جستجوی مقالات مرتبط با کلیدواژه "استراتژی ژئوپلیتیکی" در نشریات گروه "علوم انسانی"

In today’s geopolitical competitions, the intricate and innovative concept of gray zone represents a military approach based on geopolitical advantages. Within this strategy, the primary objective is to secure control over desired territories and advance security interests in the conflict. Scholars in this field believe that countries such as Russia, China, and Iran have successfully employed tools and tactics within this concept, enabling them to pursue their security and political interests without triggering major power sensitivities. In this regard, the escalating intensification of geopolitical rivalries in Southwestern Asia, especially between Iran and regional and extra-regional countries, has become a significant challenge when it comes to ensuring security in this area. Adopting the security-for-all-or-no-one approach, Iran aims to establish superiority in its geopolitical rivalry with the United States, the most prominent external actor in this field. Since 2003 and the aftermath of the Iraq war, Iran has introduced a novel strategy in its geopolitical approach. In this respect, the present study aimed to elaborate on the concept of gray zone and highlight its key components as influential variables in Iran’s geopolitical strategy.

As an applied study, the present research employed a comparative descriptive–analytical approach. The data collection method involved a combination of library research and computer-assisted techniques.

As containment measures against Iran intensify due to the US unilateral withdrawal from the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), there have been increasing efforts to neutralize Iran’s strategies and weaken its regional activities, particularly in the realm of geopolitics of resistance. These developments pose a potential threat to Iran’s national security. It is thus necessary to identify and examine the components of Iran’s geopolitical strategy while considering alternative interpretations. Iran’s geopolitical expansion in the region have prompted the West and its allies to impede Iran’s geopolitical influence by scrutinizing its geopolitical territorialization approach marked by the formation and organization of as well as support for proxy forces, manifested in shaping the political dynamics of Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon, and even in direct confrontations with the West on the Syrian battlefield. In this context, leveraging its historical, geographical, and cultural unity, Iran has successfully mobilized communities throughout Southwest Asia by relying on small non-state groups, and emphasizing commonalities while overlooking divergences. This mobilization effort is gradually expanding its reach from the southern Arabian Peninsula to the shores of the Mediterranean.By examining the interpretations of gray zone and geopolitics of resistance as two key strategies, this research aimed to address the question of how Iran seeks to achieve its desired security and implement its geopolitical strategy in Southwest Asia. The term axis of resistance refers to geographical regions that pursue both ideological and geopolitical objectives. On the other hand, gray zone is not necessarily a geographical representation of a strategy, but rather a number of tactics that employ specific tools to advance geopolitical interests in strategically significant geographical areas.The findings of this study reveal that Iran’s geopolitical rivalry in Southwest Asia, particularly with the United States, has led Iran to develop a distinct geopolitical strategy known as axis of resistance, or according to American scholarship, gray zone. In this strategy, Iran aims to achieve its security objectives by focusing on five key areas (i.e., military, political, economic, informational–narrative, and cultural or religious) and relying on cooperation and support of non-state armed groups in specific countries in the region. In this way, Iran has successfully achieved its objectives by establishing geopolitical corridors and attaining the desired geographical integration in Southwest Asia. This has enabled Iran to gain access to the Mediterranean Sea and establish proximity to Israel. However, unless subnational and national requirements are seriously taken into account, the mentioned security achievements will prove ineffective and temporary. In other words, despite Iran’s expansion of geopolitical territorialization, the erosion of internal capabilities, particularly in the political sphere, coupled with the disruption of Iran’s economic lifelines, will gradually lead to increased challenges in sustaining support for its geopolitical arms.

