The U.S. ability to "read" the Iranian regime and formulate appropriate policies has been weakened by lack of access to the country and by the opacity of decisionmaking in Tehran. To improve understanding of Iran's political system, the authors describe Iranian strategic culture; investigate Iran's informal networks, formal government institutions, and personalities; assess the impact of elite behavior on Iranian policy; and summarize key trends.
The Islamic Republic of Iran is now perceived by many as a rising power in the Middle East and a long-term challenge to U.S. regional interests. The fall of Iran's archenemy, Saddam Hussein, has enabled it to expand its influence in Iraq and beyond. Its nuclear program continues relatively unabated, with the Islamic Republic defying international condemnation and sanction to pursue an ostensibly civilian nuclear program -- a program that could, technically, provide Tehran with a "breakout" capacity for nuclear arms, if it is not already a cover for a dedicated military effort. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has fueled the fire through his inflammatory rhetoric about the United States, its allies in the Persian Gulf region, and his systematic denial of the Holocaust. The presidential election in June 2009 presents yet another cause for U.S. and Western concern. Yet the U.S. ability to gauge the extent and totality of the challenges posed by Iran is handicapped by the lack of official relations between the two states since 1980. Moreover, observers of the Iranian regime, both within Iran and abroad, often lament the opacity of Iranian decision making processes, which presents serious impediments to those observers trying to understand the Iranian system and the policies it produces. U.S. policy makers need both a more complete picture of the driving characteristics of the Iranian regime and a framework to formulate effective policies for securing U.S. interests vis-a-vis the Islamic Republic. The objective of this book is to offer a framework to help U.S. policy makers and analysts better understand existing and evolving leadership dynamics driving Iranian decision making. The research herein provides not only a basic primer on the structure, institutions, and personalities of the Iranian government and other influential power centers, but also a better understanding of the strategic culture underlying Iranian policy formulation and execution.
As Irans nuclear program evolves, U.S. decisionmakers will confront a series of critical policy choices involving complex considerations and trade-offs. The U.S. Air Force will need to prepare to carry out whatever policies are chosen.
This handbook offers a collection of cutting-edge essays on all aspects of strategic culture by a mix of international scholars, consultants, military officers, and policymakers. The volume explicitly addresses the analytical conundrums faced by scholars who wish to employ or generate strategic cultural insights, with substantive commentary on defining and scoping strategic culture, analytic frameworks and approaches, levels of analysis, sources of strategic culture, and modalities of change in strategic culture. The chapters engage strategic culture at the civilizational, regional, supra-national, national, non-state actor, and organizational levels. The volume is divided into five thematic parts, which will appeal to both students who are new to the subject and scholars who wish to incorporate strategic culture into their toolbox of analytical techniques. Part I assesses the evolving theoretical strengths and weaknesses of the field. Part II lays out elements of the theoretical and methodological foundations of the field, including sources and components of strategic culture. Part III presents a number of national strategic cultural profiles, representing the state of contemporary strategic culture scholarship. Part IV addresses the utility of strategic culture for practitioners and scholars. Part V summarizes the key theoretical and practical insights offered by the volume’s contributors. This handbook will be of much interest to students of strategic studies, defense studies, security studies, and international relations in general, as well as to professional practitioners.
Some states have violated international commitments not to develop nuclear weapons. Yet the effects of international sanctions or positive inducements on their internal politics remain highly contested. How have trade, aid, investments, diplomacy, financial measures and military threats affected different groups? How, when and why were those effects translated into compliance with non-proliferation rules? Have inducements been sufficiently biting, too harsh, too little, too late or just right for each case? How have different inducements influenced domestic cleavages? What were their unintended and unforeseen effects? Why are self-reliant autocracies more often the subject of sanctions? Leading scholars analyse the anatomy of inducements through novel conceptual perspectives, in-depth case studies, original quantitative data and newly translated documents. The volume distils ten key dilemmas of broad relevance to the study of statecraft, primarily from experiences with Iraq, Libya, Iran and North Korea, bound to spark debate among students and practitioners of international politics.
A unique and major contribution to the scholarly and policy debate on American foreign and economic policy toward the Islamic Republic of Iran. A volume that will be of interest to scholars and policy makers who struggle to understand the complex rivalry between these two nations and wish to analyze the Iranian/American relationship since 1979. Authors frame the conflicted relationship between Iran and the United States as a low intensity conflict, embodying elements of superpower gamesmanship, insurgent tactics and economic warfare. Revolutionary Iran and the United States is unique in its approach by exploring how diplomatic, military, and economic weapons are employed to bolster each nation's strategic and tactical advantage. This analysis encompasses the political, military, and economic facets of the rivalry.
This book investigates an important phenomenon in the Middle East and the Mediterranean region, namely the role that the military plays in the governments of several states of the region. Can military forces be defined as guardians of a regime in a democratic state? How is it possible to limit the power of armies to solely military prerogatives and competences? How can the intervention of military forces in the political arena in democratising countries be prevented? It is easy to ask these questions, but finding answers is more difficult. Using historical events and theories as examples to follow is an even more complicated task. What happened after the Arab Spring has demonstrated again how civil-military relations constitute an important pillar of the democratisation process. The contributors to this book develop and analyse the reasons why militaries in the Middle East and the Mediterranean wished to obtain a guardianship role and the methods they used to achieve and maintain it. The book also investigates how these militaries reacted to democratisation in their respective countries, and begins with a conceptual framework followed by examples from Spain, Egypt, Turkey, Lebanon and Iran. This work provides a multi-faceted understanding of the historical, political, social and economic layers of complicated civil-military relations in one of the world’s most unstable regions.
This book investigates the development of contemporary Iranian civil society and the role of public intellectuals, looking in particular at how different reformist public intellectuals used civil society to craft their vision of Iran's socio-political future.
Iran's commander in chief and highest political authority, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, plays a critical role in Iran's direction. This monograph explores factors shaping the succession to Khamenei and outlines post-Khamenei scenarios.
Iran's Organization for the Mobilization of the Oppressed (Sazeman-e Basij-e Mostazafan), commonly known as the Basij, is a paramilitary organization used by the regime to suppress dissidents, vote as a bloc, and indoctrinate Iranian citizens. Captive Society surveys the Basij's history, structure, and sociology, as well as its influence on Iranian society, its economy, and its educational system. Saied Golkar's account draws not only on published materials—including Basij and Revolutionary Guard publications, allied websites, and blogs—but also on his own informal communications with Basij members while studying and teaching in Iranian universities as recently as 2014. In addition, he incorporates findings from surveys and interviews he conducted while in Iran.
