Asymmetric Strategy

Growing Iranian Navy relies on ‘unbalanced warfare’ tactics

By MATT HILBURN, Associate Editor

The conflict in Iraq is largely a land war, prompting the U.S. Navy to shift 11,000 sailors to ground combat roles with Central Command for tasks ranging from transportation to Riverine duties and prison security. The service today has more sailors in the Central Command than on its ships deployed worldwide. Nonetheless, in the conflict in Iraq — as well as in Afghanistan — the Navy mainly plays a supporting role to the Army and Marine Corps.

However, the U.S. Navy likely would find itself at the tip of the spear should the ongoing war of words between the United States and Iran over Iranian nuclear ambitions escalate into a military confrontation.

Measured by U.S. standards, the Iranian Navy is nowhere near as capable, but its growing asymmetric capabilities could make it a potentially dangerous foe. It has geographic advantages, for example, and would rely in part on the stealth and flexibility of its submarines and small boats.

“The geography of the Strait of Hormuz has strategic and tactical significance for any navy operating in the region,” said a U.S. Navy official in the intelligence community. And, “there is always the potential for a naval conflict to develop if a confrontation with Iran were to escalate.”

Michael Eisenstadt, a senior fellow and director at the Military and Security Studies Program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said that since so much of the world’s oil has to flow through the Strait of Hormuz, the Iranians realize there is a vulnerability there they can exploit.

In addition, Iran has a history of successful asymmetric naval warfare, particularly in the so-called Tanker War that erupted during the Iraq-Iran war of the 1980s. During the conflict, both sides attacked merchant shipping in the region, including ships of neutral countries. Iran relied on low-tech methods such as small boats and minecraft.

It was during this war, in 1987, that the guided-missile frigate USS Stark was hit by Iraqi Exocet missiles in the Persian Gulf. U.S. Marine Corps helicopters sank three Iranian patrol boats that had fired on a U.S. helicopter and U.S. Navy forces seized the Iran Ajr, a ship laying mines in the gulf.

In 1988, after the frigate USS Samuel B. Roberts struck a mine in the Persian Gulf, U.S. Navy forces attacked Iranian warships and oil platforms during Operation Praying Mantis, sinking several patrol boats and one frigate and severely damaging another frigate. Later that year, the guided-missile cruiser USS Vincennes shot down an Iranian passenger plane that was mistaken for an Iranian fighter over the Persian Gulf.

Officials agree that Iran’s navy is much more highly developed today. In fact, in a 2004 report to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, the Defense Intelligence Agency said Iran can “temporarily disrupt maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz using a layered force of Kilo-class diesel submarines, ship- and shore-based antiship cruise missiles and naval mines.”

The report, given by Vice Adm. Lowell E. Jacoby, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, stated that “with the exception of naval forces, Iran’s military modernization has been stagnant.”

The report went on to say Iran “publicly announced implementation of an asymmetric strategy emphasizing lightly armed but numerous guerrilla forces” and, more ominously, that Iran’s navy is the region’s most capable.

This assessment was buttressed in October by the U.S. Navy official who said, “it is fair to say that Iran has recently made a significant effort to improve its naval capabilities. Since 2002, there has been a considerable increase in naval platforms and weapons in both of Iran’s naval forces.”

The two navies the official referred to include the regular Iranian Navy, with larger ships and more open-water capability, and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy (IRGCN), which has smaller craft and boats and is more suited to operations in the Strait of Hormuz and coastal waters.

The official added “most of Iran’s newest acquisitions combine smaller boats that would typically be associated with asymmetric warfare with conventional weapons such as cruise missiles and torpedoes. Iran’s naval forces cover the whole gamut from conventional to asymmetric capabilities.”

According to the official, the regular naval force includes three Kilo-class submarines, three midget submarines, three Vosper corvettes, 13 Combattante guided-missile patrol craft and a variety of patrol craft and auxiliaries. The Vosper and Combattante ships, according to the Naval Institute’s Guide to Combat Fleets 2005-2006, are being fitted to carry C-802 antiship cruise missiles.

The IRGCN has 10 Houdong-class guided-missile patrol craft — all capable of carrying C-802s — a large number of torpedo and short-range missile boats, and hundreds of lightly armed small boats. Both navies operate various coastal defense cruise missile units.

In addition to the naval forces, Iran also has ground forces, an air force and special operations forces. Like the navy, the army and the air force have their regular components as well as Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. According to the CIA World Factbook, there are nearly 16 million males and 15 million females “fit” for military service. Iran has compulsory service for males 18 and over, with 16-year-olds able to volunteer.

