“The IRGC is not a person; it is a movement.” Maj. Gen. Yahya Rahim Safavi, military adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 2017
The Guards have both conventional and unconventional military capabilities. According to Jane’s Defence Weekly, the Islamic Republic of Iran Army (Artesh) now totals approximately 398,000, while the Guards have an estimated personnel strength of 125,000. The official count is twenty million, but this is hyperbolic boasting. The Artesh and the Guards. Today, the relationship between Iran’s Guards and the Artesh bears some hallmarks of the rivalries between the military forces in Nazi Germany and in the Soviet Union. In Nazi Germany, Himmler shaped the Waffen-SS to perform, among other duties, combat missions similar to those of the Wehrmacht. The Waffen-SS was an elite force that developed capabilities superior to Wehrmacht units. Initially, its recruits had stringent racial, height, and physical requirements. During the early stages of the war, the Waffen-SS was capable, confident, and often victorious.
With the invasion of Poland, SS units were unbridled from customary rules of war and quickly established a brutal image. The Waffen-SS often teamed with the Wehrmacht to conduct mass-murder operations. After the failed July 1944 coup attempt against Hitler, the status of all branches of the SS soared because Hitler distrusted the traditional army and saw the SS as his formidable bodyguard. Just as Hitler distrusted the loyalty of the Prussian-led army officer corps, Stalin held misgivings about personnel in the Red Army. In 1942, the Soviet Supreme High Command created an independent army of NKVD personnel, sparking an enduring rivalry between the Red Army and NKVD units. They competed for resources and prestige. The NKVD operated in the rear lines, conducted special operations, and served as “blocking units” tasked with shooting Soviet soldiers suspected of retreating.
The Waffen-SS and the NKVD were armed forces that partnered with and competed against their countries’ conventional armed forces. This relationship would be loosely replicated in Iran between the Artesh and the Guards. They share overlapping responsibilities and also vie for scarce funds and talented recruits. This enduring competition was forged by national leaders to limit the concentration of power in the hands of the Artesh. The Iranian constitution charges the Artesh with “guarding the independence and territorial integrity of the country, as well as the order of the Islamic Republic.” By charter, the Guards protect the revolution, just as the SS secured the Nazi regime and the NKVD safeguarded the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Finally, just as the SS controlled Germany’s prestigious missile program and the KGB oversaw the Soviet Union’s nuclear weapons program, the Guards control the country’s most important weapons program—its nuclear weapons development program.
The Guards receive significantly greater funding, higher prestige, and higher salaries than their Artesh counterparts, and Guards leaders have far greater access to national leaders than Artesh leaders. The Artesh, unlike the Guards, usually avoids business operations and high-level political decision-making. The Guards participate in the country's political, economic, social, military, and foreign affairs, despite statutory prohibitions. At the same time, the Artesh and the Guards conduct joint exercises. In December 2018, they participated in a seven-day exercise on the island of Qeshm in southern Iran. The exercise emphasized offensive operations and tested special forces, ground, and air units.
The Guards’ Navy
The Guards’ Navy is responsible for securing Iranian interests in the Persian Gulf and the Caspian Sea. Its mission includes coastal defense. According to Jane’s, the Navy has approximately 20,000 personnel, of whom 5,000 are Marines. The force is trained for asymmetric warfare, and its equipment includes missile-equipped fast patrol boats. Leaders have claimed that Iran can block the Strait of Hormuz to all shipping. In early 2019, the commander of the Guards’ Navy claimed he was equipping the fast boats with “new, very small missiles.” Indeed, Rear Adm. Alireza Tangsiri, commander-in-chief of the Guards’ navy, has bragged that his fleet could “chase the U.S. troops even to the Gulf of Mexico” if American craft ever attacked Iran’s vessels. Other leaders have windily crowed on state-owned or state-controlled media, such as Fars, that the Guards’ navy could transform U.S. aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf into “rusty iron.” While this is not likely, the Guards’ navy fast boats could perform sea-based suicidal operations, similar to the attack conducted against the USS Cole. Iranian ships have provocatively approached U.S. vessels, according to Gen. Joe Votel, commander of the U.S. Central Command, who relates that Iranian naval commanders did so to test U.S. resolve and capabilities. In 2016, Guards then–deputy commander Salami boasted that when Guards boarded a U.S. ship and arrested ten sailors, they “started crying after arrest, but the kindness of our Guards made them feel calm.” He added that since World War II, “no country has been able to arrest American military personnel.”
Aerospace and Missile Division
The Guards’ Aerospace and Missile Division exists in parallel to the Artesh air force. After absorbing losses during the Iran-Iraq War, Tehran replenished its air inventory with Soviet aircraft, including MiG-29s and Sukhoi Su-24 long-range strike jets. According to Jane’s, the Guards maintain approximately fifty fixed-wing aircraft and fifty-five helicopters, mainly from Tehran, Karaj, Shiraz, and Orumiyeh. The Guards’ pilots have provided close air support to ground forces for combined air-land operations.
Some observers have claimed that Iran has the largest missile force in the Middle East, consisting of thousands of short- and medium-range ballistic missiles, and possibly land-attack cruise missiles. Iran likely has more than fifteen ballistic missile systems in its inventory or under development. The head of the Guards’ Aerospace and Missile Division, Brig. Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, has claimed that the Khorramshahr has a range of two thousand kilometers and can carry several warheads weighing 1,800 kilograms.18 Hajizadeh has also declared that Iran conducts forty to fifty missile tests per year. In 2016, Iran unveiled two new short-range ballistic missiles, which it claims are capable of striking targets between five hundred and seven hundred kilometers away. The U.S. Department of State has confirmed that Iran test-fired a medium-range ballistic missile capable of carrying multiple warheads, which would allow it to strike parts of Europe and anywhere in the Middle East.
In the 1990s, Iran began expanding its medium-range missile capabilities to reach Israel from any point in Iran. Iran has supplied Hezbollah with thousands of precision rockets, missiles, and small arms. Secretary Pompeo has said satellite launches “incorporate technology that is virtually identical to that used in ballistic missiles.” In June 2018, Iran launched several missiles into eastern Syria. The strikes were the first time Iran had successfully launched missiles at another country in thirty years. The Israeli Defense Forces announced that they intercepted Iranian-fired missiles that entered Israeli airspace from Syria in January 2019. In early 2019, Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council Ali Shamkhani stressed continued efforts to increase the accuracy of Iran’s missiles. In summer 2019, Iranian leaders boasted that their missiles could pulverize U.S. vessels should general hostilities erupt in Middle Eastern waters, with Major General Salami even claiming that Iranian missiles could sink U.S. aircraft carriers.
