Defending Iran

Since the 1979 revolution, the ruling establishment of Iran has developed and articulated a defense strategy reflective of the country's Iran-Iraq war experience and its international isolation. Its asymmetrical warfare doctrine, use of irregular forces in military campaigns, deployment of ballistic missiles, use of fast naval vessels to harass and confuse adversaries, and finally development of a sophisticated cyber warfare capability, are all features of this unique defense strategy. Based on a wide range of primary sources in Persian, Arabic and English, Gawdat Bahgat and Anoushiravan Ehteshami offer a detailed and authoritative analysis of Iran's defense strategy. Additionally, this book provides a comparative analysis of the Islamic Republic's capabilities in relation to Israel and Saudi Arabia, its main regional adversaries. Framing Tehran's threat perceptions following the revolution within a wider historical context, this book will facilitate further analytical reflections on the country's changing role in the region, and its relations further afield, with the United States, Europe, Russia and China.

OPERATIONAL APPROACH OF LAND FORCES IN THE HIBRID CONTEXT

Visualizing the various operational contexts of recent Land Forces’ employment, there were many situations where the nominated structures also faced unconventional adversaries, even though, initially, the nature of operation had been identified as having a conventional pattern. This particularity is perpetuated more and more aggressively, determining the conventional military structures of the Land Forces to operate in order to face both regular and irregular forces, even within the same AO. Based on these coordinates, the article triggers to identify the principles needed to adjust the operational approach of Land Forces, so that the organic structures can perform in engaging the adversary from AOs within current and future operations. Also, a subsidiary objective of the present research is to identify the mutations at the level of ACOAs based on which the adjustment of FFCOAs will be made. Keywords: hybrid operational approach; ACOA, FFCOA; regular forces; irregular forces.

European Officers and the Mainland Irregular Forces on the Ionian Islands, 1798–1814: A Comparison of Command and Tactics

In the era of the Napoleonic wars, the Ionian Islands off the western coasts of Greece and southern Albania became a base of operations and an area of conflict in the Mediterranean in the years 1797–1814. In that period, Republican French, Russian, Imperial French, and British forces successively occupied these Greek-populated islands, formerly Venetian possessions. Each of these powers attempted to establish a nominally independent "Septinsular Republic" under their protectorate. There were efforts by all of these powers to organize native armed forces, some raised from among refugees from the mainland-bandits (klephtes), former Ottoman irregulars (armatoloi), and clansmen from the autonomous regions of Himara, Souli, and Mani. Although these refugee warriors were skilled in the use of weapons-flintlock firearms, sabres and yataghans-they fought and were organized according to traditions and methods that were different and considered "obsolete" in early nineteenth century Europe. This study will look into the organization, training and command of these troops by Russian, French, and British officers. It will study the successes and failures of these officers in forming these native warriors into regular or semi-regular forces. It will also examine how the attitudes and activities of these officers helped to develop the armed forces of the Greek War of Independence, 1821–1830. Keywords: Napoleonic wars, Ionian Islands, armatoloi and klephtes, military forces

Broadening the Perspective on Military Cohesion? A Reply

In 2018, Ilmari Käihkö published a special collection in Armed Forces & Society on the debate about small unit cohesion. Later, in reaction to a response by Guy Siebold, he published a further intervention with Peter Haldén. Focusing on my 2006 article in the journal and my subsequent debate, Käihkö has claimed that the cohesion debate is too narrow. It ignores organizational factors in the armed forces and wider political factors, including nationalism and state policy. Consequently, it is incapable of analyzing non-Western state or irregular forces and is only relevant for the 20th and 21st centuries. This response shows that while Käihkö’s extension of the empirical archive to non-Western armed groups is to be welcomed, none of his theoretical claims are sustainable.

The legacy of war: The effect of militias on postwar repression

How do wartime legacies affect repression after the conflict ends? Irregular forces support the government in many civil wars. We argue that if this link continues after the war, respect for human rights declines. As “tried and tested” agents they are less likely to shirk when given the order to repress. Governments might also keep the militias as a “fall-back option”, which results in more repression. Analyzing data from 1981 to 2014 shows that pro-government militias that were inherited from the previous conflict are consistently associated with worse repression, but newly created ones are not. Wartime pro-government militias target a broader spectrum of the population and are linked to worse state violence. New militias usually supplement wartime ones and use violence primarily against political opponents. This study highlights the detrimental impact of war legacies.

Statistical studies of the Russian Ministry of War in the late 1860s — 1870s about the Military Frontier

From 1867, the Russian Ministry of War began to regularly publish statistical studies about the most important European countries. It was assumed that these works would contain materials specifically selected for the Russian reader and will help Russian public to form their opinion about the situation in Europe. The first two studies on Austria-Hungary were published in 1867 (an anonymous section in the “Military Statistical Collection for 1868”) and in 1874 (the first part of the monograph “Austria-Hungary” by the officer of the General Staff A. F. Rittih). The article shows that these works have been unfairly forgotten. Although they are a compilation of foreign studies, they contain an amount of statistical data on the Military Frontier unique for the Russian historiography. Moreover, these studies reflected the position of the Ministry of War on the development prospects of the settled troops. The author shows that the description of Military Frontier at “Military Statistical Collection for 1868” conceptually recalls the report of the Russian military agent in Vienna, F. F. Tornau, later used by the officer of the Irregular Forces Department N. I. Krasnov to prepare a study on the prospects of the Russian Cossacks. In “Austria-Hungary” there is no separate description of the Military Frontier, which can be linked to the loss of interest in the Austrian experience in the Ministry of War.

The Ties That Bind: Ethnicity, Pro-government Militia, and the Dynamics of Violence in Civil War

Existing research reveals many of the ways pro-government militia (PGM) shape civil violence but overlooks how the ethno-political ties between the state and a PGM might influence these effects. We argue that co-ethnic militia (i.e., groups composed of the ruling elite’s ethnic kin) are relatively loyal irregular forces that multiply state military capacity. The greater loyalty of co-ethnic groups mitigates principal–agent problems but further polarizes ethnic communities, and as a result, co-ethnic PGMs are likely to be associated with longer and more intense civil conflict. We test this argument on a global sample of cases from 1989 to 2007 using new data capturing the ethnic ties of all PGMs. The results support our claims that co-ethnic militia are associated with more intense and longer civil conflict.

‘A DESPERAT WEPON’: RE-HAFTED SCYTHES AT SEDGEMOOR, IN WARFARE AND AT THE TOWER OF LONDON

The Royal Armouries possesses two scythe blades of pre-mechanised manufacture, mounted axially on straight hafts to form weapons. An inventory of 1686 lists eighty-one scythe blades at the Tower of London (by 1694 described as booty captured from the Duke of Monmouth’s rebels at Sedgemoor) and the surviving pair was probably among them. The Duke’s shortage of standard-issue equipment made improvisation essential, and the choice of re-hafted scythe blades owed to their widespread, well known and effective use by irregular forces in Britain and Europe since the late Middle Ages. Monmouth’s ‘sithmen’, some hundreds strong, took part in skirmishes and in the battle of Sedgemoor itself. Of interest to the Tower authorities as curiosities and for their propaganda value, the scythe blades were displayed, in diminishing numbers, from the seventeenth until the nineteenth century, and these two until the 1990s. In the future they will be displayed again, representing Monmouth’s rebels and countless others, and a weapon type that deserves a greater level of study and recognition.