STRATEGIC RATIONALE OF IRANIAN BALLISTIC MISSILE PROGRAM

Abstract

Ballistic Missiles have played a decisive role in ensuring a credible deterrence posture for Iran. The Iran-Iraq War and subsequent U.S. military presence in the region have only intensified Iran’s threat perceptions. Iran has established a formidable Ballistic Missile Program (BMP) which serves as a tool of force substitution for Iran in the absence of adequate conventional forces and its conventional disparity vis-à-vis the U.S. military strength. Iran’s BMP will continue to disrupt strategic calculations among Iran’s rivals, but it also feeds into the security dilemma where Iran’s purported defensive BMP may intensify arms race dynamics. The dynamics may worsen as Iran has relentlessly demonstrated a lack of compromise on either the status or the use of its missiles. Iran will continue to rely on its BMP to maintain a robust show of force and project its offensive power through promising punitive retaliatory measures. The twelve days’ war between Iran and Israel proved the formidability of Iran’s BMP but it also highlighted key weaknesses in Iran’s strategy especially the gaps it needs to fill in its air defense and air force.