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The Treaty

The Unexpected Ways Iran and Russia Are Building Military Ties

T-90M from Russia.
T-90M from Russia. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

Russia-Iran relations are their warmest in centuries. While Russian assistance to Iran’s nuclear program and Iranian supply of drones and ballistic missiles to Russia are well-known, the two countries’ military, military-industrial, and economic ties are growing far deeper behind-the-headlines.

The Joint Training Uptick

Consider joint training. While the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) often sends teams to participate in Russia’s “military Olympics” to compete in sniper shooting, tank driving, swimming, parachuting and Suvorov attacks, the IRGC now sends a military team to train alongside elite Russian mountain units. In July 2024, they together climbed the 18,510-foot Mount Elbrus, Europe’s highest peak.

Such expeditions may seem minor, but they reflect the degree to which the two countries build interoperability between their special units and augment the ability of the IRGC to employ people across the Middle East. Not only is Iran is a mountainous country and has 67 peaks that exceed 10,000 feet above sea level, but Lebanon, Yemen, and Afghanistan each have peaks exceeding 10,000 feet. Put another way, Iran may soon become the only state in the Middle East to have specialized units with mountaineering capabilities. Iranian Air Force officials hint that they may soon train with their Russian counterparts.

Military-Industrial Ties

The two countries have also built their military-industrial cooperation. In March 2024, for example, Iran’s Ministry of Defense inaugurated a factory to build aircraft spare parts.

While Iranian officials have long exaggerated claims that the Islamic Republic’s indigenous industrial base has filled a strategic deficit despite international sanctions, the statement by Javad Mashayekh, a deputy director of the ministry’s scientific and economic development department, that Iran could now provide these spare parts to Russia suggests an actual capability. “Russia has suffered many sanctions in the aviation sector due to the Ukraine crisis, and for this reason, it has concluded good contracts for maintenance services with Iranian knowledge-based companies,” he explained. Such collusion between Tehran and Moscow is now more rule than exception.

The two countries (and Azerbaijan) actively collaborate on energy production. In August 2024, the Iranian government announced that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps would both produce nano-catalysts in order to help increase its hydrocarbon production, but also export such catalysts to Russia for their own purposes. “Experts of a knowledge-based company in three Russian steel and petrochemical complexes are setting up catalyst production units for this country, and the world’s largest petrochemical producer of urea and ammonia is also supposed to enter the production circuit with Iranian catalysts,” the Iranian press reported. They were explicit about how the trade could help Russia bust sanctions: “The world’s only catalyst for ethylene production is an acetylene hydrogenation catalyst. This catalyst was placed at the top of the [list of] sanctioned goods, and the purpose of this sanction was to hit value-creating companies in the petrochemical industry.”

Russian T-90M Tank

Russian T-90M Tank. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

The drone and ballistic trade may make headlines but Western officials should have no illusions that they are isolated examples of cooperation; rather, they are the tip of the iceberg. The broader challenge for policymakers is two-fold: First, Russia and Iran are increasing their interoperability and, second, the two countries are designing their respective industrial bases to help the other evade targeted sanctions.

About the Author: Dr. Michael Rubin

Michael Rubin is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and director of policy analysis at the Middle East Forum. A former Pentagon official, Dr. Rubin has lived in post-revolution Iran, Yemen, and pre-and postwar Iraq. He also spent time with the Taliban before 9/11. For over a decade, he taught classes at sea about the Horn of Africa and Middle East conflicts, culture, and terrorism to deployed US Navy and Marine units. Dr. Rubin is the author, coauthor, and coeditor of several books exploring diplomacy, Iranian history, Arab culture, Kurdish studies, and Shi’ite politics. The opinions and views expressed are his own.

Michael Rubin
Written By

Michael Rubin is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and director of policy analysis at the Middle East Forum. A former Pentagon official, Dr. Rubin has lived in post-revolution Iran, Yemen, and both pre- and postwar Iraq. He also spent time with the Taliban before 9/11. For more than a decade, he taught classes at sea about the Horn of Africa and Middle East conflicts, culture, and terrorism, to deployed US Navy and Marine units. Dr. Rubin is the author, coauthor, and coeditor of several books exploring diplomacy, Iranian history, Arab culture, Kurdish studies, and Shi’ite politics.

4 Comments

4 Comments

  1. Commentar

    October 6, 2024 at 5:48 pm

    It’s actually a 3-way tieup.

    Iran is helping russia, while north korea is aiding iran, and russia is distributing its advance technical know-how to both countries.

    While in some areas, the three nations are still behind western Military technology, in other areas like hypersonics and bomb delivery, they are ahead.

    Iranian solid-fueled rockets have successfully penetrated the best missile defense in the world, with russia in turn showing who’s the boss in hurling glide bombs and north korea ahead of others in building hypersonic glider warheads.

    What now for their enemies. Their enemies’ arsenals have been depleted (at least for now) and thus, there’s a window of opportunity especially for russia.

    Russia must now get fully back to its two feet, brush off the thick accumulated dirt off its backside, and finish off the neo-nazis before 5 november 2024.

    That is very very important because biden’s replacement or successor could start putting USA on a full war footing in 2025 and ramping up military production and thereby opening the gates of HELL on Earth.

    The gates of HELL or the forbidden gates of megiddo.

  2. 404NotFound

    October 6, 2024 at 9:23 pm

    Iran has extremely good relations with many countries, including countries that unabashedly practise double serving-gamemanship with the rapacious west, like turkiye, azerbaijan, china, iraq and others.

    So therefore, iran able to get hold of vital components and scarce parts, from airplane spares to electronic printed boards.

    HELL, during the famous iran-iraq war, it was able to obtain phantom f-4e aircraft parts, especially their tires.

    Also, during the war, iran was able to easily obtain original TOW and Hawk spare parts from uncle sam itself even though it was under very strict official sanctions.

    Thus iran is actually improving its industry while officially under crushing western sanctions.

    Due to the double game maneuvering. Iran is an old hand at this and so russia stands to benefit.

  3. JingleBells

    October 7, 2024 at 6:36 am

    Iran and russia need to get their Military and technology dealings to the next level.

    As fast as humanly possible.

    One way is to leapfrog both china and USA in the field of spaceplanes and spacegliders.

    Spaceplanes and spacegliders represent the future in global Military technology as rockets and missiles today become increasingly irrelevant due to rapid breakneck advancements in space-based monitoring, tracking and targeting systems.

    One way to start the ball rolling is fielding cooperation in developing suborbital craft capable of brief FOBS capabilities to extend flight durations.

    That will help cool global hotheads currently seen calling for waging bloody conflicts for as long as it takes.

  4. Jacksonian Libertarian

    October 7, 2024 at 11:32 am

    Authoritarian Cultures have no allies, only associates that charge a premium when they have the other over a barrel.
    Russia is desperate and Iran, North Korea, China, etc. are screwing them over.
    Compare this to Ukraine being given hundreds of billions in military, technical, and economic aid free of charge by the Western allies.
    What the author sees as a developing relationship is predation that will end the moment Russia can do so.

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