Iran’s Military Strength 2019 Edition A Lengthy War of Attrition

This article was last updated on April 16, 2022

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With these tweets from Donald Trump, proclaiming America's military might, I thought that it was an excellent opportunity to present my readers with an analysis of Iran's military capabilities:

On an overall basis, when all aspects of the nation's military are considered, Iran's military strength is rated as 14th out of 137 in the world as shown on this graphic:

1.) Military personnel and potential personnel: According to Global Firepower, Iran has 523,000 active military personnel, putting it in eighth place in the world as shown here:

Iran also has 350,000 reserve personnel (17th place) and has 1,394,476 citizens reaching military age every year.  By way of comparison, the United States has 860,000 reserve personnel, Russia has 2,572,500 and China has 510,000 personnel in their reserves.  The United States has 4,188,274 citizens reaching military age every year, Russia has 1,306,449 and China has 19,614,518 citizens reaching military age annually.  The data concerning the number of citizens reaching military age is critical given that the wars of today often drag on for years and even decades meaning that nations must be able to recruit new members as their older military personnel age or either die or are injured in combat.

2.) Aircraft forces: On an overall basis, Iran's air strength ranking is not terribly impressive, coming in at 24th place, well behind the United States in first place, Russia in second place, China in third place and even Saudi Arabia, one of Iran's key foes, coming in twelfth place.  Iran has 509 military aircraft which is broken down as follows (with strength ranking in brackets):

Fighter aircraft – 142 (17th)

Attack aircraft – 165 (18th)

Transport aircraft – 89 (7th)

Training aircraft – 104 (29th)

Total helicopters – 126 (34th)

Attack helicopters – 12 (32nd)

Note that UAVs are not included in this total.

3.) Land forces: On an overall basis, Iran's land force ranking comes in at 18th place and can be broken down as follows:

Combat tanks – 1634 (18th)

Armoured fighting vehicles – 2345 (31st)

Self-propelled artillery – 570 (11th)

Towed artillery – 2128 (8th)

Rocket projectors – 1900 (4th)

4.) Naval Strength: On an overall basis, Iran is considered to have one of the world's more powerful naval forces when measured in terms of total inventory as shown here:

Iran's 398 naval assets are divided as follows:

Aircraft carriers – 0

Frigates – 6 (27th)

Destroyers – 0

Corvettes – 3 (32nd)

Submarines – 34 (5th)

Patrol vessels – 88 (9th)

Mine warfare – 3 (44th)

While it is clear that Iran's military is not on par with that of the United States, it does have sufficiently inventory and personnel as well as the technical expertise to wage a long war of attrition as they proved in the 1980s with Iraq, a nation that was largely armed by the United States.  Winning a war is not always dependent on military strength.  I believe that there are other factors at play in this case:

1.) The willingness of Russia and China to stand aside while the United States "re-engineers" Iran.    Both Russia and China have significant economic investments in Iran, particularly in the nation's oil and gas sector, that they will absolutely not want to fall into the hands of Washington.  

2.) The willingness of American voters to see American military personnel return home in body bags, particularly if hostilities are lengthy.

3.) The willingness of Iranians to defend their homeland from an outside attacker whether or not  they back their current government leadership.  When someone's home is threatened, logic does not always play a role in an individual's decision-making process.  We also have to keep in mind that the religious leadership is well-entrenched in Iran, unlike the situation with Saddam Hussein and Iraq.

While the United States forces may be "cocked and loaded", the outcome of a war against Iran is anything but certain.  Once American servicemen start dying for this rather nebulous cause, it will be the reaction of American voters that will ultimately determine the extent and duration of yet another Middle East military, nation re-engineering "adventure".

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