In the Part 2 of this feature, I hope to make it clear why did I spend so much time explaining all the ‘backgrounds and context’ regarding Iranian UAVs — and also why are there so many negative reports about them.
The period from the mid-1980s up to around 2003–2005 formed the ‘fundaments’ of this story, and is explaining why there was such a haphazard development of new-, and why were upgrades of old and/or existing UAVs coming forward at slow pace, and why are Iranian UAVs not taken seriously enough until this very day.
It’s not like if in the next few years everything suddenly became better. On the contrary, for most of the late 2000s and much of the 2010s, different cliques of the IRGC, and regular armed forces were still, literally, ‘bitching’ over who’s going to get what of engines and electronics they have managed to smuggle in from abroad. This was as important because the IRI is subjected to a host of Western embargoes and sanctions, and thus Western high-tech is always hard to get (even if far from ‘impossible to get’). No doubt, there were plenty of ideas, and — despite a massive brain drain — lots of good intentions, and at least as many prototypes. But still: the mass of these has succumbed to the combination of corruption and infighting and, generally, the entire Iranian UAV industry was — just like most of the Iranian defence sector — heading exactly nowhere.
FATEFUL SYRIA
Then a few important things have happened. Starting in 2011, the IRGC launched its military intervention in Syria. Out of concern about possible Western reactions, this was a clandestine operation, requiring a ‘minimal footprint’ of the IRGC in that country. Its ‘expeditionary force’ — the IRGC Qods Force (IRGC-QF) — deployed relatively few own troops (3–4 battalions at most): actually, most of these served as advisors to the Assad regime and to command and control selected of the local militias. Running relatively small units over a big battlefield required advanced situational awareness: essential for that is good reconnaissance. Thus, the IRGC-QF was quick in starting to deploy its HESA Shahed-129 tactical reconnaissance UAV in Syria. The first I recall to have seen on a video appeared in 2012, and by 2014, they were a regular sight over much of western Syria, but especially Damascus and Aleppo.
STRATEGIC ALLIANCES
After spending about US$ 50 billion in attempts to save Assad, between 2011 and 2014 — and then without much success (as usually, Bashar and his ‘inner circle’ pocketed most of this, and spent the rest either to buy good PR in the West, or loyalty of different warlords) - the IRGC-QF was disheartened by a series of defeats. In 2015, it played an important role in convincing Putin to launch a military intervention in Syria — which was handy for the latter because he was subjected to the international isolation in the aftermath of invasion on Ukraine.
That said, at the time the IRGC was keen to achieve much more: it was aiming for establishing strategic relationship with Putin (i.e. Russia). High-nosed and short-sighted as always, Putin (and Medvedev) not only said ‘nyet’, but stopped exports of S-300 surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) and few other weapons systems ordered by Iran (causing an international affair that was to go on for years, and cause significant financial damage to Moscow), but insisted on Russian military officers commanding and controlling everything and everybody in Syria. As result, once the Russians then did launch their operations in the country, they and Assadists fought their own battle; the IRGC-QF and its local allies its own. Tensions went so high that rumour has it the Iranians attempted to topple Bashar, and ‘only’ the Russian troops managed to prevent them.
Gradually, through 2017, they sorted out their relations, and the Iranians accepted the Russians pretending to be power-brokers in Syria. Instead, they began counting on time to establish their own para-state in the background: after all, Putin has nothing comparable to offer to the IRGC-QF’s drive to convert Syrians to the Twelver Shi’a religion with help of jobs in Iranian cultural centres in Lattakia, in IRGC-owned ammunition factories elsewhere around the country, or free stipends in Iran…
Foremost: Putin’s nyet had far-reaching consequences on the strategic plan. The IRGC turned to Beijing for strategic partnership. This was forged in a matter of weeks, sometimes in late 2015 and early 2016, and, because the IRI was flush with Petrodollars, soon reached a level where the quality of relations between the Islamic Republic of Iran and People’s Republic of China (PRC) was easily outmatching that between the PRC and the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.
‘All of a sudden’, over the following two years, Iran began not only developing but actually manufacturing in series, and pressing into service a number of high-tech weapons systems. These ranged from major upgrades of older US- and Soviet/Russian-made surface-to-air missile (SAM) systems, to the emergence of entirely new SAM-systems — some of which are claimed to be outmatching the Russian S-300 and S-400 — to the appearance of numerous mature UAV/UCAV systems.
How comes?
No doubt, Iran has large technical universities and these are turning out thousands of highly-qualified scientists, who in turn publish a huge number of research papers. So much so this caused quite some uneasines in Israel. Back in 2016–2018, The Jerusalem Post began expressing concerns like, ‘Will Iran win the Technology War’. No doubt, the IRI ‘inherited’ a well-developed defence sector bought from the USA during the times of the Shah’s rule, back in the 1970s.
