Journal of Defense Policy
Year:2020 | Volume:28 | Issue:110|Papers Count:6

The absence of a collective security regime in the West of Asia is a fundamental issue for the states of the Region. The most important questions posed in this regard are: Why is there no collective security regime in the region? Why have the defense-related policies limited the establishment of a potential collective security regime? What courses of actions are there for exiting this condition? The main idea in this writing is that the relation between defence policy and collective security regime is a reciprocal relation, and that a defence policy is designed to respond to regional security environment and it's effect on their security environment is capable of leading to structures from a secure regional community through collective security regime, to sustainable balance, fragile balance or regional crisis. As for the Western Asia, the critical, polarized regional environment interacting with the internal environments affected by the contradictory views on the part of the elites, the absence of collaborative priorities and offensive incentives have driven the circumstances towards a critical fragile balance, putting a major hurdle in the way of establishing a collective security regime. To address this adea, the article tries to present the theoretical foundations, and to address the regional environment in the Western Asia, the defence policies of important states in this environment, and the structure of the regional regime and its consequences.

The development of political, economic, cultural etc relations with the countries of Latin America during the two recent decades has been among the important approaches in the foreign policy of the Islamic republic of Iran. It follows that what matters is the explanation and rationalization of the behavioral pattern of the Islamic Republic of Iran in dealing with the countries of Latin America in accordance with national interests and in line with the structural developments of the international order. Accordingly, The present research aims to explain the political foundations, and delineate the existing situation, as well as the future capacities and challenges the Islamic Republic of Iran will face in its policy of establishing alliances with Latin America region. So, this research, which employs an analytical-descriptive method by gathering library data, tries to answer this question: What characterizes the policy of alliance in the Islamic Republic of Iran’ s approach to Latin America region? To answer this question, while raising a series of subquestions and using theoretical basics based on strategic depth and soft balance, this main hypothesis was raised: the foreign policy of the Islamic Republic of Iran towards Latin America is explained based on the policy of alliance with simultaneous emphasis on the value-based identity and on the requirements for enhancing the geopolitical status for countering the hegemonic regime. This policy of alliance includes norm orientedness, opportunism, developing the strategic depth, and profit-orientedness By the same token, Iran should adopt the policy of alliance at different political, cultural, economic and. . . levels by considering the capacities, Latin America and the existing challenges.

Technological learning constitutes a main pivot in the technological enabling in industries and sectors of different countries like defense sector. As a part of this, maritime industries are one the most important sectors in the defense where strengthening and equipping them leads to enhancing the level of defense authority of the country. The present article seeks to conduct a comparative study of the progress trend of the shipbuilding industries of Japan, South Korea and China as pioneer countries, and those of Turkey and Brazil as developing countries, compare the findings with the industry under study inside the country, and finally provide a model of technological learning in the maritime industries of the defense sector. The approach in the present research is qualitative using case study method as the research strategy. The data were collected through conducting 13 deep and semi-structured interviews with specialists of maritime industries in defence. The findings of the research indicate that the maritime industries of the defence sector have the needed capability to develop and design the required equipments in a completely indigenous manner. On the other hand, considering the conditions that govern the country and the defence industries, learning is mostly informal, and the maritime industries will have the potentiality to move along the borders of science in case an infrastructure is developed for formal learning. Anyway, it can be said that despite remarkable advancements in recent years, it is necessary to have an integrated, codified and updated plan in line with the increasing development of the maritime industries of the defence sector.

The present research addresses the U. S. military presence in Europe and the geopolitical, geo-economical and strategic reasons for the displacement of American bases that shifted the balance from the West to the East of Europe. The origin of the U. S. military presence and the establishment of the U. S. military bases in Europe dates back to the First World War, and on a wider level, to the Second World War. The requirements of the Cold War allowed America to perpetuate its military bases in this continent aimed at, and under the pretext of, countering communism and the East Block, and preventing its influence in the countries of the West Europe. Germany, Italia, England, Spanish, Greece and Portugal are traditionally countries in which the United States has more military bases than anywhere else in Europe. Despite this, since the beginning of 21th Century, due to economic, political, security-military, strategic and geopolitical reasons, efforts have been started to shut a few of the bases down and move them to Eastern Europe and Southeast Europe. The hypothesis in this article is that the departure of the American bases to Eastern Europe can be addressed under three kinds of logic, namely economic, strategic and geopolitical. The high costs related to maintaining troops in the Western Europe, suitable spaces in the Eastern Europe for extensive military maneuvers, the strictness displayed by most environmental institutions and public opinion in the Western European countries, military presence by nascent democracies of Eastern Europe and being adjacent to operational areas in the Caucasus and Western Asia are the most important reasons of the departure of the U. S. military bases from the West to Eastern Europe.

Since Donald Trump came to power, the United States endeavored in different ways to bring the Islamic Republic of Iran back to the negotiation table for nuclear, missile and regional issues. These options started with threatening and encouraging, and led finally to the assassination of Martyre Ghasem Soleimani-which was kind of an announcement of war. The United states’ hostile actions after the assassination of Martyre Ghasem Soleimani continued, this time taking on the shape of psychological warfare. The main question of the present research is: What methods and tactics did Trump use in his psychological warfare against the Islamic Republic of Iran? To answer the above question, this research used two methods, namely qualitative content analysis and analytical-descriptive method. It follows that the methods of psychological warfare were identified. Then, the examples were adapted and compared with the models by using analogical strategy. The findings of the research showed that the most important tactics of psychological warfare were as follows: making enemies, labeling, daemonizing, dividing, projection, crafting big lies, exaggeration, foreshortening, humiliating and weakening, distributing information in an eyedropper form, news selection, mythologizing, and pretending integration. It appears that the United States’ failure to achieve the entire objectives in assassinating Gen. Soleimani accounts for the reason why Trump has drawn on this kind of psychological warfare.

Review: War Whether: Preventive, Preventive, Forced, Traditional, Modern Electric, Complete Erosion, Limited, Regular or Irregular, Symmetric or Asymmetric (Heterogeneous or Uneven). From the perspective of different schools and political systems of countries and based on the values that govern those systems, they are shaped by different factors. Given the different view of Islam as the Divine Khatam of the Divine due to the causes of this phenomenon (war), the purpose of this study is to investigate the causes of war from the point of view of values and teachings of Islam. And to answer this basic question, what are the factors that influence the formation of war from the perspective of value principles and teachings? Sixteen factors have been identified that explicitly analyze the causes of war from the perspective of this school. This article is the result of a research project. In terms of purpose, it is an applied research; in terms of level of analysis, it is of a descriptive-inferential nature and in terms of approach and classification the method relies on the library method. The sixteen factors outlined form the full spectrum of sustainable security called the five capacities for the Islamic system, which is addressed in the conclusions.