When examining the objectives, methods, and tools employed by the United States to counter Iran’s gray zone geopolitical strategy, it becomes evident that the US, rather than solely relying on its own capabilities and geopolitical confrontation, has prioritized targeting Iran’s vulnerable points. While countering Iran’s gray zone strategy, the United States has adopted a hybrid approach that encompasses all four primary domains: political, economic, military, and informational. However, America has specifically recognized the political and economic domains as the Achilles heel of Iran’s security, and by extension, of the gray zone strategy. At the same time, the United States is diligently uncovering Iran’s vulnerabilities by restructuring its decision-making processes within the government and military, as well as streamlining bureaucracy to facilitate prompt responsive measures in the gray zone. Through exerting influence and applying pressure on Iran in the aforementioned domains, the United States aims to achieve a goal that surpasses mere neutralization of the gray zone strategy, that is, undermining Iran’s national and territorial security. As a result, America has successfully identified Iran’s vulnerabilities in key military, political, economic, and informational domains. It has thus devised and carried out tactics appropriate for each domain, both within the framework of the US gray zone strategy and through conventional means.

While much ink has been spilled to Iran's regional policy, the majority of these analyses, either intuitively or deliberately, build their explanation on the so-called ‘Persian-Shia offensive intentions’. Conversely, the present paper seeks the roots of Iran's regional policy in its specific geography and history. From this perspective, Iran’s regional policy is inseparable from its geopolitical strategies. To shed light on these strategies, the paper begins with the rise of the Persian Achaemenid until the establishment of the Islamic Republic, focusing on major driving forces behind Iran’s regional policy and strategies. The paper elaborates on a foundational concept of ‘strategic loneliness’, as Iran’s permanent feature, by highlighting the country’s curse of geography and its long- standing historical insecurity. In following, it shows the consequential impact of Iran’s strategic loneliness for the country’s non-state foreign policymaking strategic connections with military non-state actors—in the containment of its regional enemies. The paper ultimately argues that while this policy has kept Iran’s national integrity and security while entrapped the country in a durable ‘geopolitical predicament’ and deepened regional crisis in the Middle East

The present paper engages intimately with Iran’s connections with its proxies through adopting an ‘analytical process-tracing narrative.’ The strength of this narrative lies in its potential to generate a conceptual framework organically and incrementally along the unifying theme. As Alexander George and Andrew Bennett argue, analytical process-tracing is a tool in extrapolating a case study’s “explanation into a generalization.” Process tracing will allow me to capture the dynamics of change and the causal mechanisms behind these changes within the evolution of the subject under study. Put differently, in the analytical process-tracing an otherwise atheoretical narrative presented “in the form of a chronicle that purports to throw light on how an event came about” is embedded into “an analytical causal explanation couched in explicit theoretical terms.”

