Mosaic Defense and Dispersed Command: Iran Strikes Back
Abstract: The 12-Day War exposed critical vulnerabilities in Iran’s command and control (C2) structure following Israeli decapitation strikes, revealing a gap between doctrine and operational reality. Drawing on two decades of development, Iran’s Mosaic Defense went into effect only in the subsequent conflict against the U.S. and Israel, allowing Tehran to sustain operations across multiple fronts despite significant losses. We argue that this shift reflects lessons learned from the 12-Day War and a strategic anticipation of a larger confrontation. Western powers risk underestimating this doctrine’s capacity to impose substantial political, economic, and military costs.
Introduction
The current conflict environment in the middle east is the result of a sustained escalation of hostilities among the United States, Israel, Iran, and their respective regional allies. In recent years, there has been a marked intensification of direct and indirect confrontations between Israel, Iran, and their partners, including armed groups associated with the so-called “Axis of Resistance” and U.S. forces. This pattern of escalation has contributed to the emergence of the present regional conflict dynamics in the middle east.
Nowadays, Iranian military strategy mitigates any risks involved in decapitation strikes; even if the head of the snake is removed, the body will continue functioning.
Even by western standards, Iran possesses an incredibly complex military command structure. While frequently characterized as decentralized, Iran’s military operates within a rigid and highly ideological framework oriented towards regime survival. The eight-year war between Iran and Iraq offers a series of lessons on command and control, particularly regarding the limitations of politicized command structures and their impact on combat effectiveness. As a result, Iran internalized the operational advantages of decentralizing targeting authority at an early stage. Authorizing missile, rocket, and drone launches without senior-level approval significantly increased their combat effectiveness.
However, Iran does not learn solely from its own experiences. It has long been a keen observer of the west, particularly the United States. U.S. engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan significantly influence the regime’s contemporary approach to command and operational planning. Nowadays, Iranian military strategy mitigates any risks involved in decapitation strikes; even if the head of the snake is removed, the body will continue functioning. However, we have observed quite the opposite during the 12-Day War.
In June 2025, Israeli Operation Rising Lion – characterized primarily by coordinated airstrikes – aimed to neutralize key figures within the Iranian Armed Forces’ chain of command within the first 48 hours of the conflict, a central feature of a decapitation strategy. Iran’s retaliatory strikes involved hundreds of missiles launched per salvo against Israeli territory. However, Iranian strikes became less coordinated, less effective, and less saturated over time when compared to initial days of the war.
The Iranian regime initiated its response on the night of June 13, conducting a total of twelve waves of missile salvos and drone strikes against Israeli territory. The final wave launched just minutes before the cessation of hostilities on June 24. This campaign designated “Operation True Promise III,” involved between 370 and 550 ballistic missiles, over 1,000 drones, and additional operations targeting Israeli interests. Israel’s air and missile defense architecture is a multilayered system, comprised of Iron Dome, David’s Sling, and Arrow, in addition to the U.S.-provided Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD). Nevertheless, Tehran’s actions exposed notable vulnerabilities in Israel’s missile defense.
At its core, DMD replaces centralized command with a dispersed and redundant structure in which semi-autonomous regional units can operate independently in the absence of higher command.
Initial assessments of Iranian military performance during the conflict suggested that the physical destruction of launch vehicles (especially TELs), radars, and logistical facilities by the IDF limited the effectiveness of Iran’s missile and drone salvos. This is plausible but it is also worth considering that Israeli strikes succeeded in eliminating key generals and commanders. Iranian failures in fire coordination likely resulted not only from the loss of physical assets but also from the deaths of generals and chiefs of staff at multiple levels, creating chaos in the Iranian command structure and significantly degrading C2.
The current conflict reflects notable shifts from the 12-Day War. Iran’s response has been significantly broader. Tehran has demonstrated an ability to sustain military operations against multiple adversaries across the middle east, even while absorbing considerable losses to its military structure and capabilities, namely critical assets such as missile launchers. Since the onset of the war, Iran has surprised the West with remarkable combat resilience and an ability to sustain operations through dispersed defense tactics and coordinated fires across multiple fronts, even after a series of decapitation strikes targeting Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, key IRGC figures, and other members of the Iranian Armed Forces’ general staff. This “new” military strategy, which caught the U.S. off guard, is known as Mosaic Defense, or Decentralized Mosaic Defense (DMD), first introduced in 2005 by former commander-in-chief of the IRGC General Mohammad Jafari. At its core, DMD replaces centralized command with a dispersed and redundant structure in which semi-autonomous regional units can operate independently in the absence of higher command. It is worth asking: how does DMD function in practice? If Iran had already developed this concept, why was it only fully employed now rather than the 12-Day War?