However, due to the lack of prospects offered by the IRGC-regime, the IRI is suffering a massive brain-drain: essentially, the mass of smart youngsters are leaving the country. Corruption is endemic and thus no new project has serious chances of being realised without lots of political and financial support of diverse of IRGC’s cliques. This is why the mass of local companies are still manufacturing — for example — cars based on technologies from the 1970s: this ‘works’ because it helps ‘maintaining status quo’ between different cliques.
Moreover, many of these scientific papers published by Iranian scientists were either fake, or little else but copies of existing Western papers.
What actually happened was that the IRGC exploited its newly-established ties to the PRC to their fullest, and contracted the Chinese for not only a massive transfer of the know-how, but also to help build-up and bolster — between others — the Iranian UAV-industry.
IT’S THE CUSTOMER SERVICE, STUPID
This was playing straight into Beijing’s hands, for if there is anything where the Chinese are clearly outmatching their Western and Russian competitors the last 10 years, then in the field of ‘customer service’. They’re not only offering their products: they are offering products custom tailored to customer’s requirements, and if the customer is ready to enter a cooperation at suitable level, and capable of paying, Beijing has no problem with ordering state-owned corporations like the China Poly Group, the China Electronic Technology Group (CETC), and the 14th Institute to ‘share’ in the field of some of most most-sensitive high technologies. Indeed, to help the customer launch domestic production.
In this case, the agreement was relatively simple: in exchange for Iranian combat experiences, designs and requirements, the Chinese top science institutions run the research and development, while the Chinese industry then helped launch series production in Iran. With other words: the PRC provided ‘full customer service’, from helping define Iranian requirements, to actually getting resulting weapons systems into service. ‘Bonus’ (from the Chinese point of view): the latter is requiring the continuous use of high-tech ‘Made in PRC’, which means that the Chinese can not only monitor Iranian production, but also latest combat experiences and progress in regards of further development. The profit is granted for years in advance…
Sole ‘conditions’ the Chinese demanded in return (except for payment, of course) was:
no share of resulting know-how with any third parties,
prohibition of the IRI (which is, actually: IRGC) from entering similar cooperation with any third nation or instance, and
all products of this cooperation are officially and insistently declared for ‘made in IRI’ (so much so, even manufacturer plates ‘made in IRI’ are made in the PRC, and applied already there).
The Chinese are not the least keen to spoil their commercial relations with the West, or get subjected to embargoes and sanctions for ‘cooperation with a rogue state’: after all, corporations like the Poly Group are not only involved in military projects, but — between others — responsible for import of such Western luxury goods to the PRC, like Ferrari cars…
NEW LEASE OF LIFE
After developing diverse of Iranian concepts and designs, the Chinese took care to convert, reorganise and upgrade a number of factories in the IRI. This was accepted by different cliques within the IRGC because that way each could get its cut — and that for years in advance, while at earlier times, less than a handful of cliques was profiting from smuggling Western-made technology from the UAE. Moreover, the Emiratis were charging up to 300% of market price for equipment they were delivering. With other words: the Chinese helped Iranians manufacture more advanced, more powerful UAVs, and UCAVs, and that at lower price, too.
Perhaps the best example of results: while at earlier times the IRGC — i.e. the Iranian defence sector — never managed to develop a solution to convert its UAVs like Shahed-129 into UCAVs, and couldn’t research and develop mini-precision guided munition (PGM) for them, meanwhile the Iranian industry is not only manufacturing UAVs and UCAVs in big numbers. Indeed, it is running series production of mini-PGMs, too. In this case, the Chinese started with the Iranian version of the US-made BGM-71 TOW, named Toophan, to help develop the Sadid-1. That was back in 2017 (‘or so’): meanwhile, the Iranians are manufacturing the Sadid-345, Sadid-361, and Fat’h-362 air-to-ground missiles. About two-three years ago, they demonstrated an air-to-air missile based on the aerodynamic design of the AIM-9 Sidewinder air-to-air missile for their UCAVs, too.
(…to be concluded in Part 3)
All highly plausible. Push-back for this from Washington could explain the seemingly arbitrary & drastic escalation in the so-called chip war which left wonks and analysts all scratching their heads last year - blocking exports of cutting edge chip fabrication tech to the PRC. (Allegedly it was "punishment" for rattling Taiwan's cage a bit too much.) And it also explains why the Biden admin wouldn't be explicit about this. No sense in painting the Chinese into a more pro-Pudding corner than Chinese diplomacy demands.
China is paying and playing smart.