The Mess of Russo-Iranian Arms Deals, Part 2

Hello everybody!

During the night from 9 to 10 September, Ukraine launched its latest, massive UAV-strike on Russia.

Russian officials are claiming to have shot down 144 attack UAVs, including about 70 over the Bryansk Oblast, 20 over Kursk, and 20 over Moscow. As far as is known, one UAV ‘still’ hit an apartment building, killing a 46-years-old woman, while three others were injured.

Of particular interest is: all the known casualties are from Ramenskoye.

Indeed, the more details about this strike I happen to find, the more I’m convinced that much of this effort was aiming to busy the Russian air defences, in turn enabling one or several UAVs to strike the actual target: a specific military depot outside Ramenskoye. Ramenskoye is outside the Zhukovsky International Airport, about 36km south-east of central Moscow. Indeed: back during the times of the (First) Cold War, this airport used to be known as ‘Ramenskoye’ in the West and was the home-base of the Flight Research Institute – a major test establishment - of the Soviet Air Force).  

Satellite photo of Zhukovsky International (European Space Agency)

RUMINT has it, the depot in question contained the first shipment of the Iranian-made tactical ballistic missiles, that it received a direct hit and was blown up…

…whether this is truth: right now, no idea…

And, hand on heart, that’s not even what I’m going to discuss here.

What I do want to say instead is entirely different.

Sure, such an Ukrainian strike would make sense – ‘because’ it’s coming hard on the heels of a growing number of ‘authoritative’ media and official reports about ‘Iranian deliveries of tactical ballistic missiles to Russia’. An affair about which not a few of Ukrainian and Western officials are very upset, meanwhile…

Sorry but, without clear evidence for deliveries of Iranian ballistic missiles to Russia, I’m not buying this story.

Back in January, I have penned the ‘Part 1’ of the story about Russo-Iranian relations regarding arms deals over the last 35 years. This explained why are decision-making processes in Tehran as complex as they are, and that this is one of principal reasons why many of Iranian attempts to buy Russian arms have failed. The other issue I’ve mentioned is the IRGC’s ‘longing’ for some sort of a new ‘strategic alliance’: I’ve explained how its major power brokers attempted to enter such an alliance with Putin, but the Russian dictator missed a huge opportunity because he was too short-sighted, and… well… ‘typically Russian when it comes to business deals’ (as anybody ever involved in running business deals with Russia of the last 30 years should know, actually).

Now, in addition to factors ‘listed’ in the Part 1, there are several additional – yet huge – obstacles for any kind of major arms deals between Moscow and Tehran. It’s not only that due to having so many negative experiences with them, the Iranians ‘endemically mistrust’ the Russians: at least as important is the fact that the Iranian armed forces – regardless if the IRGC or the ‘regular’ branches (army, air force, and navy) – are insistent on any such deals including not only the weapons in question: they want all the necessary technical documentation and support infra-structure, too.

They want the capability not only to maintain the weapons systems, but also to manufacture all the spare parts for them, and completely overhaul them at home.

This is so important for the Iranians, there is no way to overemphasise this aspect. It’s important enough that back during the times of the Iran-Iraq War, when facing stringent arms embargo of the West, the Iranians went as far as to declare a ‘Self-Sufficiency Jihad’: a major national effort to obtain ability to maintain, manufacture spares and armament for their weapons systems of Western origin.

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Self-Sufficiency Jihad

It’s a bit ironic, but the idea for ‘Self-Sufficiency Jihad’ came not out of nothing. Originally, such policy was introduced already by the Shah of Iran Mohammed Reza Pahlavi II, back in the early 1970s.He saw what was going on in different wars around Iran: how Israel was dependent on arms deliveries from France and then the USA, or how India and Pakistan were dependent on arms deliveries from the USSR, USA, and elsewhere – and how Washington, Paris, London etc. were capable of exercising political pressure whenever one of the countries would not act as they wanted.

