Assessing Iraq's Rising Air Defense Capabilities: A Lucrative Defense Market or a Military Caveat?

While the Turkish strategic community is swamped with work on the Syrian civil war, and the world concentrates on the prospects of a nuclear deal with Iran, an important trend continues to carry on regarding Iraqi military modernization. Clearly, for some time, Baghdad has been pursuing a well-balanced defense procurement plan to foster its air defense capabilities, which means, in practical terms, its control over the Iraqi airspace.
 
Growing Iraqi defense economics
 
Following the US-led military intervention in 2003, which ended Saddam Hussein's notorious dictatorship, Iraqi forces have been evolving into an internal security body. Notably,  the police and related branches currently enjoy much more manpower when compared to the Iraqi Army.
 
This fact led to a flawed assumption that overlooked the growing defense economics of the nation in its rebuilding process. The International Institute for Strategic Studies' (IISS) flagship Military Balance 2013 survey suggests that as of 2011, Iraq allocated some $14.7 billion to security, which was tantamount to 15 percent of its budget.
 
Moreover, efforts at improving Baghdad's control over Iraqi airspace calls attention to an important military trend. For instance, Baghdad ordered two packages of 12 F-16 C/D in 2011 and 2012, respectively. At the time of writing, Baghdad has still not received its fighter jets. However, in this regard, the Maliki administration's push for improving air defense capabilities is also worthy of notice.
 
Iraqi air defense procurements: Combining US and Russian systems
 
In October, Iraqi officials reported that they started receiving arms from Russia under a sensational $4.3 billion deal that was abruptly halted due to corruption allegations in the past. The procurement deal includes some 42 Pantsir-S1 surface-to-air missile (SAM) systems along with Mi-28 attack helicopters.
 
Furthermore, Baghdad is pursuing a careful roadmap for balancing Washington and Moscow in its military modernization plans. In that sense, Iraq is also engaged with the American Hawk and Avenger systems. While we see no tangible deal with respect to long-range/high-altitude air and missile defense plans like Turkey's T-Loramids project, the recent lucrative interest in high-end shorter range systems could be seen as a harbinger of a more ambitious vision for Iraq's military modernization.
 
Military technical assessment of the Iraqi procurement efforts
 
The MIM-23 Hawk medium-range defense system has its roots back in the 1960s when its first basic models (MIM-23A) entered the US inventory. In military theory, battle-tested weapon systems have a clear advantage over non-battle-tested systems, even against state-of-the-art arms technology.
 
Right at this point, the main advantage of the MIM-23 Hawk system is its combat record. Notably, Raytheon proudly introduces the system by emphasizing some 40 successful interceptions up until now, which made the Hawk line a proper air defense solution for 18 nations. In fact, it was the Iranians and the Israelis who first tested the system under real battle conditions. Iran used the system in the 1970s and 1980s against Iraqi aircrafts, and the Israelis first used the Hawk line in 1967 and then in 1973, the Six-Day War and the Yom Kippur War, respectively.
 
Since then, the air defense system has evolved due to the lessons learned from a long list of combat experience. Raytheon, the reputable corporation that has developed the Hawk system, reports that the latest Hawk XXI "can acquire targets beyond some 100 kilometers and engage targets in excess of 35 kilometers in range and 10 kilometers in altitude.”
 
Another US system in the Iraqis' focus, the Avenger AN/TWQ-1, is a highly mobile, low-altitude surface-to-air missile (SAM) asset. Briefly, the Avenger consists of four FIM-92C Stinger missiles on two canisters, along with a machine gun that is mounted on a 4X4 High-Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle, commonly known as the HMMWV. The Avenger's superiority lies with its impressive mobility. Jane's Defence reports some 105 kilometers per hour for the maximum speed of the HMMWV with mounted Stingers loaded. The system is self-propelled on a wheeled chassis, which makes it a swift, unpredictable and a pretty time-sensitive target when confronting suppression of enemy air defenses (SEAD) operations.
 
Therefore, Avengers could mostly be targeted by reactive SEAD missions rather than preplanned operations. The Avenger system is designed to operate in low altitudes/short ranges. Clearly, the system is reported to be effective against targets up to 3.8 kilometers in altitude and 4.5 kilometers in range. However, the system would not be enough for medium to high altitude/long-range defense, although an adequate number of the Avenger fleet can deny lower altitudes, especially against rotary-winged assets, such as attack helicopters, as well as air assault campaigns.
 
In addition, when deployed close to airfields, Avengers could threaten fixed-wing aircraft during landing and take-off. Last but not least, such systems can provide a limited air defense umbrella when attached to other land force assets such as mechanized, armor and infantry units.
 
