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The war which the United States-Israel attack on Iran triggered on February 28 is still on, but Iran has definitely won it by neither imploding nor surrendering and still battling on effectively. This is mainly because Iran had learned a vital lesson regarding national security soon after its April 1979 theocratic revolution.

Most of its high value military assets – the F14 Tomcats, M60 tanks and AH-1 Cobra helicopters which its previous pro-US regime had acquired – were destroyed in Iraq’s pre-emptive strike in September 1980 when the “eight-year war” between them commenced. Those military assets which survived could not be used for much longer because US sanctions made spare parts unavailable. Iran, therefore, decided to commence building its military assets domestically.

Iran’s first drone, Mohajer-1, debuted in 1985. In the next ten years, it manufactured a dozen more unmanned aerial vehicles. Some of their components were initially sourced from Germany’s Siemens Corporation. In 1993, it began producing its Karrar tank, based on the Soviet T-72 design. In the early 2010s, it began producing an upgraded version with some features of the British Challenger 2 and Soviet T-90MS tanks.

In the early 2000s, Iran began producing ballistic missiles with North Korean assistance. The approximate cost of each was only $250,000, a fifth of that of US Patriot and Arrow missiles. From 2015 onwards, Iran began producing supersonic missiles, some of which had Mach 12-14 capability.

In the 2020s, it transited from liquid-fuelled to solid-propellant........

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