How US-Iran crisis impacts regional stability
Trump’s new economic sanctions are unlikely to coerce Tehran anytime soon
Despite the tragic shooting down of Ukrainian International Airlines Flight 572 near Tehran, the United States and Iran appear to have avoided an all-out war in the aftermath of the high-profile US drone strike that killed Gen. Qasem Soleimani. Iran’s retaliatory missile strikes into Iraq did not cause any casualties, and both sides are clearly trying to find an off-ramp.
However, the US-Iran relationship is unlikely simply to go back to business as usual, and the crisis has important consequences for longer-term regional stability.
Iran’s missiles are getting more accurate, which may constrain future US basing and operations
The fog of war can induce not simply confusion but a type of worst-case thinking that promotes escalation rather than restraint. That dynamic could re-emerge in future conflicts in the region, or beyond
Before the recent missile attacks, many public assessments of Iran’s missiles assumed they were fairly inaccurate. Satellite imagery of Iran’s recent barrage indicates that those assessments may have been wrong. Iran recorded a fairly high rate of likely “hits” to “misses”. The lack of casualties may have been the result of Iran targeting areas of the bases with fewer personnel and more equipment, and not merely dumb luck and early warning.
This probably shows that Iran now deploys fairly accurate short-range ballistic missiles, part of a global trend toward more accurate missiles that the Pentagon has predicted for years. The missiles are conceivably at least 10 times as accurate as the Soviet-origin Scud missiles that Iran and Iraq deployed against each other during their conflict in the 1980s.
Iranian precision
In a future conflict, Iran could use precise conventional ballistic missiles to damage and degrade bases used by US aircraft and harass and destroy ports upon which the United States would rely to deploy and resupply troops. It is difficult, if not impossible, to maintain a normal tempo of military operations in the face of incoming missiles.
The United States could shift to aircraft based on US Navy aircraft carriers. However, these giant ships are themselves vulnerable, and there aren’t that many of them. Alternatively, the United States could use aircraft from more distant bases, out of range of Iranian missiles. However, this would entail longer transit times to target and perhaps aerial refuelling. That, in turn, would mean that any future campaign will require more aircraft and be costlier than it would be if Iran had not developed more-precise missiles. This situation would be dramatically different from the campaigns of 1991 and 2003, when US bases were virtually invulnerable to missile attack.
Flight 572 crash
The shooting down of a passenger jet shows that the crisis had its costs. The shooting down of a civilian aircraft showed how tragedies can occur during military crises, even when neither participant desires escalation.
Sadly, this is far from the first crisis in which one side mistook a civilian airliner for its opponent’s military aircraft. Similar incidents resulted in the shoot-down of a Malaysian passenger plane over Ukraine in 2014; an Iranian passenger airliner over the Arabian Gulf in 1988; and a Korean Airlines plane that strayed into Soviet airspace in 1983.
The common ingredient in all of these episodes was a crisis or war that had at least one actor in a state of high alert. When that actor received ambiguous information — such as a warning of an unidentified incoming aircraft — it assumed the worst. Shooting first and asking questions later can have terrible consequences.
Iran has now admitted that it was responsible for the Flight 572 mistake and that it feared that the United States would launch retaliatory strikes on Iranian territory after Iran hit the Iraqi bases housing US forces. An Iranian air defence operator, who was primed to expect incoming US military aircraft, and unable to get timely confirmation of the target’s identity, fired at a civilian jet instead.
When actors make decisions under stressful conditions with incomplete information — conditions that a crisis or war meets virtually by definition — they may become more rather than less likely to use force. The fog of war can induce not simply confusion but a type of worst-case thinking that promotes escalation rather than restraint. That dynamic could re-emerge in future conflicts in the region, or beyond.
Not over yet
Some of Iran’s own citizens are accusing their government of negligence in causing the deaths of those aboard the Ukrainian airlines flight — the vast majority of whom were Iranian. Angry Iranians are taking to the streets. Such protests can easily have international consequences, as evidenced by the brief detention on Saturday of the British ambassador in Iran over alleged incitement.
Even apart from Iran’s domestic turmoil, plenty of potential flash points remain. Iran’s regional proxies remain strong and have many ways to target the United States and its allies, both overtly and covertly. Trump administration’s decision to enact new economic sanctions is unlikely to coerce Iran and may instead drive it to lash out.
Iran’s decision to recalibrate its adherence to the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers also puts the country back on a collision course with hawks in the US. As they say, things in the Middle East can always get worse — and they very well may.
— Washington Post
Christopher Clary is the assistant professor of political science at the State University of New York. Caitlin Talmadge is the associate professor of security studies at Georgetown University.