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Deterrence by punishment could offer last resort options for Iran
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20 March 2006
Deterrence by punishment could offer last resort options for Iran
By Michael Knights
Although the US and Israel might be deterred from launching wider attacks against Iran's scattered and easily reconstituted nuclear programme, certain key targets - such as the Bushehr nuclear power facility - are too exposed to be protected by deterrence by denial. As a result, Iran's conventional defence also depends on a second type of deterrent, known as deterrence by punishment.
A country typically threatens to resort to deterrence by punishment when an opponent undertakes an action that the deterring party is unable to prevent. Retrospective retaliation is intended to inflict such a high cost on the attacker that it is forced to change its strategic calculus.
Iran is most likely to threaten to use punishment-based deterrence following a limited US military strike or the imposition of a naval blockade or sanctions. In the event of any attack on the Iranian mainland, Tehran might launch limited attacks on US military targets in Iraq and the Gulf states or attack US military shipping. If other countries in the Gulf region were to provide the US with bases for an attack, Iran might also launch assaults against their economic infrastructure. If Iranian exports and imports were blockaded or interdicted, Tehran might respond by attacking oil exports from Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) states.
Anti-shipping missiles
Iran's sea, air and land-launched anti-shipping missile arsenal is key to its ability to damage large commercial and military vessels in the Gulf, and for this reason it remains almost entirely under IRGC control.
Iran's C-801K and C-802 anti-shipping missiles are advanced sea-skimming missiles. The latter is now indigenously produced as the Noor. Iran's defence industries are upgrading the missile's guidance and improving its ability to be fired "over the horizon" and to acquire targets when it reaches a predestined point.
As they require relatively few support vehicles and are capable of quickly firing 12 missiles, these provide survivable close-range anti-shipping missile cover along the Iranian coastline and island chain. Iran is also producing an enlarged and modernised Silkworm (the 150 km land-based Raad anti-shipping missile) to give it long-range reach across the Gulf from the Iranian mainland.
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