Iran: Denial and Incomprehension

Whichever It Is, It Leads to Disaster

As warfare increasingly became more dependent on technology, there was a curious combination of responses. On the one hand, there was a failure to grasp the actual impact on the battlefield of the new technologies. So in World War One, the Allied leadership failed to grasp the impact of long recoil high angle of fire heavy artillery (mobile guns in sizes greater than the conventional field guns of around 75 millimeters), as well as the extent to which firepower was far more important than manpower.

At the same time, there was the opposite tendency: to assume that some new development would prove decisive, like tanks in 1916-17, and strategic bombers in the 1930s. And that in turn led to an equally mistaken belief that ballistic missiles were a substitute for both tactical and strategic airpower

Somewhat paradoxically, while these beliefs hardened, the older notions such as the manpower advantage, and the denial of the effectiveness of well equipped and trained soldiers, was hardly considered.

Moreover, the enthusiasts for the new—and the last century saw the rapid introduction of new technologies in warfare—were like all enthusiasts, they tended to overlook the sort of practicalities that every engineer grasps.

There’s always a serious gap between asserting the theoretical advantages of a new technology and the practical difficulties of making it work. The strategic bombing theorists were correct in seeing how this would change warfare, but they either forgot the numerous problems in aeronautical engineering that had to be solved to make them effective, or were ignorant about them. Sure the challenges were overcome, but it took decades.

The other difficulty enthusiasts have is they tend to minimize, or overlook, the possibility of a countering or supplementary new technology that will considerably reduce the supposed supremacy of the one they’re proposing.

Thus the advent of tanks was countered by the development of highly portable anti-tank weapons, and of ballistic missiles by anti-missile defenses—just to name two examples out of the many.

So all the contrary evidence was ignored, right up until there was a systemic failure. And human beings what they are, sometimes not even then.

The two current wars have definitely provided us with demonstration both of those failures as well as an enormous amount of rationalization and denial. Or so it seems, but when you study the failures closely, it becomes pretty clear that the potential was there all along. The inconvenient facts were mostly ignored.

But as I’ve chronicled all that in considerable detail, I won’t repeat myself, shift over to the present.

Denial As a Strategy

Now I still incline to the proposition that Putin has a reasonably good understanding of his military and economic problems. He keeps bullying and threatening, first because he understands the Europeans pretty well, and second because in true Russian fashion, he believes that’s how you start negotiations.

He’s wrong, but error isn’t necessarily denial. It can be, but the connection isn’t automatic. And I believe he’s grasped that the leaders of the Berlin-London-Paris axis are not only all talk and no action, but that they may not be around much longer. Or anyway, that he can outlast them.

However, when it comes to Iran, the situation is different. At this point, their denial has solidified into a pattern, at which point—today—they’re unable to grasp reality.

The three main realities that they’re denying are proof.

First, for whatever reason, Tehran is still convinced of the effectiveness of its ballistic missile collection, as witness the recent threat by IRGC officers that they can destroy all the American bases in the region. Sure, just like they destroyed Israel.

As the IDF airstrikes established, Iran doesn’t have a effective anti-aircraft defensive system. The IDF basically wiped most of what they did have out. In my view, this failure on Tehran’s part was actually a corollary of the belief that there was no defense against ballistic missiles, an entirely mistaken idea that was widely believed by a surprising number of otherwise not unintelligent people.

I should add that since I’ve never seen any of the people who at the time hooted the idea down admit they were wrong. On the contrary, they keep moving the goalposts for an imaginary game that’s still being played, even though the spectators have left the stadium and the lights have been turned off. My point being that denial isn’t necessarily stupidity or ignorance.

However, back in what passes for the real world, the Iranian regime is in the same situation as their three proxies. Forget ballistic missiles. If you don’t have an air force, don’t have ground to air defenses, you’re actually living in the world posited by the first strategic bombing theorists a century earlier.

Since the IDF launched one retaliatory strike in response to the missile barrage, you would think the unpleasant truth of the matter would sink in. Now it’s possible that the surgical nature of those strikes has misled them, so they’re assuming they could survive more, and I’ll discuss that below, because it deals with the incomprehension problem.

But it’s a capital mistake to dismiss belligerence and threats because you’re pretty sure the person or state making them is weak or vulnerable. The stakes are too high.

And that’s definitely a factor here, because thus far I haven’t seen any indication that Tehran understands that Hamas and Hezbollah have basically ceased to exist as effective combatants. Most of their leaders are dead, their stocks of weapons destroyed, and their manpower has suffered crippling losses. Their Syrian ally is gone, along with most of the arsenal Moscow gave him, and the IDF is using the remaining facilities, primarily air bases, for target practice.

