Iran’s strategic outlook is undeniably linked to its physical topography. The Iranian Plateau is a vast geographical region characterized by its mountainous terrain, with the Zagros and Elburz mountain ranges.
Shielded from the north and west are zones of large deserts, fertile valleys and extensive plains. Zagros, occupying the west of the country, and Elburz, occupying the north, essentially turn the country into a fortress, making a conventional ground invasion logistically difficult for any adversary.
The vastness of the Iranian Plateau allows Tehran to disperse its military and nuclear infrastructure, giving the state a level of strategic depth. For example, Iranian officials emphasize that their nuclear and ballistic missile programs were not obliterated during the June 2025 US strikes (Operation Rising Lion and Midnight Hammer) due to both respective programs being dispersed across the huge territory and located deep in mountainous regions, making it difficult to destroy with airpower alone.
Evolution of the A2/AD doctrine
Iran views its geography as a force multiplier. By utilizing its depth and rugged terrain provided by the plateau, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has developed a doctrine of Anti-Access/Area-Denial (A2/AD), mirroring the strategies employed by China in the South China Sea.
As a security architecture, this has allowed Tehran to challenge regional adversaries without triggering a full-scale war scenario. By utilizing the sea and topography, Iran has formulated a regional policy centered on creating a buffer that prevents invasion or a conventional land war on its own soil.
In addition, this fortress mentality allows Tehran to project power through asymmetrical means, i.e., their proxies and precision missiles, while remaining relatively insulated from conventional ground retaliation.
Challenges to geographic invulnerability: Operations Epic Fury and Roaring Lion
The question that currently faces Iranian resilience is whether its nuclear and missile infrastructure can endure a sustained campaign of strikes from both land and sea. Operation Epic Fury (US) and Operation Roaring Lion (Israel), launched on February 28, have fundamentally challenged this “fortress” status.
The US and Israeli air forces have demonstrated that the geographic advantages that once defined Iranian military and strategic thought can be bypassed to some extent through the utilization of high-end precision technology, such as advanced and long-range stealth assets, such as the US B-2 bombers.
The Israelis have employed the use of Black Sparrow air-launched ballistic missiles, which have successfully damaged deeply buried Iranian weapons facilities that were previously thought to be geographically invulnerable to conventional strikes. According to analysis, the operation targeted over 1,000 sites in the first 24 hours.
Targets included IRGC command and control facilities, Iranian conventional naval capabilities, ballistic missile production sites in the Iranian interior and hardened Iranian nuclear infrastructure.
Smart control: The modernization of maritime chokepoints
Iran has a southern coastline of approximately 1,120 miles (1,802 kilometers), which allows it to control the northern coast of the Strait of Hormuz, a critical maritime chokepoint that connects the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman.
It is this physical proximity that allows Iran to project influence upon one of the busiest maritime shipping lanes in the world through a doctrine Tehran calls “Smart Control.” Smart Control is made up of a network of integrated systems that relies on three interconnected technological layers:
- Air Defense System: Iran has showcased the Sayyad-3G, a converted version of its long-range air defense system. The new air defense system has a range of 150km and is launched from Iran’s most technologically advanced class of ships. Its purpose is to create a mobile air defense umbrella that protects naval swarms from aerial attack.
- Dual-Role Discriminatory Drones: Tehran has integrated new drones into its Smart Control doctrine. These are dual-role drones that are capable of identifying and striking both aerial and maritime targets. Unlike traditional sea mines, these drones allow for discriminatory targeting, meaning Iran can monitor shipping and apply calibrated pressure on specific vessels while allowing neutral traffic to pass (and how they intended to enforce only allowing Chinese-flagged vessels to pass the Strait).
- Maritime missile strategy: Iran has demonstrated the simultaneous launch of cruise missiles from both inland silos and offshore platforms. This distribution of missiles ensures that even if one node is destroyed, Tehran can continue to impose its Smart Control doctrine on the Strait through other networked assets.
Smart Control, in peacetime, signaled a move away from its previously deployed blunt-instrument blockade, in which Tehran would threaten to sink ships and crash the global economy (a move that economically hurts its international partners), to a high-tech, discriminatory system that monitors, identifies, and applies calibrated pressure on specific targets.
Tactical execution and economic attrition in the current conflict
In the ongoing conflict, Iran has demonstrated that it can wield Smart Control to maintain a high-tech chokehold over the Strait of Hormuz, despite the destruction of much of their naval capabilities. It does this in three main ways:
- Electronic Warfare: According to maritime intelligence reports, over 1,100 vessels have been affected by high-intensity GPS spoofing since March 1. Signals are diverted to make ships appear as if they are inside Iranian territorial waters, providing Tehran with a pretext for seizures or kinetic strikes. In addition, the IRCG is using AIS (Automatic Identification System) spoofing to ghost its own remaining fast-attack craft, making it nearly impossible for commercial tankers to know where a threat will emerge until a strike is imminent.
