Iran’s New Missile-Proliferation Strategy https://mosaicmagazine.com/picks/politics-current-affairs/2021/09/irans-new-missile-proliferation-strategy/

September 3, 2021 | Fabian Hinz
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Hizballah, the Islamic Republic’s Lebanese arm, has one of the world’s largest arsenals of rockets aimed at the Jewish state, not to mention whatever materiel it and related organizations have stockpiled in Syria. Indeed, rockets are a key part of Tehran’s strategic posture; its own military has a large number of them, including some fairly sophisticated long- and medium-range missiles likely built using North Korean prototypes. Likewise, it has armed other groups with such weapons: Iranian proxies in Iraq have used rockets to attack Americans, the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen have used them to attack Saudi Arabia, and both Hamas and Islamic Jihad—beneficiaries of much Iranian support—have fired countless rockets from Gaza into Israel. Fabian Hinz explains the new ways that the ayatollahs are getting such technology to their partners in terror:

[H]ow does Iran equip its proxies and allies with increasingly sophisticated and longer-range ballistic missiles and artillery rockets? For years, the answer has been through smuggling. . . . However, in recent years smuggling has been augmented by two other transfer methods: the provision of guidance kits to modify existing stockpiles of artillery rockets, and the wholesale provision of manufacturing capabilities.

Iranian support for enabling local rocket production is not new. Reports about the rocket arsenals of Palestinian factions in Gaza regularly cite Iranian assistance for domestic manufacturing, and Hizballah’s alleged missile factory in the Beqaa Valley became the topic of competing accusations in the Israel-Hizballah relationship. However, closer examination of Iranian sources, documents likely leaked by Israeli intelligence, and the missiles unveiled by the Houthis reveal a strategy of empowering Iranian proxies that is more comprehensive than previously thought. In cooperation with Iran’s missile industry, . . . the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) appears intent on enabling all its main proxies to be able autonomously to manufacture artillery rockets and precision-guided missiles. Also, a special development effort seems to be aimed at creating simple artillery rockets and short-range-missile systems and production units custom-tailored for local production.

Such a strategy has several advantages from Tehran’s point of view. Spreading out the production of ballistic missiles helps avoid crucial bottlenecks, such as overland smuggling, that can be affected by interdiction efforts. . . . Iran [also] provides itself with . . . deniability by supporting local production outside its borders of missiles not identical to models of its own use.

Read more on International Institute for Strategic Studies: https://www.iiss.org/blogs/research-paper/2021/04/iran-missile-proliferation-strategy