Military Research & Development of Iran

Iran had one of the world’s strongest and most well-armed militaries in the world under the Shah of Persia. Funded by unlimited oil wealth, Iran shopped the top end of American and Western defense hardware. However, since the fall of Shah and the Persian revolution, Iran has been under sanctions for West, causing difficulties with replacing the American made content of its weapons systems.?

This has forced Iran to develop a domestically developed spare and support undertaking for its foreign equipment and manufacture domestic equivalents of the imported hardware.

What Iran is doing?

• Iran has manufactured new fighters, helicopters, missiles and rockets based on American equipment already in the service.
• Iran had shot down one American drone over its territory and after obtaining the debris, manufactured domestic equivalents which are now flying over Syria.
• Iran has developed new ballistic missiles which as per the US, will be used as carriers of its nuclear weapons program.

How has the world responded?

• The United States under President Donald Trump had pulled out of an international arrangement which was done Iran’s nuclear program.
• It has also increased sanctions on Iran to force it to curb the development of ballistic missiles and force it to scale down its support for proxies in Syria, Yemen, Lebanon, and Iraq.?

The Big Picture

Iran’s success with its weapons program can be guiding rail for Indian defense and motivate them to work harder. Iran has managed to develop one of the best weapons systems despite a total lack of support from the world.