During the Iran-Iraq war, “soldiers” as young as 9 were recruited extensively. In 2003, according to the Factbook, Iran spent about $4.3 billion on defense, about 3.3 percent of its gross domestic product. This compares to 10 percent for Saudi Arabia in 2002, 2.5 percent for India in 2005 and 5.9 percent for Syria in 2000.

During an August 2006 interview on Iranian television, the transcript of which was posted on The Middle East Media Research Institute’s web site, Adm. Sajjad Kouchaki, the commander of the Iranian regular navy, was quite candid about how Iran was preparing its naval capabilities.

“Our tactics are completely different from the enemy’s conventional tactics,” he said. “[Our] two navies complement one another. The IRGCN has good experience in the strategic dimension of speed boats, antiship missiles and techniques and tactics of unbalanced warfare.”

Eisenstadt said that by Iran’s own assessment, it realizes its naval forces can’t go toe-to-toe with the U.S. Navy.

“So what they’ve developed is a kind of a naval guerilla warfare capability,” he said, which uses very small, very fast, low-radar-signature craft attacking from all directions.

He said the Iranians could even mount attacks with special operators aboard jet skis carrying rocket-propelled grenades.

“In some cases they may get lucky, if they do suicide attacks like al Qaeda did [with the USS Cole] in Yemen,” he said. “They might be able to do some significant damage to a ship or, if they really get lucky, they might sink a ship. It’s not that we’d lose the fight, but we would take losses, and I think there’s little doubt about that.”

In the Navy’s 2004 “World Maritime Challenges,” a periodic unclassified publication from the Office of Naval Intelligence that assesses the broad scope of emerging and potential threats, small attack craft are featured as one of the foremost potential threats.

The IRGCN, the report claims, has more than 1,000 small boats ranging from 17-60 feet in length, concentrated around the Strait of Hormuz. The document said the largest swarm of such boats observed was 40, but that in a wartime attack, up to 100 could be used, coming at all angles.

Kouchaki said Iranian submarines “can easily get near the enemy,” and claimed that one submarine had passed under an “enemy” vessel without being noticed and followed it “through a periscope at a depth of 1 kilometer, without their noticing.”

Iran works with many nations for a whole host of components that have naval applications, and its three biggest suppliers are China, Russia and North Korea, said the U.S. Navy official. Likewise, he said, it follows that these nations also provide Iran with substantial training for its naval forces.

The official added that Iran has a well-publicized “Self Sufficiency Jihad-A” campaign designed to reduce dependency on foreign suppliers and arms imports. It stands to reason, he said, that Iran tries to modify, adapt and reverse engineer platforms and weapons.

“Underneath all of this is the drive for self-sufficiency,” said Ilan Berman, vice president for policy at the American Foreign Policy Council, an expert on regional security in the Middle East. “They’re very paranoid and they think that suppliers can be cut off at any time.”

Berman said that every year or so, the Iranians roll out a new variant of a frigate they build themselves, and “they’re very proud of that.”

The Middle East Media Research Institute’s web site also has clips from Iranian television touting sophisticated weapons systems including a high-velocity underwater missile capable of traveling at 100 meters per second, a “flying boat” that can carry two cruise missiles and what Iran claims to be an indigenously produced submarine, the Nahang 1.

Kouchaki said “we are building submarines weighing 150-200 tons. These submarines can reach any depth in the Persian Gulf, the Gulf of Oman and the north of the Indian Ocean.”

Eisenstadt cautioned that “there’s a high level” of wishful thinking to many Iranian claims about their capabilities.

While the credibility may be suspect, and diplomatic avenues may yet prevent an armed conflict between the U.S. and Iranian navies, Iran has already proved it can export its reverse-engineered technology to “friendly” forces that will use it with great effect.

A case in point is the use of a C-802 antiship cruise missile by Hezbollah surrogates during the war with Israel last summer. On July 14, Hezbollah successfully fired a C-802 at the Israeli corvette Hanit — one of the most modern ships in the Israeli fleet — off the coast of Lebanon, killing four sailors and causing significant damage to the ship. Another C-802 narrowly missed another corvette but hit a Cambodian-flagged merchant ship, sinking it.

Rear Adm. Tony L. Cothron, the director of naval intelligence, said it was likely that Iran provided some kind of assistance to Hezbollah.

The C-802 attack may just be a taste of things to come. According to the “World Maritime Challenges,” the growing availability of advanced technologies and the expanding mix of conventional and asymmetric tactics combine to create “an increasingly complex and lethal battlespace” facing the U.S. and coalition navies.