Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi described Iran's defense strategy in a post on the social media platform X: “We've had two decades to study defeats of the US military to our immediate east and west. We've incorporated lessons accordingly. Bombings in our capital have no impact on our ability to conduct war. The Decentralised Mosaic Defense enables us to decide when — and how — the war will end.” Two key pillars of Iran’s strategy are put forth here: first, observing and adapting to US military weaknesses, and second, the complete decentralisation of its command and control to ensure resilience and continuity in the event of decapitation strikes.
Mosaic Defense model
The Decentralised Defense strategy referred to here by Araghchi, dubbed ‘Mosaic Defense’, seeks to neutralise the impact of US or Israeli strikes that target its leadership or command-and-control and ensure continuity in the face of any decapitation strike. Araghchi’s statement also hints at its reliance on attrition. This aligns with Tehran’s broader strategy of asymmetric escalation that has been noted since the start of Tehran’s retaliatory strikes, entirely reliant on exhausting US, Israeli, and allied defensive resources. Sometimes referred to as ‘salami slicing’ tactics, this approach extends to Iran’s goal to bleed the US and Israel economically, in an effort to bring the war home to their respective populations and ensure that the war remains unpopular domestically for Tehran’s foes.
Iran’s Defense doctrine playing out in real-time since the start of Operation Epic Fury has been decades in the making and was cemented by the 1980-1988 Iran–Iraq War as well as the Israeli invasion and the occupation of Lebanon during the Civil War, both of which were formidable in shaping how Iran and its primary proxy group, the Lebanese Hezbollah, view the current fight. According to the former US State Department Deputy Special Representative for Iran, Matthew McInnis, these two experiences entrenched a strategy based on proxy and asymmetric warfare, as well as ballistic missiles, to confront adversaries with superior technological capabilities and manpower. The trauma of the Iran-Iraq war, which featured substantive missile use by Iraq on Iranian cities, has anchored ballistic missiles as a key component of Iranian warfare. Its reliance on proxies, meanwhile, was a direct result of the developments of the 1980s, in which Iran sought to project power and safeguard the Revolution by exporting it across the region in the form of proxy groups like the Hezbollah.
This three-pronged Defense doctrine evolved further in 2005, when the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), under the supervision of General Mohammad Ali Jafari, announced its model of ‘Mosaic Defense’ – essentially a Decentralised command-and-control system. In an analysis by an Iranian military culture expert, Dr. Michael Connall, this strategy led directly to the restructuring of the IRGC command-and-control architecture into a system of 31 separate commands, which could launch an insurgency in the case of an invasion and which would make any attempt at degrading Iran’s Defense exceedingly difficult. According to Dr. Connall, this doctrine was derived from careful observations of the limits of US military operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Balkans. In these conflicts, decapitation strikes on highly-centralised regimes often happened rapidly and tilted the battlefield in Washington’s favour within weeks.
The strategy of ‘Mosaic Defense’ allows region-bound semi-autonomous IRGC units to call upon Basji forces during times of crisis, thereby enabling a multi-level defense strategy that is highly efficient at responding to emerging threats and is largely unfazed by decapitation strikes. Every unit effectively has a full ‘military’ to its disposal, with its own intelligence capabilities, weapons stockpile, and command-and-control. All four pillars of Iran’s Defense doctrine – asymmetry, proxies, missiles, and ‘Mosaic’ decentralisation - have featured prominently in Iran’s strategy to survive the US-Israeli campaign.
Araghchi stated, “Our military units are now, in fact, independent and somewhat isolated, and they are acting based on general instructions given to them in advance.” This likely complicates any ground invasion or ground combat options that the US or Israel may seek to conduct in the future if continued airstrikes do not yield the desired results. So far, decentralisation seems to have worked: strikes, while not at the same tempo as the beginning of the war, continue as Israel and the US take out leaders and clerics.