- Kinetic Strikes: With the implementation of the Smart Control doctrine, Iran is not sinking every ship, but rather targeting specific shipping. On March 1 and 2, the IRGC utilized dual-role drones to strike vessels such as the MKD Vyom (LNG tanker) and the Skylight (chemical tanker).
- Integrated Air Defence: In response to the joint US-Israeli operation against it, Iran has integrated its newly developed air defense system into its defense. Despite the destruction of its naval headquarters on March 1, the IRGC has utilized its land-based air defense system integrated with Iranian naval vessels to create overlapping air defense bubbles. This has forced US and Israeli jets to remain at high altitudes, complicating their ability to identify and destroy small, dispersed drone launchers along the Iranian coast.
The result of the Smart Control measures has been an immediate 20% reduction in global oil supply and a rise of between 50-100% in maritime insurance premiums, effectively achieving a blockade through economic attrition, despite the destruction of Iranian conventional naval capabilities.
Leadership Vacuum: Succession and State Resilience
The death of the supreme leader on March 1 plunged the Islamic Republic into the question of succession. Historically, the supreme leader acted as the ultimate arbiter, balancing internal and external pressure with the competing interests of the clerical establishment and elite consensus.
In his absence, the regime’s response has been one of fractured desperation. While the IRGC attempts to project strength through the high-tech Smart Control of the Strait of Hormuz, the lack of a clear successor initially triggered elite infighting, compromising the state’s decision-making timeline during a period of peak kinetic stress and resulting in strikes for example on Oman (who were mediating on the side of Iran) that were not sanctioned by central leadership.
The decision by the council to elect Khamenei’s son, Mojtaba Khamenei aimed to quell internal dissent and signal that the hardline IRGC remains in charge of the situation.
Strategic objectives and the multi-polar response
The critical question now facing the region is the longevity and intensity of the current US-led campaign. For Washington, the strategic objective has evolved from permanent degradation of nuclear assets to a broader pursuit of regime change.
Unlike previous engagements, the 2026 operation utilizes a test of deterrence that targets the state’s political will as much as its physical infrastructure. As long as the IRGC maintains its discriminatory blockade, the intensity of strikes is likely to increase, already shifting from Smart Control nodes to the attempted annihilation of Iran’s military communications infrastructure.
This, in turn, can help facilitate the identification, tracking, and neutralisation of remaining key government and military personnel inside Iran. By taking out the secure military communications infrastructure, senior members of the regime in Tehran are forced to use less secure or “noisy” channels of communication (such as WhatsApp or Signal), making them easier to pinpoint.
Internal fractures and the risks of kinetic ground expansion
There is also the perilous risk that this conflict will spread further. While the Trilateral Strategic Pact (Iran, Russia, China) has not and likely will not trigger a Russian or Chinese kinetic intervention, the collapse of a key ally in their multipolar architecture has two main strategic consequences.
First, the Iranian collapse removes a structural layer of protection in the form of a strategic buffer to Russia’s south and China’s west. Second, an Iranian collapse would represent a definitive checkmate against the Eurasian land bridge, specifically threatening two respective Russian and Chinese critical projects: The International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC) and The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Thus, approaching full-scale regime change risks a critical miscalculation.
Moreover, for Iran, Russia and China have transitioned from equal diplomatic partners to technological anchors. For Moscow and Beijing, Tehran’s attacks can be used to circumvent Western missile defenses and as a wider tool to deplete high-cost US interceptors while testing capabilities. Integrating systems like China’s BeiDou-3 and Russia’s S-400s enables Iran to bypass Western jamming and enhance its stealth capabilities.
Beyond the current air and sea campaign, reports suggest the Trump administration is preparing to transition toward a kinetic ground phase by leveraging regional ethnic fractures. The US CIA is reportedly coordinating with the Coalition of Political Forces of Iranian Kurdistan (a unified front of five major opposition groups) to provide military assistance, including intelligence sharing and small arms.
While the administration frames these talks as support for a popular uprising, the presence of Kurdish Peshmerga forces on standby near the border points toward a coordinated land operation into western Iran. This high-risk strategy seeks to utilize Kurdish militias as a destabilizing ground element to occupy IRGC resources while the central leadership is in disarray.
However, the likelihood that these forces will topple the regime independently remains low due to a lack of heavy armor and internal divisions. The consequences of such an operation are also significant, risking a spillover that could draw Turkey into the conflict to suppress Kurdish territorial ambitions.
This is a persistent fracture within the NATO alliance and has the potential to turn the US-Israeli operation into a messy, multi-state regional war.
This article first appeared on the Pickle Gazette and is republished with kind permission. Read the original here.