mobilization.
Ahram Ariel(U) Culture of Nuclear Technology and Nuclear Weapons
This section describes how different attitudes toward technology influence the different strains of nuclear strategy Iran might use.(U) Iran’s nuclear policy is influenced by cultural concerns of prestige, Islamic doctrine, and perception of international and domestic threats to the Islamic Republic and the Revolution. Muhammed Reza Pahlavi began Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons, by attempting to purchase nuclear technology from the United States and other western powers. The Shah was interested in nuclear weapons not because of a perceived security threat, but because he wanted to demonstrate his regime's modernization and regional supremacy. Immediately after the 1979 Revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini halted Iran’s nuclear program, stating that such utterly destructive weapons were degrading to humanity and taboo to Muslims. After the Iraqi invasion and the perceived threat to Iran’s survival, however, Khomeini ordered the resumption of nuclear research.
(U) Attitudes toward the development of nuclear doctrine are closely linked to different cultural outlooks in Iran and are influenced by the cultural practice of taqiyyah (dissimulation). These outlooks cut across different segments in the Artesh, IRGC, and civilian policymakers. Four different trends are visible: First, liberal Islamists continue to cite Ayatollah Khomeini’s original objection to nuclear weapons as un-Islamic and, therefore, forbidden. For them, Islam and Iran would be sullied by its association with such an evil and destructive weapon. This view is often professed in public by even the most hardline military and political figures, but it is only marginal in decision-making circles.
|
(U) Second, defense-oriented strategists trained in strategic studies and Western military doctrine would pursue nuclear weapons to improve Iran’s deterrence capability and avoid a replay of the Iran-Iraq War, when Iraq invaded Iran with U.S. support.
(U) The blurring between offensive and defensive orientation in the Iranian military culture, however, means that simply possessing nuclear weapons could lead to a third option: offensive nuclear strategy. Offense-oriented strategists desire nuclear capability to defend the revolution and Iran’s sovereignty and to expand Iran’s influence and the Islamic revolution abroad. They envision using nuclear weapons for purposes of blackmail and extending Iran's nuclear umbrella to help fellow Muslims repel Western imperialism, possibly by proliferating nuclear weapons to other states. Additionally, they believe possessing a nuclear bomb would increase Iran’s prestige and demonstrate Iran's scientific advancement.
(U) Fourth, radical Islamists view the bomb as a mystical weapon. This is a relatively marginal view, but it has deep roots in Shi'a culture. The most radical Islamists believe that a nuclear exchange between Iran and Israel or the United States to be a step toward Armageddon and the eventually revolution of the Muslim masses that will bring justice and peace to the earth. This belief is closely tied to faith in the return of the 12th Imam, or Mahdi, as a messiah figure.
|
(U) Among all these groups there is consensus that Iran is threatened by the U.S., Israeli, and Pakistani nuclear arsenals. There is also consensus that Iran has a right to nuclear technology for civilian energy use. They believe nuclear technology is not just a strategic but also an economic imperative, which the United States and others prohibit to prevent further development. For this reason, even hardliners seldom speak of Iran’s ambition to have an actual nuclear bomb, only to have a nuclear program or facility. However, they make their meaning clear with public displays of ballistic missiles, which have become proxy symbols for nuclear weapons.
(U) Iranian public opinion strongly supports Iran's right to have a nuclear program, but political leaders rarely speak of Iran's possession of nuclear weapons. There is great national pride associated with having an indigenously built nuclear program. The IRGC, which is in control of Iran’s nuclear and missile program, has given its ballistic missiles names and slogans drawn from Shi’a tradition. To the IRGC, nuclear weapons are not just weapons but also symbols to inspire the Revolution’s supporters and intimidate its opponents both at home and abroad. Additionally, the IRGC favors the expansion of the nuclear project as a way to further distinguish itself for the Artesh, which does not have a significant institutional presence in the missile or warhead programs.
| << Cultural Style of Warfare | Culture and Rank >> |
UNCLASSIFIED//FOUO