One of the central issues is the impact of the idea and assumption of strategic loneliness on the goals, motives, and regional strategies of the decision-making elites of the Islamic Republic of Iran in the tense and critical area of West Asia. The current research investigates why the Islamic Republic of Iran suffers from strategic loneliness, and which doctrines have it used to get out of strategic loneliness? The study hypothesizes that the change of regime from Pahlavi to the Islamic Republic caused, on the one hand, Iran to have practically no stable and robust ally except Syria. On the other hand, a front of allies within the region and beyond has surrounded the country. This issue has led Iran to endogenous deterrence and abroad activities to cope with foreign threats. The findings show that supporting liberation movements, blocking threat sources, confronting the United States, deterring US regional allies, alongside prominent strategies such as regional ban and counter-access, unconventional land and sea warfare, classical and neo-ballistic missile deterrence, drone industry, Hezbollah model, and Lebanonization, alliances with trans-regional actors, religious and cultural diplomacy indicate the wrong idea of strategic loneliness. Iran follows these policies to get out of strategic loneliness and regional isolation. The research method is qualitative and refers to the primary library documents.

The present study seeks to draw the requirements of the strategic relations of the Islamic Republic of Iran and its strategic partnership options with various blocks of power in a post -Western international system. Under the transition of the International System, what requirements should the macro -foreign policy approach and Iran's strategic partnership options have to consider? Due to the unique geostrategic position at the peripheral environmental equations, Iran has fundamentally affected the process of redistribution of power and wealth in the international system. Emerging powers such as Iran, once marginalized by the material and discourse of a Western order from the equations of the international system, were marginalized. They now have an unprecedented opportunity to challenge the dominant order with revisionists and to focus on international and regional change policy agenda. However, the strategic partnership of emerging powers in the transition of the international system is often limited to this unstable transition, and with another order, the contexts that form their strategic unity are transformed, and the new contexts necessarily cooperate and the transitional partnership in the strategic security areas is not reproduced. In the context of such an understanding, 'strategic loneliness' should not be considered as a prerequisite or prerequisite. Under the transition of the international system, which is the main characteristic of the redistribution of power, wealth and rewriting of international rules, strategic loneliness is not a relative advantage but a potential threat to Iran's strategic interests. “Diversity to Geopolitical Approach Foreign Policy”, “Multi-functionalism” through “Balance of Relations with Asia and Europe”, “Coalition Based on emerging issues” and ... are key requirements of the Islamic Republic of Iran's active and independent role in the Post -Western International System.

The meaning of “strategic alliance” is not solid in international relations literature. Regardless of various possible understandings, this concept is subject to further modifications that may result from changes in equations of the global order. In this situation, it is possible that what is understood by the two ends of a strategic alliance would be significantly different from the original understanding held by each party. Although Iran is located in a specific and sensitive location in the world's political geography, it is not considered to be in any major alliance with a regional block in its foreign relations: neither from the natural nor civilization perspectives. This is because, both naturally and historically, Iran is not a part of the Turk, Arab or Sunni blocks in the region. Therefore, Iran is somehow accepted as a “special entity” in the region. Along with Iran’s geographical position, which has historically instigated global competition, this “exceptionalism” could be the origin of the concept called Iran’s strategic loneliness. In this research, we use a qualitative analysis approach along with several historical facts. We focus on Iran’s perception of the concept of the strategic alliance with regard to the historical competition of the global powers and Iran’s strategic loneliness, especially at the intersection of the two. We will discuss Iran’s position in its strategic environment in contemporary history along with the misunderstandings it might cause based on how “strategic alliance” is perceived in Tehran vs. other capitals.

The depth and extension of Iran’s controversial connections with its proxies have caught eyes and thoughts. 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 Achaemenes 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.

