This study attempts to answer the following questions on the role of the Iranian armed forces in the fall of the Shah in 1979: (a) Did the armed forces do something that contributed to the causes which led the people of Iran to rise against the...
The majority of the literature on maneuver warfare begins with an examination of German "stormtrooper" tactics of World War One or the German blitzkrieg campaigns of World War Two. Soviet deep maneuver campaigns and Israeli campaigns of the last...
Iran in the 1950s was in the cross hairs of the Cold War power struggle between the US and USSR. Strategically located, Iran became critical in the foreign policy endeavors of the Eisenhower Administration in the Middle East. After the decision to...
This study attempts to determine why the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, was successfully overthrown by a religion, Shiite Islam. The investigation is focused on the large and powerful Imperial Iranian Armed Forces, the Shah's political...
In 1979 Ayatollah Khomeini's indirect approach ignited existing socio-economic conditions during the Iranian Revolution to topple the Shah. A similar indirect approach using psychological operations to target audiences through key vulnerabilities...
This thesis examines the intent of Iran's sea power strategy, and discovers that it is a definitive component of a coherent national security strategy of strategic deterrence designed to protect its strategic center of gravity--its oil....
The Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) has pursued a nuclear program since 1985. In February 2006, with the last round of international negotiations having failed and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) having reported the dossier to the United...
The interaction between politics and military professionalism is a delicate balancing act in war. When the politics involves a revolutionary ideology, military professionalism can be subordinated to the point of hurting the war effort. The Iranian...
Crane Brinton's analysis of popular revolutions offers the strategic and operational planner a valid model for checking the consistency of ends, ways and means, for campaign plans. As a planning tool, Brinton's model fills a gap in FM 100-20, which...
In the past three decades, one country has stood out more than any other in opposing the United States' efforts in the Middle East: Iran. To counter Iranian influences in the Middle East, the United States has adopted a stance of containment...
Since 1925, Iranian governments purposefully shaped the Iranian national identity in an attempt to socially prioritize membership in nationalist and religious social groups, over others such as ethnicity or profession. Further, successive Iranian...
In 1979 the age old struggle for the control of Islam between the Shiite and Sunni sects re-emerged in the Middle East. Four events occurred in 1979 that defined the context of contemporary Middle Eastern politics: the Islamic revolution in Iran,...
The purpose of this paper is to answer the following question: Does the generation of Iranians born after the 1979 revolution wish to continue living under the system established by Ayatollah Khomeini, or do they wish to modernize (or perhaps...
The progress of the Iran-Iraq War has surprised analysts. In order of gain insight into events in the region and their implications, I propose an analytical framework using Carl Von Clausewitz and Martin Van Creveld, which is used to analyze the...
The present situation in Afghanistan is not being resolved by the current U.S. strategic approach. Given the recent uptick in insurgent violence, the shift in emphasis with regards to Afghanistan, and the change in presidential administrations, the...
The present state of tension between the United States and Iran signifies a failure of current and past diplomatic approaches to influence Iran. Curiously, the Islamic Revolution and the Iranian elections over the last decade indicate that support...
Since 2001, the capabilities of the Afghan state have been a priority on the world stage. The reign of Amir Abdur Rahman, who established the current state of Afghanistan, is critical in understanding the development of the current state, and the...
In the past decade, it has become apparent that the Iranian Government is not willing to give up its Nuclear Fuel Program. Though it claims that its endeavors are merely the pursuit of making nuclear fuel, the threat of an unsupervised Iranian...
This research discusses how the reluctance to change culture is affecting the internal peace and stability of Nepal. The Nepali culture, despite undergoing some changes, still has discriminatory practices with respect to caste, gender, and...