\n<\/p>\n
The start of a direct military confrontation between Iran and Israel has brought renewed attention to Iran\u2019s armed forces. Early this month, Israel attacked a building in Iran\u2019s diplomatic compound in the Syrian capital, Damascus, killing seven of Iran\u2019s senior commanders and military personnel<\/a>.<\/p>\n Iran vowed to retaliate, and did so about two weeks later, starting a broad aerial attack on Israel on Saturday involving hundreds of drones and missiles aimed at targets inside Israel and the territory it controls.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s a look at Iran\u2019s military and its capabilities.<\/p>\n Israeli officials had said<\/a> they would respond to any attack by Iran with a counterattack, which could prompt further retaliation from Iran and possibly expand into a wider regional war. There is even a chance that a conflict of that sort could drag in the United States, although Washington has made clear it had nothing to do with the Damascus attack.<\/p>\n Analysts say that Iran\u2019s adversaries, primarily the United States and Israel, have avoided direct military strikes on Iran for decades, not wishing to tangle with Tehran\u2019s complex military apparatus. Instead, Israel and Iran have been engaged in a long shadow war via air, sea, land and cyberattacks, and Israel has covertly targeted military and nuclear facilities inside Iran and killed commanders and scientists.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is a reason Iran has not been struck,\u201d said Afshon Ostovar, an associate professor of national security affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School and an expert on Iran\u2019s military. \u201cIt\u2019s not that Iran\u2019s adversaries fear Iran. It\u2019s that they realize any war against Iran is a very serious war.\u201d<\/p>\n The Iranian armed forces are among the largest in the Middle East, with at least 580,000 active-duty personnel and about 200,000 trained reserve personnel divided among the traditional army and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, according to an annual assessment<\/a> last year by the International Institute for Strategic Studies.<\/p>\n The army and the Guards each have separate and active ground, air and naval forces, with the Guards responsible for Iran\u2019s border security. The General Staff of the Armed Forces coordinates the branches and sets the overall strategy.<\/p>\n The Guards also operate the Quds Force, an elite unit in charge of arming, training and supporting the network of proxy militias throughout the Middle East known as the \u201caxis of resistance.\u201d These militias include Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, militia groups in Syria and Iraq and Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza.<\/p>\n The commander in chief of Iran\u2019s armed forces is the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the last word on all major decisions.<\/p>\n While the proxy militias are not counted as part of Iran\u2019s armed forces, analysts say they are considered an allied regional force \u2014 battle ready, heavily armed and ideologically loyal \u2014 and could come to Iran\u2019s aid if it was attacked.<\/p>\n \u201cThe level of support and types of systems Iran has provided for nonstate actors is really unprecedented in terms of drones, ballistic missiles and cruise missiles,\u201d said Fabian Hinz, an expert on Iran\u2019s military at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in Berlin. \u201cThey could be viewed as part of Iran\u2019s military capability, especially Hezbollah, which has the closest strategic relationship with Iran.\u201d<\/p>\n For decades, Iran\u2019s military strategy has been anchored in deterrence, emphasizing the development of precision and long-range missiles, drones and air defenses. It has built a large fleet of speedboats and some small submarines that are capable of disrupting shipping traffic and global energy supplies that pass through the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n Iran has one of the largest arsenals of ballistic missiles and drones in the Middle East, Mr. Ostovar said. That includes cruise missiles and anti-ship missiles, as well as ballistic missiles with ranges up to 2,000 kilometers, or more than 1,200 miles. These have the capacity and range to hit any target in the Middle East, including Israel. <\/p>\n In recent years, Tehran has assembled a large inventory of drones with ranges of around 1,200 to 1,550 miles and capable of flying low to evade radar, according to experts and Iranian commanders who have given public interviews to the state news media. Iran has made no secret of the buildup, displaying its trove of drones and missiles during military parades, and has ambitions to build a large export business<\/a> in drones. Iran\u2019s drones are being used by Russia in Ukraine and have surfaced in the conflict in Sudan.<\/p>\n The country\u2019s bases and storage facilities are widely dispersed, buried deep underground and fortified with air defenses, making them difficult to destroy with airstrikes, experts say.<\/p>\n International sanctions have cut Iran off from high-tech weaponry and military equipment manufactured abroad, like tanks and fighter jets.<\/p>\n During Iran\u2019s eight-year war with Iraq in the 1980s, few countries were willing to sell weapons to Iran. When Ayatollah Khamenei became Iran\u2019s supreme leader in 1989, a year after the war ended, he commissioned the Guards to develop a domestic weapons industry and poured resources into the effort, which was widely reported in the Iranian news media. He wanted to assure that Iran would never again have to rely on foreign powers for its defense needs.<\/p>\n Today, Iran manufactures a large quantity of missiles and drones<\/a> domestically and has prioritized that defense production, experts said. Its attempts to make armored vehicles and large naval vessels have met with mixed results. It also imports small submarines<\/a> from North Korea while expanding and modernizing its domestically produced fleet<\/a>.<\/p>\n Iran\u2019s military is viewed as one of the strongest in the region in terms of equipment, cohesion, experience and quality of personnel, but it lags far behind the power and sophistication of the armed forces of the United States, Israel and some European countries, experts said.<\/p>\n Iran\u2019s greatest weakness is its air force. Much of the country\u2019s aircraft date from the era of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, who led Iran from 1941 to 1979, and many have been disabled for lack of spare parts. The country also bought a small fleet from Russia in the 1990s, experts said.<\/p>\n Iran\u2019s tanks and armored vehicles are old, and the country has only a few large naval vessels, experts said. Two intelligence gathering vessels, the Saviz and Behshad, deployed on the Red Sea, have aided the Houthis<\/a> in identifying Israeli-owned ships for attacks, American officials have said.<\/p>\n The assassinations of the senior military officials are expected to have a short-term impact on Iran\u2019s regional operations, having eliminated commanders with years of experience and relationships with the heads of the allied militias.<\/p>\n Nevertheless, the chain of command for the armed forces inside Iran remains intact, experts say. <\/p>\n April 12, 2024<\/p>\n :\u00a0<\/p>\n An earlier version of this article misstated the name of a group in the Gaza Strip. It is Palestinian Islamic Jihad, not Islamic Palestinian Jihad.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n How we handle corrections<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nWhy is Iran\u2019s military relevant right now?<\/h2>\n
What sort of military threat does Iran pose?<\/h2>\n
What kinds of weapons does Iran have?<\/h2>\n
Where does Iran get its weapons?<\/h2>\n
How do other countries see Iran\u2019s military, and what are its weaknesses?<\/h2>\n
Will Israel\u2019s attack disrupt Iran\u2019s military?<\/h2>\n