But Tehran is still using the same strategy they’ve been using for a very long time, back well before the failure of their missiles. And since it’s always worked, there’s no reason for them to quit.

Sure logically speaking, you’d think that the utter failure of the main weapon in their arsenal would have forced a reconsideration. But we all know that both individuals and organizations do that not infrequently, defying logic, common sense, and visible evidence.

Look at it this way. Whatever Tehran’s illusions about their military power are, I doubt they’re any more delusional than Marxist-Leninist economics, or the energy policies of London or Berlin.

Besides, refusing to factor in something that hasn’t yet happened by assuming it can’t happen is a mistake, but it’s hardly the same sort of error as refusing to admit that nightfall isn’t caused by the sun going through a tunnel and emerging on the other side.

And if you think I made that particular example up, all I can say is, you really need to get out more. Believe me, I wouldn't have the nerve to make something like that up.

The Failure To Comprehend

As I said above, so Tehran’s pattern of bullying, fomenting unrest, and making wild threats has been going for decades. By now it’s instinctive. And since it’s worked pretty well, it’s a hard pattern to break. One reason is that built into is a pattern of pullback on confrontation. For those of us remembering ancient history, when the Iranians occupied the United States Embassy, took hostages, there was a truly pathetic rescue attempt that failed miserably. But when a new president was poised to take over in Washington, Tehran pulled bank from the confrontation.

That was in some sense the definition of the tactic, and it’s important to remember Tehran got away with it. Of course this incident occurred in the late Pleistocene, as far as most people are concerned, but Iran got away with it. Precedents are precedents. And that was an extremely dangerous one, But it’s hardly unique for Iran.

There were the two missile barrages, and then the Houthi piracy in the Red Sea. Given the historical—and current—lack of response, why would Tehran stop?

Moreover, just as Tehran has boasted about its vast missile arsenal, they’ve boasted about their impenetrable bases, impervious to bombs and missiles.

So it you consider their behavior, it’s rational and quite logical. After all, they’ve been doing it for half a century. In this connection I’m always reminded of a retort Rivarol made to a member of France’s ancien regime when he said that surely, Rivarol agreed that the revolutionaries had gone too far. His reply was perfect.

Why did you let them?

So as far as Tehran is concerned, their recent checks, their weaknesses, are irrelevant.

That sounds pretty pessimistic, right?

But here’s what they’re not considering, and again, just because it’s a mistake, that doesn’t mean it’s stupid or delusional.

Here’s why.

The enormous military power of the United States has never been unleashed since the Pacific War of 1941-1945. Back in the Paleolithic times for most people.

And in the hysteria about nuclear war, it’s understandable that the enormous advances in “conventional” American weaponry have been ether ignored or minimized.

Here’s the relevant example.

For decades, the United States Air Force has been working on developing conventional bombs designed specifically to penetrate hardened facilities.

The current family of these bombs (known as paveway) are mostly laser guided, and extremely accurate. Not much is known about these, but the GBU-37 can penetrate 6 meters of reinforced concrete, and there is definitely a GBU-57, which based on the numbering system used, probably has even more penetrating power.

Six meters is a lot of concrete (or stone or whatever) and the accuracy of these weapons in aerial bombardment means that if one doesn’t penetrate, the next one will, simply because it will be dropped into the crater made by the first one.

Of course there’s a catch. These bombs are too heavy to be carried by the standard jet fighter bombers in widespread use in the west, the American F16 and F35 aircraft.

Thus far, the only recorded instance of any bomb approaching this weight (or exceeding it), was the GBU-43/B, used in Afghanistan in 2017. It was heavy it had to be carried by a modified C130 transport.

But the GBU-43 was not designed to penetrate fortifications. The abbreviation defines it: Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB). The last two letters are important. As everyone knows (/sarc) the force of an explosion if generated equally in a sphere in which the area of the sphere is defined by the radius. Detonated at the appropriate distance from the surface, half of the energy released is directed at the surface below.

The actual equation is somewhat more complicated than that, but the point is easy to grasp. An air burst weapon is designed to eliminate men and equipment basically on or slightly beneath the ground below, while the GBU-57 is designed to penetrate through hardened surfaces, explode at the maximum point of penetration.

Bombs in this class have never actually been used in combat, but they work.

Currently only the US Air Force has actual bombers capable of delivering this weapon.

And if you’re wondering how the above is relevant to Iran, it’s simple. As of this writing, there at least six GBU-57 heavy bombers at the Diego Garcia airbase, well within striking distance of any target in Iran.

In my last post, I observed that although France and Sweden both make excellent fighter/bombers, their aero-space industries have not yet developed stealth aircraft while the American air force has both fighter/bombers and heavy bombers with this capability.

Although not necessarily invisible to radar, these aircraft are extremely difficult to detect, much less to hit.

Draw your own conclusions.