SABRE
Registered Member
That's a million dollar question with an even expensive answer.If you had a airforce you could shoot them down. Right️
Shah of Iran envisaged Iranian air force as one of the best in the world and he did achieve that objective. The man (and I think his eldest son also) were trained fighter pilots, or at least trained on fighter jets, so he was hands on with things. F-14, F-5, and F-4 was a formidable lineup in the late 1970s and superior even to the Israeli air force. Undoubtedly the Iranian air force outperformed the Iraqis during the war between the two countries. The Shah may have been a political stooge for the West - although he seemed to have transcended that - but he had right ideas when it came to empowering Iran militarily. I also suspect Iran would have been a nuclear power by the late 1980s, around the same time as Pakistan, had he stuck around.
Of course, Khomeini didn't have the opportunity to keep Iranian air force updated. But in the past 10-20 years, Iran had all the opportunity to improve its air force with the Russian and/or Chinese assistance. Whatever these two countries would have provided would have been exponentially more advanced than what Iranian air force has right now. Some sort of ToT could have been discussed. But Iran just brushed the opportunities under the carpet and kept upgrading, redesigning, reverse engineering the F-5, the aircraft South Korea was once selling for $1. This is criminal neglect if you ask me.
IMO, ballistic missiles are good for offensive strikes but they cannot defend your nation from adversary's aggression. Medium and long-range ballistic missiles are also not a cost effective weapons if you carrying out conventional strikes with them. They work best with nukes to provide deterrence. But even the nuclear deterrence needs to be supported by strong conventional force.
As soon as this is over, Iran needs to go shopping.
