Iran, according to its representatives, for the first time in its history began to build "large warships". Is this ambitious country preparing a full-fledged navy to confront the United States? Is she able to do it on her own? Maybe Russia should help Iran in this?
A few days ago, the commander of the naval forces (Navy) of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of Iran, Alireza Tangsiri, said: "We have planned the production of large ships and have already begun their construction. The Supreme Leader (the leader and spiritual leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei – note) called this year the year of a production breakthrough, and the IRGC Navy is determined to fulfill this instruction of the Supreme Commander. The IRGC Navy is actively engaged in the production of ships and has made great progress."
Opportunities and promotion
A loud statement, nothing to say. Here, however, it is worth remembering a saying that is found among Afghans living in the border areas with Iran. The saying goes, " The straightest Iranian is as crooked as a saber." This reflects, from the point of view of the people of Afghanistan, the cunning nature of the Iranians. Everything that the cunning Persians say should actually be "divided" - and not in half, as the saying goes, but by eight or ten.
At the same time, it is necessary to understand how unbridled the Iranian domestic propaganda is. If you believe the Iranian official, then Iran is a superpower of the level "almost Russia" without five minutes, you need to wait just a little. This means that statements about large ships from the IRGC Navy may be just another propaganda move, as they say, from the same series. And here are the reasons.
The methods by which Iran ensures its security are extremely specific, but if we simplify it, the picture is as follows. The armed forces must repel an attack on Iran by foreign states, and the IRGC is responsible for everything else – irregular wars in neighboring countries, deterrence of opponents by non-state paramilitary groups, border protection, and a lot of other issues.
And the ships in this scheme are the area of responsibility of the Navy, the military fleet. The Navy, not the IRGC Navy, is responsible for the construction of warships in Iran. And the IRGC operates a mass of semi-regular forces that perform tasks to protect the state border at sea, provoke the Americans and their allies, detain foreign commercial vessels, and so on. The IRGC Navy, unlike the Iranian Navy as a whole, consists mainly of motor boats, and the largest armed units in it are 205-ton Tondar-type missile boats.
However, there are still large ships in the "just" Iranian Navy – these are civilian vessels converted for military purposes. The largest such vessel is in operation recently entered the mother ship "Makran". A warship, however, it can be considered very conditionally. An ordinary Iranian warship is the level of a guard ship from the fifties of the last century, with a radar complex and communication systems at the level of the seventies and a small number of old anti-ship missiles with a TTH at the level of the eighties.
The largest warship the Iranians have built so far is the Sahand, which they define as a destroyer. In reality, this is a very weak and small corvette with poor weapons, antediluvian equipment and a displacement of only 1300 tons. This ship is still the limit of what Iran has built itself. What a ship with a large displacement of the Iranians can really float? For now, it will be either an overgrown Sahand, or a cargo ship converted into a kind of auxiliary cruiser. The Iranians themselves will not be able to do anything else-they have no engines, no weapons, no engineering school.
Challenges and threats
Nevertheless, Iran needs a full-fledged naval force very much. Iran has a lot of tasks at sea. For the Iranians, the opportunity to build up naval power means a lot.
In the late 2000s, Somali pirates repeatedly tried to hijack Iranian merchant ships in the Gulf of Aden – and Iran had to keep its ships there. Today, Iran supplies Syria with fuel and ammunition, including using sea communications (especially fuel). Today, Iran has to rely on the Russian Navy to protect its tankers, and proud Iranians cannot like this fact. The supply of weapons to the Yemeni Houthis and the protection of their communications with them also require warships, otherwise the same Saudi Arabia would simply block the Houthis from the sea. Another pressing issue is the protection of communications with friendly Venezuela. In the current political situation, it would be logical to be able to escort a tanker or several by the forces of a warship-if only it was.
There is another factor. Iran has already fought with the Americans – and at sea.
In 1987, the American frigate Samuel Roberts was blown up by Iranian mines in the Persian Gulf. The ship's keel was torn off, the hull began to collapse, a fire broke out in some rooms, and the engine room was flooded. The turbines were blown off their foundations, the ship lost power and was de-energized-right in the middle of an Iranian minefield. Only the extraordinary training of the crew and the successful design made it possible to literally pull the ship out of the other world.
In response, the U.S. Navy conducted Operation Mantis on April 18, 1988. American ships and planes destroyed two inactive oil platforms that the Iranians used as temporary bases, sank the Joshan missile boat in a naval battle, and destroyed the Sahand warship (not the current Sahand, but its predecessor) with an air strike. One Iranian fighter jet was damaged, another warship was damaged, and three high-speed motorboats were sunk.
The Iranians have not forgotten this. If the historical experience of the Iraqis is Abrams tanks mixing with the sandy soil of the defenders of the country, then for the Iranians it is a sea battle with a missile cruiser and frigates of the US Navy and their carrier-based aircraft. To prevent this in the future, again, we need a naval force.
The Iranians have a need for a strong military fleet, and they also have an understanding of why they need it. And even the propaganda that says that it will soon be-there is. Only there is no way to actually build it.
Russia and the Iranian navy. Features and limitations
Here, the Russian military-industrial complex would appear in the arena... The moment, it would seem, is favorable. Russia may well give Iran both ready-made ships and components. Iran could become a lifesaver for the domestic shipbuilding industry, first, by allowing it to earn money, and secondly, by becoming the very buyer who was able to force our industry to do everything "as it should". And we have a positive experience of cooperation with Iran. Three Project 877 submarines are still in service with the Iranian Navy.
The creation of an Iranian fleet would also be beneficial for us for strategic reasons – it would require the United States to spend additional forces and money on a presence in the Persian Gulf on a much larger scale than is the case today. Roughly speaking, without being able to maintain parity with the Americans on our own, we would delegate part of this task to the Iranians. And these things really work.
However, not everything is so simple. First, Iran has an unpleasant experience with Russia both in the historical context and specifically in the 90s of the last century. Then Russia, under pressure from the United States, cut off all military-technical cooperation with Iran. This is not forgotten in Tehran until now. But even without this, the Iranians are an incredibly complex partner, whose actions do not always lend themselves to logic (at least from our point of view).
Iran is, in a sense, the germ of the future Persian Empire – 2. It already has plans to expand into the post-Soviet space – to Armenia, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and beyond.
There are similar plans for Syria, which owes the Iranians no less than Russia, and in the future our interests in this country may seriously intersect. All of this is likely to make Iran reticent about any possible cooperation with Russia. In addition, it is impossible to discount the factor of Iran's mortal enemy – Israel.
Relations between Russia and Israel today are very contradictory. On the one hand, Israel is the closest American ally. He is bombing Syria, regardless of the political damage it does to us.
On the other hand, it is Israel that is the hole in the wall of Western sanctions, through which foreign sanctioned components for military equipment, and sometimes entire technologies, enter Russia. For example, the "Outpost" drones that provided the lion's share of the initial success in Syria-in reality, these are Israeli Searcher UAVs localized in Russia. Russia is extremely unprofitable for a conflict with Israel, and powerful efforts to create an Iranian fleet will inevitably cause such a conflict.
In other words, large-scale Russian assistance in the creation of the Iranian Navy is extremely unlikely. This is not what Iran wants, and we cannot do it because of the Israeli factor. Perhaps, the main partner of Iran in the creation of a full-fledged Navy will be China. But the specifics of the Iranian mentality can slow down this process. And this means that Iran will not have large ships in the usual full-fledged form, and not in the form of armed container ships and "destroyers" the size of one and a half small missile ships each, for a very long time.
Alexander Timokhin