Each US Military Threat Against Iran This Year Has Been Matched by a Russian General Staff Response

Each US Military Threat Against Iran This Year Has Been Matched by a Russian General Staff Response

Iran is adding Russian defensive weapons and technology but the FSB won’t allow Russian experts to talk about it

Persia Under Siege

This month’s escalation of US and British threats to Iran’s oil export shipping and maritime defences in the Persian Gulf is to be matched with Russian assistance to the Iran Navy and to shore batteries of air defence missiles, as well as the 300-kilometre range Russian Kalibr missile, a US Navy ship-killer.

The Kalibr, according to US assessments, “skims just above the sea, making it difficult to detect at a distance, before leaping up to three times the speed of sound on the terminal approach—offering a challenging target for missile-defense systems. The Kalibr can be fired not only from underwater by submarines, but also by relatively small and cheap corvettes.”

Iran, according to its experts, has its own anti-shipping missiles and drones deployed along the Iranian coastline, on the sea surface and on board submarines, concentrating at the Strait of Hormuz.

What the Iranian arms may lack in speed, range and electronic capabilities, the introduction of Russian electronic counter-measures, which Russians sources say has begun, will assist by jamming or spoofing US tracking equipment.

The result has already been signalled by the British, German and French governments in their response to Trump Administration requests for a multinational naval convoy operation in the Persian Gulf, and also in response to Iranian warnings. At sea, Iranian naval commanders have already deterred the British with the warning: “don’t put your life in danger.” The response of the Europeans is the one from Germany’s Vice-Chancellor and Finance Minister,  Olaf Scholz: “We must prevent an escalation that could end in a much bigger conflict. So I think that this [naval operation] is not the best idea.”

The British naval response has been to add a warship in the Gulf, the destroyer HMS Duncan. But this has failed to add confidence to shippers. On July 30 British Petroleum’s (BP) chief financial officer Brian Gilvary rejected the efficacy of naval convoys to safeguard BP’s vessels. The company, he declared, “has no current plans to take any of its own vessels through the strait, adding that BP is shipping oil out of the region using chartered tankers.”

According to Gilvary, “we will continue to make shipments through there but you won’t see any BP-flagged tankers going through in the short term.” In other words, it’s up to others to run their own risks of seizure or destruction. But for them the market has already decided by raising the cost of premiums that independent charterers should be deterred.  For the foreseeable future marine underwriters are requiring them to negotiate terms according to the specifics of the voyages proposed. 

The escalation of US military threats against Iran so far this year is well documented. Each move has been matched by a Russian Defence Ministry and General Staff response, a few of them made public by the Iranian side; far fewer by the Russians. For background, read this.  For a 2013 backgrounder by a former US Navy analyst on the evolution of Iranian Navy strategy, cooperation with Russia, and use of the press for bluff and deterrence, read this.

The tanker war commenced between July 3 and July 4, when the British Government, through the Gibraltar administration, issued a “specified ship notice” against the Russian-owned, Panama-flagged oil tanker, the Grace-1, carrying a large cargo of Iranian oil. Before dawn on July 4, British Marines attacked the vessel and seized it. Follow the timeline of what happened next.

The Russian Foreign Ministry condemned the Grace-1 attack on July 5; it did not condemn Iran’s retaliation on July 19 when the Stena Impero was boarded by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on July 19.  We told you so, was the response by Foreign Ministry spokesman Maria Zakharova on July 11, following warning messages between Iranian and British warships.

“We condemn the seizure of the super tanker sailing under the Panama flag on July 4, conducted by the Gibraltar authorities aided by Great Britain’s Royal Marine Commando unit. We view the seizure of the vessel and its cargo as a deliberate action aimed at aggravating the situation around Iran and Syria. Laudatory comments by top US and British officials immediately after the operation confirm this conclusion and prove that the action had been long in the making with the involvement of respective services and agencies of several countries. Gibraltar’s reference to the fact that the cargo aboard the vessel was meant to be delivered to a Syrian oil refinery hit by EU sanctions only aggravates the situation. The following question arises: Does this circumstance mean that the EU is following in the US’ footsteps and resorting to extraterritorial sanctions against third countries.”

On July 11, spokesman Zakharova called the British action “political rage”. Regarding the Iranian action, she said: “there should be no escalation of tensions in the region, given that the situation is becoming dramatic as it is…What is needed, therefore, is not to foment tensions in the region but, on the contrary, to act in such a way as to steer the situation towards the negotiating process in order to answer the questions the parties may have.”

Since the Stena Impero action on July 19, the Russian foreign ministry has made no mention of it. Instead on July 23,  Mikhail Bogdanov, the deputy minister in charge of the Middle East, announced a detailed “Russia’s security concept for the Gulf area”.  Read it in full.

There is no mention of the naval engagements in the proposal. There is an attack on US and British deployments. One of the proposed security concepts is “renunciation of permanent deployment of troops of extra-regional states in the territories of states of the Gulf.”  Turkish military forces in Qatar and Iraq are also implied in this point.

A few days later, on July 27, Admiral Hossein Khanzadi, the Iranian naval commander, arrived in Russia for talks with his counterpart , Admiral Nikolai Yevmenov and other officers of the Russian General Staff, and to attend the St. Petersburg naval parade on July 28.  The Iran press agency ran this excerpt of the Navy Day parade.

The next day Khanzadi and Yevmenov signed an agreement on maritime defence cooperation, reported by the Iranian press as “the first time in the history of their relations.”

In this week’s communiqués, the two sides “also highlighted the need for preserving the security of the Caspian Sea through collective efforts of all littoral states.” Russian and Iranian navies have been participating in joint exercises of vessels, sub-sea and air defence, intelligence-sharing and electronic counter-measures for some time. [In the Caspian.] In St Petersburg this week Khanzadi announced that Russia had agreed to a joint naval exercise in the Indian Ocean. “A coordination meeting will be held between the two sides”, Khanzadi said. “By Indian Ocean we mean a significant area in northern parts of the ocean, including the Makran Sea, Strait of Hormuz and also the Persian Gulf.”  There has been no subsequent statement from the Russian Defence Ministry on the joint manoeuvres or their date.  Tass, the state news agency, has reported the agreement indirectly, quoting Iranian, not Russian sources.

“It may be considered a turning point in the relations of Tehran and Moscow along the defense trajectory,” Khanzadi also said. This is not an exaggeration. Sources confirm that an earlier joint memorandum was signed for cooperation between the Iranian and Russian navies in the Caspian Sea; and that this year so far it has been followed up with one joint exercise of combat units. If the latest agreement is implemented in the same way for the Gulf and the Indian Ocean, Russian sources believe it will be the first of its kind in joint operations and training.

How far and how fast the Iranian Navy has been adding Russian defence weapons and technology is not widely discussed by Russian experts. The reason, one of them said this week, is that there is increasingly tough enforcement by the Federal Security Service (FSB) of state secrets regulations against disclosure of military information, even from open sources.

One of the few Moscow military experts to comment is Igor Korotchenko, editor of National Defence Magazine in Moscow:

“As you know, Iran has previously purchased a batch of Russian S-300PMU-2, so in the light of new threats and the pressure that Tehran is subjected to from Washington, the purchase of S-400 would be an absolutely logical step. Obviously, Iran has realized the need to create a comprehensive air defense system, which will be based on Russian technology. From a political point of view, today there are no obstacles to the conclusion of such contracts between Moscow and Tehran, as air defense technology is exclusively a defensive weapon. Everything depends on the issue of the solvency of the Iranian side, but, as you know, Iran is quite solvent and has the necessary financial resources.”…..more here

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