Fratricidal Tendancies - The IRGC (Sepah) & Artesh

 

Fratricidal Tendencies - The IRGC (Sepah) & Artesh

 

Each branch of a country’s armed forces holds the other branches in very low regard. Armies think that sailors are sodomites and aviators are restaurant critics. Navies think soldiers and airmen are cavemen and dilettantes respectively. Air forces – when not thinking about which restaurant they’re going to visit next – are too comfortable to pay the others much attention.

Inter-service enmity is common worldwide. But in Iran, this enmity takes a particularly vicious form. And there’s a single schism at its heart: the divide between the regular armed forces (Artesh/ارتش) and the IRGC (Sepah/سپاه).

These two entities are essentially competing military services. Each has ground forces; air forces; and naval forces. They have separate command structures. They even have entire industrial and research complexes. 

This apparent duplication is a feature, not a bug, of the Iranian system. The IRGC forces were formed after 1979 out of a fear that Iran’s regular armed forces retained sympathies for the overthrown monarchy, and thus would present an enduring threat to the Islamic Revolution. The Sepah was built out of the Artesh as an intended counterbalance, but as recent history has shown the IRGC has taken this 'balancing out' to the extreme as they now simply oppress and kill their own countrymen and women...Javid namān! It should be noted that at the Artesh at the core were to uphold the duty of "jan fadeye vatan" or "janam fadā-ye mardom", which effectively translates to the protectors of the people - the people being the substance of any country, for what is a country without its people? 

The partition is a nice idea in theory. But in practice – after 45 years of development and occasional attempted improvements – the result is a system which is groaning with structural inefficiencies: “overlapping command hierarchies, redundant logistics networks, and parallel military systems”. And the Sepah now pulls in more than double the budget of the Artesh, despite having half the personnel. So much for counterbalance.

Structural inefficiency is bad enough. But what’s worse is the absolute poison that characterises the relationship between the Artesh and Sepah. On one level, this venom is easy to understand: anyone who’s worked a job of any kind will know that there’s nothing quite guaranteed to make you resent a colleague like them being given exactly your responsibilities without a clear division of labour.

On another level, the bad relationship is simply tribal, irrational and stupid.

And it’s these aspects that we’re seeing play out in the current conflict. Rather than being unified by the common adversary that now actually exists, the Sepah and Artesh are doubling down on their mutual hatred.

The communications blackout in Iran makes it hard for outsiders to see the signs of this, but the limited reports that exist are telling. Like these reports that the IRGC has refused to transport wounded Artesh soldiers, and denied Artesh requests for blood supplies and ambulances, despite having capacity. And complaints on Telegram that repairs to disrupted banking systems that distribute salaries and pension payments to Artesh members and veterans are being slow-rolled in favour of the IRGC.

And that’s just the small stuff. Imagine what’s not yet been reported – the Sepah and Artesh’s complete inability to de-conflict targets; the friendly fire incidents; the profound absence of interoperability. Iran has talked a big game over the past couple of decades about its readiness for modern warfare, but now that modern warfare has arrived, the Artesh and Sepah are proving themselves incapable of dealing with it.

Considering this level of discord and what it would take to fix, it’s probably better to stand down whilst there is still opportunity to do so.

*Podcast here*