Tehran has been counterfeiting foreign weapons for decades and is said to be receiving a bonanza from Ukraine
In December 2011, a US RQ-170 Sentinel drone went missing in airspace close to the Iran-Afghanistan border.
The Sentinel resurfaced on Iranian TV days later, where it was paraded as a “very valuable” acquisition. Six years later, an Iranian-made copy of the drone crossed from Syria into Israel, sparking a deadly exchange of fire.
The case was not a one-off. Iran has come to specialise in reverse engineering and boasts a long record of producing cruise missiles, anti-tank weapons, and fighter jet components based on designs from the US, Russia and China.
Iran’s engineers now enjoy far greater opportunities to test their skills than a solitary captured drone, according to US officials, who believe that Russia is regularly sending captured Western weapons from the battlefields of Ukraine to their increasingly close ally.
“The Iranians are masters of reverse engineering,” says Michael Knights, a scholar of the Iranian military at US think-tank the Washington Institute. “They have been doing it for such a long time and they are very good at it.”
Dr Knights has little doubt that Tehran’s engineers are busy with the spoils of war from Ukraine. “Every time they come into contact with foreign military technology, they reverse engineer it. This is not something they occasionally do. It’s something they always do.”
The specialism is partly a product of historic circumstances. Before the fall of the Shah and the Islamic revolution of 1979, Iran was a close ally of the US and a leading importer of its state-of-the-art hardware. Tehran bought up F-4 Phantom fighter jets in the 1960s, and then became the only foreign owner of the F-14 Tomcat.
But after the regime of Ayatollah Khomeini took power, Iran was cut off from its chief military supplier and relations with the US have remained hostile ever since. Sitting on a stockpile of ageing American weapons, but unable to replace or repair them with new parts, Iran set about building its own versions.
The results shocked the world during the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, says Steven Ward, a former CIA analyst and author of Immortal, a history of the Iranian military.
“Most observers thought the still state-of-the-art Tomcats would quickly become inoperable without US support,” he said. “Instead, Iran kept some flying and the Iraqi air force remained wary of coming into contact with the more capable Iranian pilots.”
Scarcely plausibly, Iran is still operating a fleet of F-14s, having continuously replaced worn-out parts with home-made products. Analysts believe that the jets in service have been almost completely rebuilt with few of their original parts remaining.
Tehran has shown a preference for US gear over the years, often looking to its imported stockpile for inspiration. From the US-made BGM-71 TOW anti-tank missile came the Toophan replica, which has become a staple of Iran’s armed forces and a profitable export model.
The BGM-71 gave up another deadly gift that displayed the creativity of Iranian engineers, says Dr Knights. The warhead of the missile was used as a model for a mine that was littered across the roadsides of Iraq during the US invasion, and killed more than 100 US soldiers.
Made in #Iran:
Toophan ATGM (reverse-engineered American TOW) used by #Iraq's Hashd during Samarra/Tharthar op. pic.twitter.com/XhBjEIxtoH
— H. Sumeri (@IraqiSecurity) April 4, 2016The reverse engineering programme benefits from a military industrial complex that is only behind Turkey and Israel in the wider region, and has a “symbiotic relationship” with the nation’s top universities, says Dr Ahmed Hashim, professor of war studies at Deakin University, Australia.
“Iran has built a big scientific cadre, and it produces more scientific output than the entire Arab world combined,” he said, noting this has taken them to the threshold of nuclear weapons.
There are limitations to Iran’s programme. Tehran has struggled to reverse engineer a jet engine, which is why it is seeking to import Russian jets.
Iran might struggle to produce sophistication to match the most advanced Western weaponry, says Dr Knights, but in many cases it doesnt need to.
“A lot of Western military equipment, like a Tomahawk cruise missile, is very over-engineered,” he says, noting that Iran has come to specialise in pared-back, lower cost imitations that perform a similar function.
Concern over Iran’s ability to replicate Western innovation is likely a constraint on Western aid, according to Dr Kenneth Katzman, a former CIA agent and now an Iran specialist at the Soufan Center think-tank.
“That is one reason why the US has held back some of the systems from Ukraine, because there is a risk of capture, reverse engineering, and learning about US capabilities,” he says.
Dr Katzman highlights jet fighters and long-range missiles among the sensitive areas where the US has so far rejected Ukrainian pleas.
“Combat aircraft are very complex so that would certainly be a concern, and the ATACMS missiles from long range artillery… the precision of US weaponry is very good and the US doesn’t want to lose its advantage by having things captured.”
The US has also withheld advanced drones such as Reapers and Predators, he notes – although a Reaper was brought down by a Russian jet over the Black Sea last month.
Dr Knights believes advanced communications technology and anti-tank weapons are likely to be among Iran’s priorities.
“Losing Javelins would probably be the scariest thing,” he says. Iran could also seek Himars rockets and other long-range missiles, he adds, but Russia would need a major offensive victory to capture Western air defences stationed in the rear.
The influx of Western tanks is less likely to be of interest to Iran, Dr Knights adds, as Iran has already captured an M1A1 Abrams tank – widely seen as the world’s most advanced model – and will have “taken it apart down to molecular level.”
The burgeoning partnership between Russia and Iran is likely to be an increasing headache for the West as the states pool resources and share knowledge, with support from an extended network including North Korea and China.
Analysts believe the partnership between Russian and Iran is more equal now in Moscow’s hour of need, and Iran is likely to be handsomely compensated with military support for its assistance in Ukraine, including swarms of suicide drones.
Iran’s reverse engineering expertise was forged and finessed by the regular conflicts it has been involved in, suggests Dr Katzman.
The Islamic Republic may not be directly involved in the Ukraine war. But it is well placed to benefit.