Along with the American systems that the Iraqis are after, Baghdad's procurement preferences from Moscow indicate a notorious combat record against Turkey. Clearly, the Pantsir S-1 is reportedly responsible for the downing of a Turkish Phantom jet at the hands of Syrian air defenses last year.
 
The Pantsir S-1 system is mounted on a wheeled Transporter Erector Launcher (TELAR) with missiles and a twin-barrel 30mm cannon. Depending on the missile types, Jane's Defence reports Pantsir S-1's operational range as between 12 kilometers to 20 kilometers.
 
Along with other mission types, it is known that the Russians are using Pantsir S-1 to defend the S-400 long-range, high-altitude system batteries within an integrated air and missile defense structure.
 
Potential impacts on Baghdad-Arbil relations and Turkey's critical role
 
Once procured successfully, the air defense systems' deployment positions within the Iraqi order of battle will be critically important. According to open-source military surveys, pre-2003 Iraqi ground-based air defense assets were deployed in four main operation centers that concentrated around Kirkuk, Baghdad, Basra and Mosul. Should Iraqi decision-makers prefer a similar deployment concept, Kirkuk could gain another source of dispute between the regional government and the capital, Baghdad.
 
Also, due to its involvement in the Kirkuk dispute, Turkey might oppose deployment of a dense integrated air defense network at its doorstep. Although the current Iraqi procurement plans cannot be compared with that of S-300s in terms of range and radar acquisition, which the Greek Cypriot administration was after in the 1990s, Ankara could still have a sort of resurrection of the S-300 missile crisis if the Iraqis opt for procuring more advanced systems.
 
Could Baghdad's developing air defense capabilities deny Northern Iraq to Turkey?
 
Baghdad's aggressive push in the defense market for improved air defenses could significantly reduce Turkey's cross-border military capabilities in Northern Iraq. From a military standpoint, air defenses can be used as an anti-access and area-denial (A2AD) challenge to rotary and fixed-winged aircraft.
 
Although Turkey possesses a robust SEAD squadron (151st Squadron), equipped with AGM-88 HARM high-speed anti-radiation missiles, still, pop-up mobile air defenses can cause big trouble at lower echelons. Especially, under a constant-relocation concept and minimizing the radar signal, mobile low-altitude/short-range air defenses would cause unpredictable damage to operating air assets.
 
Unlike the towed Hawk system, both the Avenger and Pantsir S-1 are suitable assets for mobile, pop-up air defenses. Therefore, they can deny at least 10.000 to 15,000 feet altitudes to the Turkish Air Force and Land Force's aviation.
 
For a long time Ankara has been resolutely pursuing its options to find a peaceful solution to Turkey's decades-long Kurdish problem. However, even if the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) threat to the nation comes to an end, the topographical advantages of Northern Iraqi territory for low intensity conflicts would remain in place, and could be used for other proxy war efforts by hostile nations against Turkey.
 
Thus, regardless of the PKK threat, exerting political-military control onto Northern Iraq is a geopolitical imperative for Ankara. This does not necessarily mean that Turkey's only way forward is military power for influencing Northern Iraq. In fact, good and viable relations with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) could be a key for Turkey's strong position in Northern Iraq.
 
At this point, the KRG's reaction to the Iraqi air defense modernization would be a crucial issue. Arbil is located in the middle of a complicated political-military landscape. The Kurdish autonomy has to balance its relations with Ankara and Baghdad carefully.
 
Moreover, although denying Turkish incursions into Northern Iraq is in the best interests of the KRG, the catastrophe of a downed Turkish jet by Iraqi air defenses on KRG air space would not solely harm Turkish-Iraqi relations, but the recently improving harmony of the Ankara-Arbil axis.
 
Therefore, should Baghdad opt for extending its air defense deployments to the autonomous territories in the north, it would be important to see how the KRG administration would react.
 
Changing military balance
 
In sum, Baghdad is taking firm steps forward to establish robust integrated air defense (IAD) capabilities. Given the trends in their military modernization, it would not be surprising to see the Iraqis negotiating for more advanced systems like the S-300 line, Aster-30, or Patriot PAC-2s and PAC-3s soon.
 
Such a development might drastically change the military calculus mainly for two nations in the Middle East. First, Turkey's future ability to project power onto Northern Iraq could come into question. And second, Iraqi airspace has been seen as one of the possible flight route patterns for an Israeli operation against Iran. This might no longer be a viable manner of conduct for the Israeli Air Force.
 
In either of these cases, Baghdad would be more of a deterrent to its neighbors if it manages to gain superior air defense capacity. 
 
Last but not least, one should keep in mind that Iran still enjoys earlier versions of the Hawk line from the Shah times. Therefore, there is no good reason to exclude the possibilities of a clandestine technology transfer from the Maliki administration to Tehran under the shadow of sectarianization of Middle Eastern politics.