The Capacities and Constraints of Crisis Management in the Economic Soft War against the Islamic Republic of Iran

The concept of soft war has been more and more referred to in the statements made by the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, where he referred to university instructors and scholars as commanders who are involved in countering the enemy’s soft war. Economic soft war is a most important aspect of the soft war which has been less considered in the literature of soft war, despite being increasingly relevant and focused by enemies. The present research has been conducted with the aim of understanding the nature and objectives of economic soft war, and introducing the capacities and constraints involved in managing the scene thereof, using the questionnaire tool, and answering the research questions using statistical methods- descriptive and inferential. The results of this research have been described by focusing on the principles of preventive crisis management in the economic soft war at three levels, namely institutional, instrumental and cognitive-human in domestic and external dimensions for each of the three areas- namely people (public opinion), elites, government and governmental authorities. The research results indicate that the economic soft war can be considered as interchangeable with the undermining or collapse of values, beliefs, and behavioral models of an economy whose objectives can be categorized in the form of values and production models; values and consumption patterns; and values and the economic managementpattern including the formal and informal structure of the country’s economy. Finally, the results of the research recognize 51 parameters as capacity, and 33 ones as constraints, summarizing how they are used in explaining the conceptual strategy and model of the subject under study.