On March 1, as Operation Epic Fury was well underway, Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi succinctly described Iran's defense strategy in a post on X: “We've had two decades to study defeats of the U.S. 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. Decentralized Mosaic Defense enables us to decide when—and how—war will end.” Two key pillars of Iran's strategy are put forth here: first, observing and adapting to U.S. military weaknesses, and second, complete decentralization of its command and control to ensure resilience and continuity in the event of decapitation strikes.
The decentralized defense strategy referred to here by Araghchi, dubbed ‘mosaic defense,’ seeks to neutralize the impact of U.S. 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 U.S., Israeli, and allied defensive resources. Sometimes referred to as ‘salami slicing’ tactics, this approach extends to Iran's goal to bleed the U.S. 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.
This three-pronged defense doctrine evolved further in 2005, when the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), under the supervision of General Mohammad Jafari, announced its model of ‘mosaic defense’ – essentially a decentralized command-and-control system. In an analysis by Dr. Michael Connall, an Iranian military culture expert, 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 Connall, this doctrine was derived from careful observations of the limits of U.S. military operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Balkans. In these conflicts, decapitation strikes on highly-centralized regimes often happened rapidly and tilted the battlefield in Washington's favor 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 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’ decentralization - have featured prominently in Iran's strategy to survive the U.S.-Israeli campaign.
The ‘mosaic defense’ approach was apparent from the first retaliatory attacks by Tehran in the aftermath of Operation Epic Fury. In a statement by Araghchi, strikes against Oman were attributed to a mistake by autonomous units who could not be directly reached, hinting at the continued structure of semi-autonomous units operating with limited communication from the top down. 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 the U.S. or Israel may seek to conduct in the future if continued airstrikes do not yield the desired results. So far, decentralization seems to have worked: strikes, while not at the same tempo as the beginning of the war, continue as Israel and the U.S. take out leaders and clerics.