Much like its reliance on the ‘Mosaic Defense’ system, Iran’s missile pillar has become central in the war of attrition that it is waging against the US and Israel. After the 12-Day war, Iran’s missile capability was significantly degraded due to targeted Israeli strikes. Since June of last year (2025), it has ramped up its production and replenished much of its stock. According to the Israeli Defense Forces, Iran possessed roughly 2,500 missiles at the start of Operation Epic Fury. While the US Defense Secretary Peter Brian Hegseth has explicitly stated that operations will now focus on not just degrading existing stockpiles but also on wiping out production facilities, and US Central Command Commander, Admiral Charles Bradford Cooper the II noted a decline in the attack frequency, Iran continues to use its missiles to inflict outsize costs on the US, both directly and through the cascading economic effects of the war.
Closely related to its missile program is its asymmetric warfare toolkit, used so far in its retaliatory strikes. Tehran, cognisant of its inability to win a conventional war against the US, relies on irregular tactics to drag out the war, primarily through economic coercion and cost asymmetry. A Shahed drone, which costs roughly US Dollars ($) 20,000 to $ 50,000 per unit to produce, is significantly cheaper than the interceptor systems that the US and its allies rely on in the region. Patriot missile interceptors cost roughly $ four million per shot. Leveraging cost asymmetry is a well-established strategy that the Iran-backed proxy Yemen has perfected during the Red Sea Crisis, where the US spent billions intercepting relatively cheap missiles that disrupted global trade for months.
Iran has long used its proxies as a method of warfare. It's so-called “Axis of Resistance” consisting of Hezbollah, the Houthis, Hamas, and other Palestinian groups, as well as Iraqi militant groups, allowed it to efficiently and effectively use its strategy of asymmetric warfare. While much of the Axis was severely weakened in the months and years following the 7 October 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel, Hezbollah has once again emerged in the present conflict, likely looking to open up a second front for Israel in Lebanon to assist Iran in stretching Israel’s resources. On 3 March 2026, the Israeli military ordered civilians in southern Lebanon to evacuate to the north of the Litani River, signaling that they are preparing for a ground invasion — effectively stretching Israeli resources beyond just combating Iranian missiles firing down in major cities in Israel. On 12 March, Reuters reported that Hezbollah’s elite fighting group, the Radwan force, deployed to the Lebanese-Israeli border to confront and block advances by Israeli tanks.
At the same time, Iran also has a number of proxies, or “sleeper cells” in the US and across the world. According to the New York Times, some US officials have reported hearing “heightened chatter” around the planning and coordination of such attacks, although they have not identified any plots.
The “Fourth Successor” leadership model
Meanwhile, Iran has also developed a layered leadership system designed to prevent a power vacuum in wartime.
The concept, sometimes referred to as the “Fourth Successor”, ensures that multiple levels of leadership are ready to assume authority if senior figures are killed in a conflict.
Iranian planners have long expected that in a war with powerful adversaries like the US or Israel, top leaders could be targeted. This could include the Supreme Leader and the first few figures in the succession line.
To prevent disruption, the State maintained a deep hierarchy of leadership so that power can pass down several levels without interrupting governance or military command.
Under Iran’s political system, the Assembly of Experts is responsible for selecting the Supreme Leader. If the sitting Leader dies or becomes incapacitated, an interim Leadership Council can temporarily perform the responsibilities of the office while a permanent successor is chosen.
A version of this arrangement was briefly seen after the killing of Ayatollah Ali Hosseini Khamenei. During that period, a three-member Council that included Masoud Pezeshkian and other senior officials handled the duties of the leadership until a new Supreme Leader was appointed.
The “Fourth Successor” idea builds on this mechanism. It ensures that additional figures are prepared to assume authority if the Supreme Leader and the immediate replacements are eliminated.
This layered system is meant to guarantee that the State, especially its security and military apparatus, continues to function regardless of leadership losses.
Overall, the current confidence of the Iranian leadership could be attributed to the success of its ‘Mosaic Defence’ and ‘Fourth Successor’ leadership models, about which its adversaries had no operational idea.
The writer is an international security analyst and anthropologist
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The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect those of this publication