Iran’s military combines state-of-the-art drones, hackers with outdated conventional weapons

But the Islamic Republic’s offensive capabilities were built over nearly 50 years, during which time the country was either at war or faced the threat of conflict.

As an expert in military history and theory, I believe that to understand what happened next during the epic Operation Fury, there is value in grasping the development of Iran’s modern military structure, capabilities, and international activities.

iranian military technology

Before the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979, Iran’s military was mainly provided by Western powers, especially the United States.

In 1980, it participated in the Iran-Iraq War with a large amount of modern equipment at the time. These include nearly 80 F-14 fighter jets, more than 200 F-4 and F-5 aircraft and thousands of tanks.

But by the time the war ended in 1988, Iran’s military was exhausted. The government at the time had become a pariah in the world and supplies were almost impossible.

Although Iran imported some military equipment from the Soviet Union and China in 1990, its economy could not support large military expenditures.

Ironically, the arms embargo Iran faced during and after its war with Iraq left the regime dependent on its weapons stockpiles. This triggered the massive development of the domestic arms industry.

Most modern Iranian military equipment consists of reverse-engineered U.S. and Soviet equipment, much of which is obsolete. However, Iran’s missile technology has improved significantly since 1990. This is due to domestic production and imported expertise from other marginalized countries such as North Korea.

Starting in the 1990s, Iran also innovated a series of one-way attack drones, a relatively cheap method of attacking long-range targets.

modern iranian army

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Iran’s military is divided into the Regular Army (or “Artesh”) and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Artesh plays a domestic defense role similar to that of a militia, while the Revolutionary Guard is a more professional military force.

The Revolutionary Guards project regional power. For example, during the 2003 U.S.-Iraq war, it supplied improvised explosive devices to insurgents targeting U.S. forces.

The Revolutionary Guards tend to receive most of Iran’s military resources, including the best personnel and equipment. The Quds Force is the Revolutionary Guards’ irregular warfare force and has long played a role in exporting the revolutionary beliefs of Iran’s rulers.

The Quds Force provides weapons and guidance to proxies throughout the Middle East primarily by fomenting insurgencies against Sunni Arab governments.

Iran has long been a patron of the Lebanon-based Hezbollah, whose main goal is to eliminate Israel.

More recently, Iran has also given strong support to Hamas in Gaza, even though Hamas is a Sunni organization and Iran’s rulers are members of the Shia sect of Islam.

Iran has been seeking ways to exert military influence beyond its borders without risking external attacks. It employs cyber warfare, an attack method that is relatively cheap to engage in and can have a huge impact on the world stage.

Iranian hackers have attacked Western military and government networks, including the personal email of FBI Director Kash Patel. Iranian-backed hackers have also launched attacks on infrastructure and cultural institutions, including U.S. wastewater treatment plants and the power grid.

Iran pursues atomic weapons

The Iranian government has been relentlessly pursuing nuclear weapons since at least the 1980s.

The Iranian government has always insisted that its nuclear program is to provide electricity to developing countries, not weapons. But clear evidence that uranium enrichment far exceeds power generation needs has prompted Western demands for an end to Iran’s nuclear program.

In 2010, cybersecurity researcher Sergey Ulasen discovered an extremely sophisticated malware program called Stuxnet that was created to disrupt the Iranian nuclear program by disrupting the functionality of enrichment centrifuges. No country has taken responsibility for the attack, which set back Iran’s uranium enrichment efforts by years.

In 2015, after negotiations with the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and Germany, Iran agreed to halt its uranium enrichment program in exchange for lifting economic sanctions and releasing Iran’s frozen assets. The negotiations resulted in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

Although the Trump administration withdrew the United States from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in 2018, the deal continues to work and Iran appears ready to reintegrate into the global economy.

However, in 2020, the Iranians restarted their nuclear program. They have also increased production of ballistic missiles and one-way attack drones.

In June 2025, the United States and Israel launched large-scale air strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Trump claimed that the move destroyed Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Iran responded by launching a wave of ballistic missiles and drones towards Israel, most of which were intercepted before entering Israeli airspace.

Missile and Interceptor Wars

Before Operation Epic Fury, analysts estimated that Iran had 3,000 ballistic missiles and tens of thousands of unidirectional attack drones. They also concluded that Iran has significant production capacity to increase its stockpiles.

In the first six weeks of the current conflict, Iran fired at least 650 missiles at Israel and hundreds more against other targets in the region.

The United States attaches great importance to attacking missile production and storage facilities. But it is difficult to determine how many missiles and drones the Iranian military may still possess.

Iran’s production and shipping capabilities have almost certainly suffered significant losses. U.S. and Israeli aircraft hover over Iran, looking for signs of moving launchers or attempts to transport missiles to launch sites.

The rate of fire of Iranian missiles has dropped significantly since the first days of the conflict, but has never dropped to zero. This has led some analysts to suspect that Iran has stockpiled large amounts of long-range weapons, while US Defense Secretary Pete Hegers believes that Iran has lost the ability to launch large-scale attacks. SKS

SKS

This article was generated from automated news agency feeds without modifications to the text.