The Role and Effect of The U.S. Missile Strategyon I.R.I Missile Strategy

At the onset of the new millennium, the expansion of terrorism in the region and the world caused increasing insecurity and threat against the international peace and security, and particularly posed great threat to the stability of the Southwest Asia. In addition, this region of the world, specially after the World War I, has consistently faced with various crises. This has caused the region's countries to seek to proceed with the intention of achieving security and deterrence, whereby the Islamic Republic of Iran is far from an exception. However, with the victory of the Islamic Revolution followed by fundamental developments that occured in the international relations of the new order, Iran's ex-allied countries (the Zionist regime and the United States) that supplied it with military weapons in the previous regime, turned into its new enemies. Consequently, the new regime-specially during the years of Holy Defense- failed to have updated military weapons, most notably its air forces. This led iran to resort to the quickest and less expensive ways available in order to increase defense capabilities and acquire a deterrent military power. In so doing, missiles constitute suitable weapons for achieving the above-mentioned objective with the minimal infrastructure investment. On this basis, the principal question this article sets out to ask is what role and impact the U.S. missile strategy has had upon the missile strategy of the Islamic Republic of Iran. In answering the above question, this article, having addressed the role played by missiles in generating deterrence, sets out to examine the strategies and capabilities of both the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran by using library resources and documents available and using descriptive analysis. The findings of the research indicate that the Islamic Republic of Iran is seeking to acquire hi-tech missile technologies and increase its defense capabilities due to its ideological conflict with the United States.