نشریه مطالعات دفاعی استراتژیک
پیاپی 54 (زمستان 1392)

In the modern age, war has adopted a particular discourse as the result of which the former strategies by International powers have so been developed in external environment, i.e. war, covert operation and overthrow. Accordingly, given such developments, the West and specially America currently, rather than use of hardware approaches, applies software and smart approaches in the frame of soft war in such a way to change the IRI system. Consequently, the present article mainly aims to recognize and develop strategies for the Islamic Republic of Iran to counter soft war in the 4th decade of revolution. Furthermore, this study pursues the objectives as follows: recognition and clarification of soft war dimensions and indices in the 4th decade of Islamic revolution, recognition and definition of the utmost possible soft war scenarios in the said period, recognition of embedded strengths and weaknesses in the system's institutions to counter soft war in aforesaid decade and lastly, recognition of threats and opportunities to counter soft war in the decade. This study applies descriptive method to fulfill the objectives and gathers data on desk and then assesse them through questionnaire.

At the national level, currently, futurology has manifested in the frame of futuristic actions in such a way that it has brought about unique benefits for the society. The method and strategies employed by strategic futurism could meet the vision deed, progress model and the Islamic revolution's aspirations. Like any futurological activity, strategic futurism is a value-based knowledge under the severe impact of ideology and social culture. Meanwhile, the problem in question is the incompatibility of secular strategic futurism with Islamic strategic futurism. Upon this reason, its effectiveness in Islamic society hinges upon development of an indigenous model compatible with its values, a note signifying the necessity and significance of the study. This article, besides reviewing methods and processes of strategic futurism and studying it as a case in some countries, clarifies the possibility of Iranian-Islamic model, examines Islamic values and finally introduces the model constituents. By the same token, this study is conducted upon case-based method and as the author aims to indigenize the model, the research places in applied-developmental type. In the end, it is worth to note that the model mentioned in the study is a normative one.

With a strategic approach in foreign policy, this study develops and presents strategies for reinforcing the status of Islamic countries in southwest Asia. The axial problem this study deals with is the lack of developed strategies for foreign policy of Islamic countries in the region in line with promoting their status. Conducted upon compatibility method, this article aims to develop strategies in the foreign policy of Islamic countries to reinforce their status in south-west Asia. In the same vein, this study poses the question: What are the strategies for promoting the status of Islamic countries in south-west Asia? The main developed strategy is as follows: reinforcing the multilateral foreign policy in south-west Asia through developing peaceful coexistence, norm-building, constructive interaction, and lastly détente and confidence- building by means of de facto structural experiences and human forces, Islamic awakening wave and the national status in the region in such a way to promote their status and survey the road to the desirable position.

Emergence of Popular and wide revolution which toppled a strong system that was armed with powerful military and security forces such as Zein-ul-Abedin Bin Ali in Tunisia, Simply shows wide non acceptance of such system and as a result, full non-legitimacy of it. Similar to other popular revolutions, Tunisian revolution indicates the minimizing the legitimacy of ruling system, which confiscated political and civil freedoms with motto of welfare government and ultimately none of them were materialized. While Islamic awakening developments in Tunisia as the origin of Arabic regional and North Africa developments have been explored, by using the existing data and statistics of 24-year presidency of Bin Ali, the current paper examines the political, social, economic and security grounds of such developments as the possible effective elements in shaping the protests. Qualitative-Quantitative methodology has been used in present research, and in addition to studying as well as analysing the contents of documents and deeds, the deep interviews have been conducted with aim at exploring the issue. Also, for prioritizing the rate of significance of each elements, the ranking tests have been used in Qualitative section. The Conclusions of analyses indicate simultaneous impact of three classes of structural, human and organizational elements on shaping of Tunisia development

The Process of changing global geometry of power began after the victory of Islamic revolution and has been matured in next decades. This process entered a new phase with emergence of religion-based popular movements in Arabic countries which are called Islamic awakening in which the most signifigance evidence has been manifested in rising the gradual and continued role making of resistance axis in regional developments and anti-domination front at global level. With aim at exploring the dimentions and indices which have been expressed by velayat Faghih discourse on the foundations, reasons, objectives and approaches of Islamic awakening, the current research explains the pathology of such awakening and mechanisms for confronting those damages. The consequences of Islamic awakening of new geometry of power at regional and international levels have been introduced. The data have been gathered by library studies and questionnaires. Combined quantitative (statistical analyses by using SPSS21 software) and qualitative (discourse analysis) methodology has been used for analysing the data. The final results of current research show significant impact of Arabic region developments (Islamic awakening) on different global and regional structures and actors (particularly disrupting in regional hegemony of Zionism regime, promotion of resistance axis and position of the Islamic revolution global and regional process (notably escalation the process of power finding of popular movements, changing in the geometry of power, declining the U.S. hegemony and formation the new discourse of regional power) as well as the internal situation of region (specially increasing the potentials of rulemaking of popular movements, instability of inefficient political systems).

As the flagbearers, universities and seminaries shoulder a particular assignment in countering soft war since the nature and type of hostile soft threats against Islam are diverse and complicated and consequently in need to exact recognition in dimension and domain by the academic centers. Accordingly, the present study aims to examine and present strategies in developing functionality of universities and seminaries against the U.S. soft threats. An applied research, this study employs case-based method and analyses the data by means of descriptive, inductive and SWOT Technique and lastly, it presents appropriate strategies in such a way to develop seminary-university functionality in countering the U.S. soft threats.