Correspondingly, when ‘the Shah’ (it wasn’t only the Shah who was making all such decisions and placing/signing orders, but he was happy to be considered as such) then began placing huge orders for US and British arms, starting in 1971, he was not only buying arms as such. He was also buying entire factories for production of spares, workshops for maintenance and overhauls, factories for production of related ammunition, and had hundreds of thousands of youngster Iranians schooled and trained abroad to work in the resulting armament industry of Iran (plus hundreds of thousands of doctors and other medical personnel, too).

When purchasing 250+ McDonnell-Douglas F-4E Phantom II fighter-bombers from the USA, the Iranians also purchased a literal ‘industry’ to maintain them - including workshops for every of their home-bases, and a major maintenance facility. The latter became the core of the Iranian Aircraft Industries, established at Mehrabad Air Base, in southern Tehran, in 1978-1979. Only the part of the project related to licence production of AGM-65 Maverick air-to-ground guided missiles for Iranian F-4s was never realised.

While purchasing 200+ Bell AH-1J Cobras, and then over 400 Bell 204s, 205s, 206s, 212s and 214s, Iranians also planned to launch production of such and even more advanced models at home. That’s how the Iranian Helicopter Industries in Esfahan came into being - and why they remain capable of maintaining and operating their Bell-designed helicopters 40+ years later.

This is actually what the Iranians nowadays want when they are negotiating any new major arms acquisitions abroad, too.  

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Russian ‘Business Practices’

However, the Russians are refusing to enter any such deals. They are not only refusing to enter such deals with Iran: they are doing exactly the same with all other of their export customers. For example, when the PRC wanted to launch licence production of Sukhoi Su-27s, Moscow refused to deliver all the necessary technical documentation. The same was valid for Su-30s. Eventually, the Chinese could only solve the problem through learning to reverse engineer these – which cost them lots of time and money. Similarly, when Beijing came to the idea to launch a production of a navalised variant of the Su-27, capable of operations from its aircraft carriers, the Chinese clandestinely purchased technical documentation: that resulted in their J-15. And when the Chinese attempted to bolster their fleet of jet transport through a large acquisition of Ilyushin Il-76s, Moscow found the way to mess up so much, Beijing eventually had no other options but to complete the development and press into production its own Xian Y-20.

The Xian Y-20 transport - which is meanwhile in service with the People’s Liberation Army Air Force - became necessary because of ‘Russian business practices’, which ruined a Beijing’s order for 100 Ilyushin Il-76 transports.

The situation was even more problematic in regards of jet engines: the Russians fiercely resisted all the Chinese requests for licence production of engines like RD-33. Beijing thus experienced huge problems with production of its J-10 fighters, just for example (and that type also suffered a significant engine-related attrition9. Eventually, that issue was never solved: instead, the Chinese took 20+ years to learn to design and manufacture their own jet engines with similar thrust like latest Russian. It’s only since they have such engines that Beijing is fully free to finance series production of types like J-10, J-11, J-15, J-20 and others.

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It’s bout Armament, too

Iran has neither the time nor the money of the PRC. The IRGC would also never let the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force (IRIAF) re-arm itself with, say, 100 or so Su-35s: actually, most of IRGC cliques would prefer the IRIAF to phase out its old, US-made jets acquired in the 1970s, thus become a service that’s ‘surplus to requirement’, and then disband itself. Therefore, the IRGC is never going to let the IRIAF buy ‘hundreds’, but only ‘few dozens’ of Su-35s. That is not requiring a complete know-how transfer. Nevertheless, because of their experiences, they still want to have the full capability to maintain and operate them.

….and to re-arm then as necessary.