This study is to "evaluate the impact of Iranian strategic culture on Tehran's response to Washington's coercive diplomacy. The question is, "How has the strategic culture of Iran affected its response to Washington's wills i.e. giving up the ideals of the Islamic Revolution. The findings of the study, obtained through an inferential methodology and analyzed relying on the power of individual understanding, show that the nine components of Iranian strategic culture in regard of diplomacy and defense, including "martyrdom", "resistance", "emphasis on deterrence", tactical flexibility, "Strategic ambiguity", "strategic patience", "self-reliance", "strategic loneliness and a sense of vulnerability" and "the mission of the leadership of Islam and the region" and its 5 characteristics including "achieving the truth of trust", "courage" , "rationalism", "intelligent and thoughtful leadership" and "hybrid and multidimensional nature has led Iran to understand the extravagant and self-reinforcing nature of coercive diplomacy and the importance of resisting US pressure and to prevent an onset for the domino of being blackmailed by US. Thus, the interactions between Iran and US during the past four decades have been based on either the principle of "privilege for privilege" or "reciprocity."

Despite the passage of more than four decades since the Iraq-Iran war, due to the effects that this war has had on geopolitics and regional order, and specifically on Iran's political-security approach and regional policy and its influence in the West Asian region, it is worthy of paying attention. Therefore, the question that arises is that how did the Iran-Iraq war affect the relations between Iran and Syria and the expansion of the regional influence of the Islamic Republic of Iran? Investigating the issue using the defensive neorealism approach, descriptive-analytical method and using library and documentary sources shows that this war made Iran's strategic loneliness and its unwanted isolation and lack of an ally in the region more obvious and the strategic proximity of Iran and Syria and The expansion of the scope of security cooperation between the two countries from Iraq to Lebanon and Palestine led to confrontation with the Zionist regime and it caused attention to regional influence and strategic deepening and countering security threats with the help of non-governmental allies in Iran's regional political-security approach. This ultimately led to an increase in political-ideological influence and strategic depth and regional deterrence power of Iran in West Asia.

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.

This paper pays particular attention to three critical junctures in Iran’s contemporary history: The Russo-Persian wars of the 19th century, Iran’s occupation by the Allies in 1941, and the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s. Combining a constructivist approach to geopolitics with the theory of Social Reality Construction, this article argues that these series of wars in the past two centuries have created an intersubjectivity, making Iranians feel “lonely” when the very survival of their state was at the stake. While Iran’s geographical situation has brought the country to the core of the great powers’ attention, repeated foreign invasions or interventions seem to have reproduced a sense of vulnerability for the Iranians. This paper is constructed around the following question: Is there something embedded in Iran’s geography that betrays this land’s sovereignty and imposes loneliness? The conclusion is that there is no natural or geographical reason to justify Iran's loneliness in the international arena, but rather, a perceptual construct reproduced by the historical context of events. The imposition of great political powers to contain Iran in its geography and to make it a buffer zone constitute a spatial reality; however, the feeling of loneliness derives from the social construction of reality.

