Date of Award

Summer 8-24-2004

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Organizational Unit

Josef Korbel School of International Studies

First Advisor

Martin J. Rhodes

Second Advisor

David Goldfischer

Third Advisor

Nader Hashemi

Copyright Statement / License for Reuse

All Rights Reserved
All Rights Reserved.

Keywords

Defense strategy, Iran, Islamic revolutionary guard corps (IRGC), Middle East, National security strategy, Passive defense

Abstract

Why did the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) adopt a passive defense strategy? This dissertation is the first to trace the institutional development of the IRI’s passive defense strategy and its two Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC)-led executive bodies: the Permanent Committee for Passive Defense (PCPD) and the National Passive Defense Organization (NPDO). Passive defense can be defined simply as defense without weapons, which includes all precautionary actions other than using weapons to minimize the effects of enemy hostile operations that increase deterrence, reduce vulnerability, sustain essential activities, promote national stability, and facilitate crisis management in the face of enemy threats. Passive defense is a comprehensive strategy, but in Iran, it was not applied simultaneously nor uniformly across all military and civil sectors. Therefore, this dissertation also seeks to determine why Iran prioritized passive defense in some fields over others. This within-case critical junctures analysis utilizes the process tracing method to examine how the IRI’s passive defense strategy developed from 2002 to 2024. It also overlays the process tracing examination on a neoclassical realist model rooted in defensive realism to determine what prompted the Islamic Republic to adopt new policy measures and then explores other variables to explain Iran’s defense strategy outcomes – external assistance, urgency, threat assessment, capacity, and factional politics. This dissertation finds that IRI senior leadership interpreted two events as existential threats – post-9/11 U.S. military operations and hostile foreign and economic policy; and the 2009 Green Movement protests – which explain why Iran first implemented passive defense in the military sector after 2003, in the economy under Ahmadinejad, and in the fields of cyber operations and cultural security after 2009. In 2003, the supreme leader ordered the IRGC to implement a passive defense strategy and apply its principles to first protect military facilities and operations. He later ordered Iran to pursue a “resistance economy” based on passive defense principles, and charged the PCPD and NPDO to evaluate and mitigate all other areas of vulnerability that might be exploited by Iran’s enemies, especially the United States. This process was sometimes facilitated and frustrated by different Iranian presidents and their ministries. Consequently, over the next two decades the supreme leader and the parliament granted the PCPD and NPDO greater authorities to force all government ministries, provinces, and cities to comply with passive defense regulations affecting every civil sector, including biotechnology, communications and cyberspace, culture, the economy, education, the energy sector, and urban planning. This dissertation finds that military and cultural threats prompted Iran to adopt a passive defense strategy and spurred its further development. It also finds that factional politics account for differences in the way sections of the IRI’s elected and unelected leadership perceived threat levels and urgency, ultimately affecting the pace and trajectory of passive defense development. Perhaps most importantly, it finds that Iran’s passive defense strategy is a key mechanism that accounts for the IRGC’s ascent to the top of Iran’s political hierarchy between 2002 and 2024.

Copyright Date

8-2024

Publication Statement

Copyright is held by the author. User is responsible for all copyright compliance.

Rights Holder

Aaron R. Pilkington

Provenance

Received from Author

File Format

application/pdf

Language

English (eng)

Extent

638 pgs

File Size

9.9 MB

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