نشریه سیاست دفاعی
پیاپی 102 (بهار 1397)

The trend of developments in the battlespace has always been abreast with the latest technological and scientific achievements of humans; so it follows that building capacity in defense sector has a close relationship with any country’s capability in producing science and technology, most notably modern military technology. On the other hand, these scientific achievements has always been playing a role in shaping the battlespace in the from of scientific concepts and technologies. This research is aimed at studying the impact of the components of converging technologies on upgrading the national production system against the incoming asymmetric threats. It, then, goes on with extracting the indices from high level documents as well as from the views expressed by experts involved in different areas including military and economic organizations, designing a conceptual framework for the research, and carrying it out by using descriptive-analytical method with the help of mixed research. The statistical population in this research include: Instructors and university students in Supreme National Defense University, specialist experts working in Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, Expediency Discernment Council of the System, and the Research Center of Islamic legislative Assembly, in which the process of data gathering was done by making reference to a sample of them (93 people) being used in hypothesis testing by using the Chi-square formula to determine level of significance. As for the weight (importance) of indices using the Friedman Scoring system, the finding was that on the strength of the model of multilateral defense deterrence that the Islamic Republic of Iran used against the asymmetric threats, it must be noted that capabilities such as “critical infrastructure protection”, “production and development of sensitive military technologies”, “industrial capacity building”, “optimal resource management”, and “knowledge management”, respectively, played a substantial role in supporting the national production.

On the international arena, countries are seeking increased power and exerting influence over other countries in order to impose their own wills over them only to get to their intended interests. Sometimes, this struggle of power takes on a harsh face, and evolves into a total war. Having this in mind, the scientists of politics and geopolitics have been making their efforts to determine the factors that generate power for countries, as well as measure the extent to which they have power in relation to each other, particularly in the field of military power, in which the result of the efforts made by the scientists has been the definition of various formulas for measuring the countries’ power including military power. This article tries, in the process of conducting fundamental-applied research, to study the formulas and the definitions presented for measuring power in addition to using the library resources, and to establish, by using the descriptive-analytical method, whether or not a country’s power can be assessed in relation to another country by using those formulas in the real world. The researchers finally concluded that the available formulas are unlikely to carefully assess a country’s power over that of another country, hense setting forth the following formula by referencing to the conducted researches:MP= UP.NP/100(AP+GP+SP+PP+RP+ARP+HFP)+NW±WW+NDT+NWG

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.

Defence policy is a concept in the form of power which, by relying on the capacity of hard- and soft power within the framework of the convergence between foreign policy and defence policy, provides deterrence without using hard equipments, and paves the way for uprading the objectives underlying in defense and military policies. In other words, defense diplomacy is peaceful use of resources in the defense field for achieving positive outputs in developing bilateral and multilateral relations with the outside world. As a part of this process, defense diplomacy tries, as an auxiliary element of foreign policy, to achieve the country’s supreme objectives. This research plans to address the relationship between foreign policy and defense policy in relation to soft power, explain the role of defense diplomacy in improving deterrent defense power, delineate the functions arising from that relationship in international relations on the basis of three indices, namely “increasing the action capacity”, “increasing adaptation and adaptability”, and “increasing effectiveness and efficiency”, all by using analytical-descriptive methodolgy, and finally present a policymaking mechanism for setting policies in defense diplomacy on the strength of the relationship between these two concepts within a declared and practical policy of a political regime.

This article examines the reasons for the development and continuation of the crisis situation in Iraq by addressing the fourfold security trends in the now Iraq, enumerating the factors influencing the crisis both at the internal and external levels with an emphasis on ISIS's rise. However, in terms of objective, this article seeks to investigate how the crisis emerged by an extremist group like ISIS, by emphasizing factors and invariables pertaining historical backgrounds and identity conflicts such as the problems related to peoples, religions and Iraq's social context, as well as the problems imposed by the international order that emanate from parameters like Iraq's susceptibility to them, the presence of the interventionist foreign actors as well as how the Arab countries negatively look at Iraq. The article's theoretical basis, is a realistic one that has been conducted using an explanatory-descriptive method based on the enumeration of the parameters, which falls in the category of applied-theoretical researches. The question is: "What are the reasons for the emergence of crises and the continuation of insecurities in Iraq at internal and external levels?" And the subquestion is: "Why has an extremist group like ISIS has emerged in Iraq?" The findings of this article indicate that, considering various factors at national and transnational levels in Iraq, this country is still replete with various critical factors, in a way that such conditions will continue to be instable, and fragile even if different groups relatively manage to find a way out of political deadends. Such conditions are not stable, and will continue to be fragile though; so one should always be waiting for political instability and insecurity in this country. The article concludes that considering the emergence of an extremist and Takfiri group like ISIS in Iraq, the reality is that the abating of the crisis (ISIS) in the present conditions has only been realized in the form of its lost territories, and it is mostly likely that extremism will reemerge in Iraq, this time in the form of a reemerging force with increased emphasis on parameters like human force, military force, and most importantly "ideology".

As a political system coming out of the Islamic Revolution, the Islamic Republic of Iran has put the policy of exporting the revolutionary thinking since the very early days of the revolution’s victory on its agenda of foreign policy. The idea of exporting revolution is such an idea of consequence for Iran’s regime that it has been put on top of its foreign policy plans, affecting a large body of activities running in this area. Today, diplomacy augmented by means of the principle of invitation and the idea of reconciling hearts is capable of gaining international popularity, as well as of having extraordinary impact accordingly. This research presents two major issues: What distinguishes the Islamic Revolution from other revolutions? What role does the principle of invitation play in making the Sunna world hold on to Islam considering the recent developments of Islamic Awakening? Regarding the researches conducted, it should be stated that other revolutions are often either of an economic, or political or ideological nature, whereas the Islamic Revolution has an Islamic identity based on Islamic values and principles. Also, using the principle of inviting, the muslem authorities of the sunna states are able to take the logic of Islam inside houses by means of global extensive propaganda that can convert thousands of people within a short period of time, which is otherwise impossible to realize even after many years of war and bloodshed. Today, the role of inviting can be observed in the movements of Islamic Awakening. Thanks to the Islamic Republic of Iran’s propaganda and invitation in the Middle East, the peoples of countries like Egypt, Lybia, Tunis, Bahrain, and Yemen managed to uprise against their despotic dictators, and form a revolution. Such impacts can also be observed throughout Asia, Europe, as well as other continents. Taking into account the recent developments of Islamic Awakening, this research tries to capture the paradigm of Iran’s export of revolution in the Sunna world on the basis of the principle of invitation by using the analytical-descriptive method.