Iran and Nuclear Weapons

In 2018, President Donald Trump withdrew from the JCPOA, an international accord established in 2015 to stop Iran’s nuclear and conventional weapons pursuit. Since President Trump withdrew, there is significant evidence of Iran developing nuclear weapons, as they continue to enrich uranium (“President Donald J. Trump…”). After receiving this intelligence, the United States began imposing sanctions on Iran (“The Iranian Nuclear Threat”). The U.S. hopes to persuade Iran to realign with the original negotiations made in 2015 by making Iran suffer economically until they comply. These sanctions work to deter Iran from developing nuclear weapons and compel them to change the status quo, which in this case is their race to become a global super power through their establishment as a nuclear state. Since the United States has imposed these sanctions, Tehran has tried to do everything they can to offset the “economy-crippling actions by Washington” (“UN Urges Iran…”). Even more so, as COVID-19 threatens the world’s economy, these sanctions pose a greater burden on Iran now more than ever. As the United States tries to wear its enemy down through sanctions, it is only a matter of time until Iran is forced to realign with the agreement. 

The United States was forced to react quickly to Iran’s development of nuclear weapons for various reasons. For starters, Iran is the world leading state sponsor of terrorism (“The Iranian Nuclear Threat… ”). Should Iran successfully develop nuclear weapons, these nuclear weapons could get into the wrong hands and present an even greater threat to international security. Secondly, Iran’s development of nuclear weapons creates a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. These surrounding states will quickly feel pressured to develop weapons capable of fighting back should Iran decide to use them. Additionally, countries like Israel, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and the United States face a security dilemma: if Iran obtains nuclear weapons, all states’ security will diminish. More specifically, the U.S. has strong economic ties to its close ally Israel, a state that has been the center of Iran’s threats. Iran has publicly stated that Israel should be “wiped from the map” (“The Iranian Nuclear Threat… ”). The threat of nuclear destruction and the elimination of extremely valuable financial assets has forced the United States to get involved. 

 

The conflict between Iran and the United States has continued to escalate over the past month. On November 27, “an Iranian nuclear scientist who reportedly led the Islamic Republic of Iran’s alleged covert nuclear weapons program” was assassinated (Sabet). Many have voiced concern over the assassination, arguing that it may provoke Iranian retaliation. Consequently, this retaliation will force the United States to strike back. Once again, the threat of a nuclear war is on the horizon for the United States. Additionally, “the assassination could make the road back to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)” more difficult than ever before (Sabet).

The United States is left with the fear of possibility: they may not be in a conventional war, but they are left in a continuous cycle of preparing for one and making decisions that could lead to one. Even more so, the United States is implementing strategies and tactics they would not normally resort to in a conventional war. The threat of missiles, UVAs, and explosives make these decisions more important than ever before, as Iran could soon have the ability to destroy entire sections of a region at an alarmingly fast speed. This new form of war, Fourth Generation Warfare, not only involves these destructive weapons, but now goes beyond the battlefield. The United States must consider their civilians as a target, placing a greater emphasis on their future political decisions. Schelling states, “with nuclear, it has become more than ever a war of risks and threats at the highest strategic level” (111). This “war” with Iran has continued to present itself as a “war of risks,” a highly political and unconventional war that “directly attacks the minds of enemy decision makers to destroy the enemy’s political will” (Hammes 2). Lastly, Iran does not need to implement conventional uses of force, as merely the threat of developing nuclear weapons sends a message to the rest of the world — Iran can become a global superpower and a nuclear state. 

Cyberwarfare

As warfare is evolving and becoming more technologically advanced, so are the ways in which actors can attack their adversaries. The relatively new field of cybersecurity works to keep states safe against cyberattacks. A cyberattack is very different from a traditional physical attack in that it “is not constrained by the usual physics of traditional attacks” and “instead of using direct physical damage, a cyberattack always first targets another computer and the information within it” (Singer and Friedman 68-69). Given the nature of a cyberattack, they are very difficult to attribute blame to a particular actor. Some victims are aware of cyberattacks but do not know who to attribute blame to, and some do not know they are being attacked in the first place (Singer and Friedman 69). 

Cyberwarfare is a modern type of warfare which fits perfectly into the framework of Fourth Generation Warfare. Since Fourth Generation Warfare techniques focus on targeting civilian populations and infiltrating the target society, going undetected and meddling in the democratic structure of voting is an effective way of attacking a democratic society such as the United States. It is widely known and has been proven that Russia meddled in the United States 2016 Presidential election. Please click the link below to watch a video to get a better sense of what this looked like. 

2016 vs. 2020: The Evolution of Russian Meddling in U.S. Elections] 

Given our knowledge of the cyberattacks Russia used against the U.S. 2016 Presidential election, scholars and government officials were extremely careful to watch out for attacks against the recent 2020 election. On September 23rd, 2019, 27 states signed a “’Joint Statement on Advancing Responsible State Behavior in Cyberspace’” in an attempt to call Russia and China out and deter them from undermining democracies and stealing intellectual property (Doffman). A leading cyber security firm, Check Point, did a report in 2019 on the cybersecurity threat of Russia and found that “the Russians invested a significant amount of money and effort in the first half of [2019] to build large-scale espionage capabilities” (Doffman). 

Due to the timing of this effort, “we may see an attack carried out near the 2020 U.S. Elections”, a very familiar strategy to the U.S. from 2016 (Doffman). The video provided on this page details evidence of Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, and compares these strategies with ones from the 2020 election. As is said in the video, there were many interference attempts around the 2020 election, but there were no major known breaches. Even though Russia was not very successful in interfering in the 2020 election (to our knowledge), it is thought that the state is still attempting to carry out a cyberattack on the United States. The alleged hack is very recent (around mid-December of 2020) so there is little information on the purpose of the attack or American cyber experts’ response. However, as far as we know “no data was altered or destroyed, and no computer systems or other infrastructure damaged” (Strobel). Therefore, the purpose of this attack was to spy on the U.S., not to hack or destroy. Given all the information provided on cyberwarfare, it is a legitimate modern form of Fourth Generation Warfare, and needs to be considered a serious threat. Cyberattacks may not have the same potential for physical damage and a weapon like nuclear bombs, but the societal and psychological implications are dangerous.