Military history of Iran

Largely credited to its historically unchanged geographical and geopolitical condition, the modern-day Islamic Republic of Iran (historically known as Persia) has had a long and checkered military culture and history; ranging from triumphant and unchallenged ancient military supremacy, affording effective superpower status for its time; to a series of near-catastrophic defeats (beginning with the destruction of Elam), most notably including the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon as well as the Asiatic nomadic tribes at the northeastern boundary of the lands traditionally home to the Iranian peoples.

Though equipped and trained to conduct shock action (hand-to-hand combat with spears, axes and swords), this was a secondary capability and the Persians preferred to maintain their distance from the enemy in order to defeat him with superior missile-power.

The Seleucid Empire was a Hellenistic successor state of Alexander the Great's dominion, including central Anatolia, the Levant, Mesopotamia, Persia, Turkmenistan, Pamir and the Indus valley.

Parthia was an Iranian civilization situated in the northeastern part of modern Iran, but at the height of its power, the Parthian dynasty covered all of Iran proper, as well as Armenia, Azerbaijan, Iraq, Georgia, eastern Turkey, eastern Syria, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Pakistan, Kuwait, the Persian Gulf, the coast of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine and the UAE.

He restored the Achaemenid military organizations, retained the Parthian cavalry model, and employed new types of armour and siege warfare techniques.

The Sassanid army protected Eranshahr ("the realm of Iran") from the East against the incursions of central Asiatic nomads like the Hephthalites, Turks, while in the west it was engaged in a recurrent struggle against its rival, the Roman Empire and later the Byzantine Empire, setting on forth the conflict that had started since the time of their predecessors, the Parthians, and would end after around 720 years, making it the longest conflict in human history.

"[6] This view further more holds that once politically conquered, the Persians began engaging in a culture war of resistance and succeeded in forcing their own ways on the victorious Arabs.

The dynasty was founded by – and took its name from – Ya'qub bin Laith as-Saffar, a man of humble origins who rose from an obscure beginning as a coppersmith (saffar) to become a warlord.

By the time of Ya'qub's death, he had conquered Kabul Valley, Sindh, Tocharistan, Makran (Baluchistan), Kerman, Fars, Khorasan, and nearly reaching Baghdad but then suffered defeat.

The Samanids (819–999)[11] were a Persian dynasty in Central Asia and Greater Khorasan, named after its founder Saman Khuda who converted to Sunni Islam[12] despite being from Zoroastrian theocratic nobility.

The Ziyarids, also spelled Zeyarids (زیاریان or آل زیار), were an Iranian dynasty that ruled in the Caspian sea provinces of Gorgan and Mazandaran from 930 to 1090 (also known as Tabaristan).

[17] The dynasty was founded by Sebuktigin upon his succession to rule of territories centered around the city of Ghazni from his father-in-law, Alp Tigin, a break-away ex-general of the Samanid sultans.

[18] Sebuktigin's son, Shah Mahmoud, expanded the empire in the region that stretched from the Oxus river to the Indus Valley and the Indian Ocean; and in the west it reached Rey and Hamadan.

In 1151, Sultan Bahram Shah lost Ghazni to Ala al-Din Husayn of Ghur and the capital was moved to Lahore until its subsequent capture by the Ghurids in 1186.

[23][24] They ruled Greater Iran in the High Middle Ages, in the period of about 1077 to 1231, first as vassals of the Seljuqs[citation needed], Kara-Khitan,[25] and later as independent rulers, up until the Mongol invasions of the 13th century.

He was much helped by two English brothers, Anthony and Robert Shirley, who went to Iran in 1598 with twenty-six followers and remained in the Persian service for a number of years.

It was organized along three divisions: Ghilman ('crown servants or slaves' conscripted from hundreds of thousands of ethnic Circassians, Georgians, and Armenians), Tofongchis (musketeers), and Topchis (artillery-men) Shah Abbas's new model army was massively successful and allowed him to re-unite parts of Greater Iran and expand his nations territories at a time of great external pressure and conflict.

Many of them were, as above mentioned, put in the ghilman corps, but the larger masses were deployed in the regular armies, the civil administration, royal household, but also as labourers, farmers, and craftsmen.

As the control of the country de-centralised with the collapse of Nader Shah's rule, many of the peripheral territories of the Empire gained independence and only paid token homage to the Persian State.

During the Persian expedition of 1796, Russian troops crossed the Aras river and invaded parts of Azarbaijan and Gilan, while they also moved to Lankaran with the aim of occupying Rasht again.

Britain feared the seizure of Herat would leave a route to attack British India controlled by a power friendly to Russia, and threatened Persia with closure of the trade of the Persian Gulf.

Both saw the newly opened Trans-Iranian Railroad as a strategic route to transport supplies from the Persian Gulf to the Soviet Union and were concerned that Reza Shah was sympathetic to the Axis powers, despite his declaration of neutrality.

Following a number of clashes in April 1969, relations with Iraq fell into a steep decline, mainly due to a dispute over the Shatt al-Arab (called Arvand Rud in Persian) waterway in the 1937 Algiers Accord.

[44] Iran's purchases from the United Kingdom prior to the 1979 revolution included 1 decommissioned and modernized British destroyer (HMS Sluys), 4 British-built frigates (the Alvand class,) and a vast array of missiles such as the Rapier and Seacat systems.

[60] From France, Iran ordered 12 La Combattante II type fast attack craft (named the Kaman class) equipped with Harpoon missiles.

[61] In addition to these developments, the government of Iran had begun alongside American and British corporations, the licensed manufacturing of several different types of military equipment.

Following the ideological principles of the Islamic revolution in Iran, the new revolutionary government sought to strengthen its domestic situation by conducting a purge of senior military personnel closely associated with the Pahlavi dynasty.

The indecisive eight-year Iran-Iraq War (IIW), which began on 22 September 1980 when Iraq invaded Iran, wreaked havoc on the region and the Iranian military.

After it expanded into the Persian Gulf, where it led to clashes between the United States Navy and Iran (1987–1988), the IIW ended on 20 August 1988 when both parties accepted a UN-brokered ceasefire.

Its contention with the Saudi Arabia, especially as one of the sponsors of the Houthi rebellion in Yemen, and its military aid to Syria over the course of the Syrian Civil War mark it as a threat to the status quo Pax Americana, under which flourish minor Sunni Emirates along the West coast of the Persian Gulf.