In the early 16th century, Shah Ismail I (1501–1524) established the Safavid Empire (1501–1736 BC) and reunited Iran for the first time after the collapse of the Sassanid Empire of the 7th century. He ruled a vast territory from Euphrates and Transcaucasia to Hindukush and Oxus. More significantly, he reconstructed Iran’s national identity by combining the Twelver Shia Islam with the Iranian plateau. It was his crucial decision to combine Shiism with the Iranian plateau that retooled Iran for the modern era. The emergence of a new, powerful Shia state in the region had a huge ramification for other Shia communities in the West Asia, particularly the Shia Turks in Minor Asia, while urged Sunni powers of the Ottoman Empire in the west and Uzbek Khanate in the east to ally against the Shia Safavid. For the next time, Iran was surrounded, though this time it was much more intensified since the geopolitical competition in Western Asia overlapped by geo-cultural forces of the Shia-Sunni dichotomy. Such a harsh encirclement in thong term put the country again in the defensive position, made Safavid kings be constantly preoccupied with fighting Sunni powers in the western and eastern fronts, and ultimately left the country prone to domestic rebels.The important point is that the Safavid shahs were not able to disentangle Iran from such a destructive military encirclement. Rare opportunities emerged but the Safavid shahs never defended Iran’s national integrity through power projection beyond its territory to deter external threats. One of these opportunities came up when the Shia Turks, led by Shahkulu, launched a widespread insurgency in spring 1510 and threatened the Ottoman power effectively. For the Middle Eastern Shia, Shah Ismail was both their Shah and Morshed-e Kamel (Complete Su Master). Harshly persecuted by the Ottoman Sultans, the Shia Turk welcomed the Safavi Shah’s sequential victories. Shah Ismail was aware of the power of his supporters; however, he was preoccupied with fighting the Sunni Uzbek Khans in Khorasan, north-eastern Iran, at that time.Furthermore, he did not want to have Iran surrounded by two Sunni powers of the Uzbek and the Ottoman. Therefore, he refrained from inciting Ottoman Sultan, Bayezid II (1481–1512), by siding with the Shia rebellion. Nonetheless, Shahkulu and his 3000 followers were killed in a decisive battle on 2 July 1511. The Ottoman brutally suppressed the Shia Turks. Three years later, Sultan Selim I attacked Iran and defeated Shah Ismail in the Battle of Chaldiran (23 August 1514). Tabriz, the capital of Safavid, was temporarily captured and then destroyed by the Ottoman Jeni Seri forces.

The present article utilizes an intimate historical engagement with the issue 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 and guides post of our specific interpretation of Geopolitics. Process tracing allows us to capture the dynamics of change and the causal mechanisms behind these changes within the evolution of the subject under study. Put another way, in analytical process-tracing a theoretical 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.

While much ink has been spilled on the battle of Chaldiran, there has been a theoretical void in the analysis of the explanation of geopolitical, Geo-economic, and Geo-cultural factors behind the outbreak of battle. From this perspective, the present paper is an attempt to explain major forces that shaped the battle of Chaldiran. Heavily based on the first-hand documents, the paper illustrates the Ottoman’s intervention in the middle of Iran’s civil war and against Shah Ismail’s military campaign. It also shows the destructive impact of the Iranian’s lack of modern weapons and wrong military tactics taken by Shah Ismail in the battle. Last but not least, the paper sheds light on the consequences of this battle for the trajectory of the power arrangement in West Asia.

“Which factors were behind the outbreak of the battle of Chaldiran?” This is the central question that guides the analytic narrative in the present paper. The paper shows that, along with major factors, Shah Ismail’s lack of ‘ability’ and ‘intention’ in the support for a non-state entity of the Shia Turk movement ultimately led to the defeat of Iran’s Army. Elaborating the impact of geopolitical factors in the outbreak of the war, the paper argues that it was rooted in Iran’s ‘historical strategic loneliness’. Accordingly, the deployment of Iranian forces to conflict abroad has a notable struggle of Iran’s power projection beyond its territory to compensate its strategic loneliness and to deter external threats. However, Shah Ismail was not able to follow this very logic and, therefore, lost the battle. Phrased differently, Shah Ismail’s lack of ability and intention in the support for a non-state entity of the Shia Turk movement ultimately led to the defeat of Iran’s army and the permanent loss of Western regions of Safavid Empire

Given the important effects of loneliness on health and it has not been studied precisely in our country among the spouses of personnel deployed to long-term missions, therefore, the current study was done to investigate loneliness and related factors among spouses of naval personnel.
In this cross-sectional study with simple random sampling, 120 spouses of personnel deployed to long-term naval missions were selected in one of the regions of the navy in 2015. They were assessed using the short form of the Social-Emotional Loneliness Scale (SELSA-S). Data were analyzed by SPSS software.
The mean and standard deviation of romantic loneliness, family loneliness, social loneliness, and general loneliness were 12.8±7.6, 7.8±4.5, 12.5±4.9, and 32.9±9.8, respectively. Also, it was found significant differences in loneliness scores (general, social, or family) among different age groups, number of children, and work experience of spouse (p The highest value in loneliness is related to romantic loneliness score. Younger women with fewer children are at risk of more loneliness in its all aspects.