Is Iran Currently an Existential Threat?

In 2008, the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation printed a report detailing Iranian vs US military capability under the title Is Iran Currently an Existential Threat to the US?   I took the data and made some simple graphs so that the Information would have a more visceral impact.  They are presented below with a little bit of context.  The data is still valid, because not much has changed since then on Iran’s side.  In fact, our advantage has increased with the broad deployment of our rapidly growing fleet of Hunter/Killer Drones across the Middle East, Southwest Asia and now, Africa.

It appears that their population is actually larger than I realized.  Still, I can say from observation, that there is lots of open space in Iran, as there is here.

This is interesting, given the large (x4.5) population difference.  The explanation is that Iran has a draft, such that all 18-20 year olds spend  at least a couple of years in the military, on top of any voluntary enlisted men.   Another unstated factor that should be considered on reading the above comparison is that contractors aren’t considered.  Therefore, one can assume that the American bar should be half again as large (to include contractors, i.e. mercenaries) and potentially several times as large, if a draft were instituted.  This is true despite the fact that a higher percent of the Iranian population is between 18 and 20 than of the US population, because they recently (through the ’80s) fought a devastating war in self defense.

So, here we see that although their population is more than 1/4 of ours, their Gross Domestic Product is just over 1/20th of the US GDP.   Let’s see how we spend our money:

Since their Military spending is barely 1/100th of that of the US, we may conclude that either Iran has limited resources to give to military objectives, or that they have different priorities.  Either way, as we shall see, they have a lot of ground to make up.

This graph is too small to be easily read, but one thing is clear, the red bars dominate, that’s the US.  Here’s a better breakdown:

I’m not a military expert, but it looks like we have them by 10 to 1 in everything but Armored Personnel Carriers, where we have 33 times as many, and Artillery Unites, where we are roughly equivalent.   What does this mean?  They can fight a simple ground war, without the high tech bells and whistles, but they don’t have much of defensive capability against an adversary like the US, who has a solid defensive posture and enough helecopters to wipe out their artillary pretty quick if they happened to be lined up somewhere in the open where they could easily be attacked.  To make the point, we have 2/3 as many helicopters as they have artillery units.

That Coast Guard figure is impressive, but they do need to protect their coastline, and with all those oil tankers and all that foreign interest, this is quite a project.   I suspect, however, that what we are counting here are those infamous ‘speed boats’ that keep bothering members of our carrier fleets off their shoreline  in the Pesian Gulf.

Fortunately, they seem to have the ‘Mine’ business down, but they’ll have to guard against those Amphibious ships with their speed boats and artillery units.

I guess we will need all those Transports, being that we would have to attack them on their soil, since they have no way of getting to ours.   On the other hand, they may have some problems due to the absence of defenses against Submarines (the US has 71 Subs) and lac of Airborne Early Warning Defenses, since the US would likely attack from the air as a primary mode of battle.   Even though we aren’t overextended in Iraq any more, we have such an effective fleet of drones (not shown in 2008) that we would probably stay with an air war.  

Finally,

Well, Iran has a handful of fighter planes, but no Nukes and no Long Range Bombers to transport them.  So far as I know, they don’t have any hunter/killer drones either, but no fear.   Drones, which are inexpensive and relatively low tech, are becoming readily available around the world. 

You can judge for yourself, who is a threat to the world here.   It may be, that the next time someone asks if you think Iran is an ‘existential’ threat to the US, you just might laugh out loud.    However, it would be wise to think about all those speed boats patrolling the gulf along with a few mining ships, and their predominance of artillery units.  

This is the underpinning of a well organized insurgency.   And if they were attacked, surely they would find some way to employ these resources to advantage.  This is the only real military threat Iran poses, and it is a real threat, but only meaningful if they are attacked first.  Having a missile or two that just might reach Israel is not worth much on the grand scale; not when Israel has a couple of hundred nukes, along with the long range bombers and nuclear subs to transport them.