Will Iran's Military Buildup Bankrupt The Country?

Reuters

Michael Peck, National Interest: Will Iran Become the Next Soviet Union (As In Bankrupted by Massive Military Spending)?

While Iran’s rulers have no aspirations to be a superpower, they do seem to covet being a regional hegemon as the Persian Empire was. So far, Iran has waged war on the cheap by using proxies rather than massive troop commitments as the U.S. did in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. But as Hezbollah has discovered when its Iranian subsidies were slashed, even war on the cheap can be expensive.

Iran’s military is switching from unconventional warfare to more conventional weapons.

That means more ballistic missiles to hit its enemies, as well as mines and other naval weapons to close the Persian Gulf to oil tankers, according to a new report on Iranian military power by the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon’s pet spy service.

But the question is whether Tehran can afford to develop these capabilities.

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WNU Editor: Arms buildups are never cheap. Iran is going to learn that lesson very quickly.

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