Mind that the IRIAF was the first air force ever to deploy in combat long-range air-to-air missiles with active radar homing: its F-14A Tomcat interceptors did so during the war with Iraq, starting in September 1980, with AIM-54 Phoenix air-to-air missiles. Therefore, the Iranians are fully aware of the exceptional value of such weapons like the Russian R-37M long-range, actively radar homing air-to-air missile. However, back in the 1970s, the USA wouldn’t let the Iranians learn how to maintain their AIM-54s, nor would it deliver the support infra-structure necessary for their maintenance in Iran. Once the Phoenixes manufactured in 1976-1977 and delivered to Iran run out of their shelf-life, in 1986-1987, Iranian F-14As were left only with rather poor, much older weaponry. It took Iran decades to fully master manufacturing spares for them.

Eventually, Iran was the only export customer for the Grumman F-14A Tomcat interceptor. This came armed with AIM-54A Phoenix long-range, active homing air-to-air missiles. Back in the 1970s, the Pentagon refused to deliver the infra-structure necessary to maintain AIM-54s in Iran: indeed, it even refused to train Iranians in how to maintain the AWG-9 radar and fire-control system of the F-14. Unsurprisingly, the Iranians have learned their lessons.

Regardless how much the IRGC despises the IRIAF, nobody there is curious for something similar to happen again: i.e. for the Iranians to acquire Su-35S from Russia, and then, few years later, have no long-range air-to-air missiles for them.

That is also the major difference in the ‘quality’ of Sino-Iranian cooperation: contrary to the Russians, the Chinese were super-keen to establish close cooperation with the Islamic Republic of Iran for a number of ‘opportunistic’ reasons.

Primary is that Beijing is always curious to earn money – and Tehran is capable of paying (often in cash, other times in crude oil).

The secondary is that the IRGC has a lots of recent combat experiences. And what kind of experiences: not ‘just in some bush wars’, but from clashes with Israel. Such experiences are resulting in very specific ‘requirements’ for weapons systems. This is the kind of knowledge the Chinese simply do not have: their armed forces haven’t been involved in any kind of wars since a conflict with Vietnam, in the late 1970s and early 1980s. That’s why one of priorities for all the possible Chinese military attaches accredited in dozens of capitols around the world is the acquisition of that kind of knowledge: see ‘any kind of (detailed) requirements for weapons systems’ are something like ‘must have No. 1’ for the Chinese.

What other country can claim for itself to have combat experience in deploying ballistic missiles against Israel? In the military world, such experiences are precious - and something the Chinese are exceptionally keen to obtain.

A conclusion from all of this should be obvious by now, and is also explaining why is it taking so long to realise the ‘Iranian Su-35-deal’ – but also why do I have my doubts about Iranians actually delivering any kind of ballistic missiles to Russia.

The Iranian ballistic missiles were originally developed in cooperation with North Korea. However, none of projects in question came seriously forward before the establishment of that ‘strategic cooperation’ between Beijing and Tehran, in around 2016.  The rivalry between the cliques within the IRGC, the lack of industrial management skills, and the lack of quality management were ruining one project after the other. The Chinese kind of ‘brought an order into that bardak’: they’ve launched production of nearly all of modern-day ‘indigenous’ weapons systems at home (in the PRC), before transferring it – in good order, and with full technical documentation – to Iran. And, once there, they’ve helped the Iranians launch their own production, prepare maintenance facilities and similar.

Correspondingly, a transfer of – actually – Chinese-designed, ‘made in IRI’ ballistic missiles by Iran to Russia… ho-hum..

Sure, they did deliver even ‘blueprints’ for Shaheds. ‘However’, it seems this was rather an accident than design. The opportunity to earn was excellent (because the Russians were really as dumb as to pay 200,000+ per single UAV), and back then nobody was really aware of the effectiveness of that weapon.

But, ballistic missiles…?

By side all the uproar in the West: for the Iranians, this know-how, and the weapons in question are something like their ‘last bargain chip’ in dealing with Putin. If they do deliver them to Moscow, they can be sure that Putin is never going to deliver Su-35s - nor anything else of similar kind - together with all the technical documentation necessary to maintain and operate these in Iran.