JOURNAL OF DEFENSE POLICY
Year:2018 | Volume:26 | Issue:104|Papers Count:6

Defense diplomacy is a means by which states attempt to exploit their own capabilities and privileges in defense field in order to make other countries dependent on themselves, enhance mutual security dependence, win trust, prevent the occurance of conflicts, and establish regional security frameworks and the like. One of the characteristics of defense diplomacy under the present circumstances is the fact that it is considered as a means of giving identity and legitimacy in countries' defense and strategic policies. Iran-Arabia relations are transitioning from rivalry towards direct confrontation in reent years. Saudi Arabia's proxy wars with Iran in the West-Asia region especially in Iraq and Syria, as well as the former's all-out efforts to prevent the Shiite power in Yemen and Bahrain from gaining momentum has caused the Saudis to become engaged in attritional wars, one of the effects of which is the deteriorated relations between Saudi Arabia and the Islamic Republic of Iran. One fundamental requirement in any project on foresight is the identifying of key drivers. With this in mind, this article has been produced with the aim of identifying the key drivers in IRI's defense diplomacy with Saudi Arabia in the West Asia region by exploiting a diverse array of futurology methods including literature review, expert panel, and cross-matrix analysis using MicMac software. In so doing, the expertise of practitioners in defense field and foreign policy were used, along with key drivers that have been presented in the conclusion.

Despite the new versions of political Islam appearing in the West Asia, three discourse patterns of political Islam can at least be identified, namely: the pattern of Shiite political Islam (revolutionary and transformational) with the Islamic Republic of Iran at the centre; the pattern of Salafi-Wahhabi political Islam (traditional conservative) led by Saudi Arabia; and the pattern of Ekhwani political Islam (civil pragmatist) in Egypt and Turkey. Because of the remarkable and efficient capabilities and characteristics shown by the mentioned-above countries in the West Asia, the regional security order will keep being influenced by the rivalry in these discourse identities. Based on the hypothesis in this article, due to the fundamental conflict that exists in norms, images, beliefs as well as the advent of the competitive and hegemonical nature of the discourses in the West Asia region, it faces a serious challenge to establish an optimal security order in the region. In this research, the idea of evolving the identity of a regional discourse based on the identity commonalities contained in the Islamic civilization has been offered as the nodal point of that discourse in order to establish a regional security order.

Turkey is one of the main actors that is influential in the Syrian crisis. From the very time when the Syrian crisis started, Turkey made every effort to topple the Damascus regime by creating a fundamental change in its policies towards Syria, providing total support for the terrorist groups, and leaving its doors opened to the Takfiris in order to restore the Neo-Ottomanist Empire. However, the developments in Syria, a concern on the part of the Turkish officials that insecurities in Syria may spill over Turkey's borders, as well as the potential formation of a government model similar to Iraq's in Syria all caused Ankara to turn away from its policies towards the Syrian developments and adopt, instead, the policy of proximity to, and approaching Iran and Russia only to meet its regional objectives and interests. The main question in this research is: What are the reasons of rotation in Turkey's foreign policy towards the Syrian crisis (i. e. war to diplomacy) and favouring a diplomatic settlement of the crisis? The hypothesis in this article is that failures in the battlefield, the division in Turkey's camp between its regional and transregional allies accompanied by the upper hand that the opposition gained in action, have been among the main reasons for Turkey's rotation in its foregn policy. Also, the method of quality analysis has been used to collect data.

Any community's security environment serves as a function of the interaction and conflict between the invariables of both internal and external environment. Iran’ s security environment, thus, is vulnerable and prone to crisis, because of its ideological-revolutionary nature and in terms of historical, cultural and ethnic characteristics due to its geopolitical and geostrategic location. So, this research intends to theoretically address the concept of ‘ Shi'ite critical geopolitics’ and the ‘ discourse based on resistance’ by criticizing traditional geopolitical approaches. This article, which has been conducted in the form of an analytical model (hypothetico-deductive), uses descriptive research method. Data has ben collected by using library method. The findings in this research indicate that, due to geopolitical weaknesses of Shiites in other countries of the region, the Islamic Republic of Iran requires a convergence at the heart of which lie other commonalities including cultural, historical, geographical and economicl considerations so that it could be able to contribute to improve the Shiites’ status in the countries of the region by overcoming those weaknesses in the long term together in the light of other components only to capitalize on their improved geopolitical status in the region in the future.

Operations research has long been concerned with military issues, where its start and growth has been linked with such issues. Operations research methods and techniques have abundant capabilities for solving military problems. The present research is fundamental in terms of orientation, interpretative in terms of philosophy, and descriptive in terms of target. The present research is aimed at conducting an argumentative and descriptive evaluation of capabilities for operations research methods for studying military issues. Having this in mind, military issues were initially classified using Jackson's common typology and a few basic dimensions. There are also other typologies like Mingers' and Kassires' typologies in the related literature that are mostly methodological. In each field, an example of military issues has been explained for further transparency. Then, convenient methods were established for each problem by using the methodological classifications provided by the researchers in this article, interviewing the internal and external elites, and reviewing the case examples and literature. Using Jackson's typology, the problems are divided into six categories, namely normative-operational, pluralist-operational, pragmatic-operational, normative-social, and pragmatic-social. In this research, unlike the previous researches that are of a methodological or problem nature, both aspects have been taken into regard, and capabilities of operations research techniques have been evaluated in a reasoning way for each field. Similarly, a directive and framework was presented for mixed methodology to encounter such problems in terms of the type of methods and the paradigmatic nature.

This research has been conducted with analytical-descriptive method by using content analysis. In answering the question "How are the cognitive statements made in the Supreme Leader's defense discourse? ", it has been replied that various cognitive metaphors are expected to have been used in the Supreme Leaders statements on defense. Similarly, considering the value discourse on the part of the Islamic Republic of Iran's regime, structural and existentialism metaphors have been predominantly in the Supreme Leader's defense discourse. The Supreme Leader's use of cognitive metaphors can be said to have been made with emphasis on specific strains of meaning. The concepts related to indigenous culture and traditions aligned with the discourse on Islamic defense system constitute the basis of these metaphors. In this research, different kinds of Islamic concepts and metaphorical compounds are enumerated in the statements made by the Supreme Leader, which are increasingly important in developing defense strategies.