Iran’s specific geography and historical insecurity are integral elements and dimensions of regional policy and strategy. In addition to its geostrategic location and geographical proximity to the threat sources, Iran’s geographical vulnerability and its lack of natural defense impediments have shaped the country’s fate of territorial occupation and military encirclement for more than twenty-five centuries. This fact has nourished and galvanized Iran’s historical insecurity. The final product is Iran’s strategic loneliness. For a country with a deep sense of greatness, Iran’s strategic loneliness pushes the country to take a dynamic geopolitical strategy—namely, non-state foreign policy—to preserve its national security and territorial integrity. Indeed, the very logic of geography and history reveals the fact that Iran’s ultimate deterrence capabilities have been mainly predicated on its ability for the external power projection (Reisinezhad, 2016). Nonetheless, the lack of regional collective security institutions and pact(s) has trembled the credibility of this geopolitical strategy. Although Iran’s non-state foreign policy has been partially effective in keeping the country’s security safe, it has weakened Iran’s financial sources and, more significantly, entrapped the country in a durable offensive-defensive complex. It is Iran’s durable geopolitical predicament. Iran’s specific geography and history have crucially shaped its geopolitical strategy. However, it should be important to disentangle the argument from geographical and historical ‘determinism’. At first glance, putting emphasis on these two factors opens door for fatalism while ignores human agency. Geography and history by no means determine state’s approaches to use military force and regional strategies. In reality, human agency matters since it is men who decide and take action. There are still historical instances wherein men overcame the dictates of geography and unchained historical patterns. Nevertheless, “in the long run, those who are working in harmony with environmental influences will triumph over those who strive against them” (Parker and Mackinder, 1982: 121). Indeed, geography and historical trends limit human choices by constraining or instigating states’ actions. To be more precise, geography and history provides a framework within which geopolitical strategy is formulated and implemented. They set contours on which trajectory and path is achievable and which is not. As Robert D. Kaplan cogently argues, “the more we remain preoccupied with Iran’s specific geography and history have crucially shaped its geopolitical strategy. However, it should be important to disentangle the argument from geographical and historical ‘determinism’. At first glance, putting emphasis on these two factors opens door for fatalism while ignores human agency. Geography and history by no means determine state’s approaches to use military force and regional strategies. In reality, human agency matters since it is men who decide and take action. There are still historical instances wherein men overcame the dictates of geography and unchained historical patterns. Nevertheless, “in the long run, those who are working in harmony with environmental influences will triumph over those who strive against them” (Parker and Mackinder, 1982: 121). Indeed, geography and historical trends limit human choices by constraining or instigating states’ actions. To be more precise, geography and history provides a framework within which geopolitical strategy is formulated and implemented. They set contours on which trajectory and path is achievable and which is not. As Robert D. Kaplan cogently argues, “the more we remain preoccupied with current events, the more that individuals and their choices matter; but the more we look out over the span of the centuries, the more that geography plays a role (Kaplan, 2012: 28). Therefore, a balance between geography and history, on the one side, and the decisions and actions of men, on the other side, matter for a deeper analysis of Iran’s regional policy. In short, geography and history imprison Iranian leaders and delimit, rather than determine, their choices and opportunities for regional maneuver. The ideas emerge and vanish, the leaders are born and then die; but what remains durably is Iran’s geography and history!

For more than half century, Iran’s connections with its proxies have been the country’s pivotal geopolitical strategy crafted to contain regional and global threats. In contrast to the mainstream view, this strategy is rooted less in Iran’s revolutionary ideology rather than its specific geography and history. The paper shows that Iran’s strategic loneliness is a very historical product of its specific geography and history. It also argued how Iran’s geopolitical strategy has intensified its geopolitical predicament and entrapped the country in the offensive-defensive complex. Within this situation, regional cooperation in several domains, particularly the conflict resolution processes, is vital and necessary for Iran’s regional policy. The establishment of a path-dependent bilateral or multilateral security institution(s) with regional states would be crucial for the stability of the Middle East. As the regional tensions spiraling out of control, building comprehensive collective security with tripartite power centers of Tehran-Ankara-Riyadh would deescalate geopolitical competition in the Middle East.While it is a major driving force for the country’s power projection beyond its borders, strategic loneliness sets Iran’s center of gravity within its internal territory. Relying on the inside shows that Iran’s center of gravity has predicated on ‘state-society relation’; rather than on strategic alliance with whether the Great Powers or non-state actors. In other words, Iran’s strategic loneliness shows intrinsic and independent foundations of Iran’s national security. Within this context, popular support and legitimacy are the most crucial and vital assets for a country whose borders have been historically bloody frontier zone. It was this very fact ignored by the last Shah of Iran.

The process of decision making about geopolitical interactions either has a public source and receives its legitimacy and legality from people and public arena or decisions are made and strategies are chosen by official institutions and political elites beyond the volition of public arena. Based on this fact, the current article tries to answer this question that what is the source of legitimacy of Iran's geopolitical interactions while it explains legal aspects of these interactions. Findings of this article indicate that geopolitical strategies of Islamic republic of Iran are based on laws ratified by parliament members of Iran's parliament and other lawmaking institutions. Therefore, these laws have public legitimacy. Thus Iran's geopolitical interactions have public legitimacy.