The Iranian Lens
Unlike during the 12-Day War, the Iranian regime has conducted operations on a broader regional scale. Tehran has targeted multiple countries across the middle east in response, aiming at a diverse array of objectives. These include U.S. military bases, energy production infrastructure in the gulf, and Israeli territory, among others. Iran has developed different approaches to sustain its military operations during periods of conflict, as evidenced by its use of drones and missiles against a range of actors including Qatar, Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia. Despite suffering significant losses by U.S. and Israeli strikes, Iran has remained operationally resilient, generating substantial effects across multiple domains, particularly energy production and transportation in the gulf.
The Iranian regime has developed a range of strategies to prepare for a large-scale conflict that incorporate its potential weaknesses, particularly in the domain of air defense. In response, Tehran has mitigated key vulnerabilities in its defensive posture. Such concerns were already evident prior to the current conflict, as reflected in initiatives such as the development of the Mosaic doctrine and the construction of underground facilities designed to withstand aerial attacks. Among these efforts are Iran’s so-called “missile cities,” extensive underground military installations used to store and protect a variety of strategic weapons systems and equipment. These facilities house different categories of missiles, including systems such as the Emad, which support the Islamic Republic’s military operations across the middle east.
However, certain operational vulnerabilities remain. This is particularly evident in the employment of ballistic missile launchers on the surface, exposed to U.S. and Israeli strikes. Israeli assessments indicate that a significant portion of Iran’s launchers have already been neutralized, either through direct destruction or by targeting the entrances of their underground storage facilities. At the same time, Israel continues their efforts to locate and target the remaining launchers, aiming to substantially degrade Tehran’s ability to conduct ballistic missile operations that threaten multiple areas of the Middle east, including Israeli territory.
How Mosaic Defense Works
The Iranian armed forces prioritize the development of specific capabilities that leverage their inherent strengths such as manpower, strategic depth, and willingness to absorb significant casualties. Simultaneously, they exploit perceived adversary vulnerabilities including sensitivity to casualties, risk aversion, and dependence on advanced technologies and critical military infrastructure.
Iranian military doctrine is a hybrid between western military concepts and ideological elements, namely martyrdom and the revolutionary ethos of the Islamic Republic. Since its establishment, Iran’s doctrine has continuously evolved in response to shifting threat perceptions and regional developments. The country’s armed forces have adapted their strategies to confront technologically superior adversaries. Recognizing its limited prospects in a conventional conflict, Tehran has adopted a model of attritional warfare grounded in deterrence and designed to increase the risks and costs imposed on the opponent. In this context, asymmetric warfare plays a central role in Iran’s military strategy. The Iranian armed forces prioritize the development of specific capabilities that leverage their inherent strengths such as manpower, strategic depth, and willingness to absorb significant casualties. Simultaneously, they exploit perceived adversary vulnerabilities including sensitivity to casualties, risk aversion, and dependence on advanced technologies and critical military infrastructure.
The Mosaic doctrine is part of a broader military reform introduced by General Mohammad Jafari in the early 2000s. A veteran of the Iran–Iraq War, Jafari identified that the force structure that had fought against the Iraqis required reform. It needed to integrate more effectively with the Basij militia, become less centralized, and focus more on the provinces. Under this doctrine, the IRGC reorganized into thirty-one commands. This change not only to restructure its fighting capabilities but also safeguarded the institution against decapitation attempts. However, events at this moment are just one pillar of the mosaic defense; its full implementation comes into effect to defeat a land invasion.
Mosaic Defense also enables Iran to leverage its strategic depth and geography to conduct insurgent-style operations against invading forces. Most major cities and critical lines of communication are in the country’s interior while Iran’s borders consist of mountainous terrain that serves as a natural barrier to ground incursions.
This doctrine expands Iran’s ability to operate across multiple domains, strengthening the cohesion of local units and granting greater autonomy to commanders to respond to specific threats. This structure is designed to disrupt efforts to degrade Iranian command and control, a lesson informed in part by analyses of U.S. operations in other theaters. Mosaic Defense also enables Iran to leverage its strategic depth and geography to conduct insurgent-style operations against invading forces. Most major cities and critical lines of communication are in the country’s interior while Iran’s borders consist of mountainous terrain that serves as a natural barrier to ground incursions. As enemy supply lines extend deeper into Iranian territory, they would become increasingly vulnerable to disruption by IRGC-led resistance cells operating in the adversary’s rear areas.
Iran maintains a military force parallel to the IRGC known as the Artesh. This force is structured as a combined-arms force composed of armored, infantry, and mechanized units and would serve as the first line of defense against an invading force. The IRGC would support the Artesh while simultaneously developing the core of a popular resistance largely composed of the Basij, a volunteer paramilitary force under the Revolutionary Guard. The IRGC also maintains a wartime mobilization framework for the Basij known as the Mo’in Plan. Under this plan, Basij units would reinforce regular IRGC formations in the event of an invasion. Joint IRGC-Basij training includes ambushes in urban environments, suggesting that Tehran may seek to draw adversaries into cities where their mobility and air support would be constrained. More broadly, Iran has emphasized passive defense measures aimed at enhancing survivability in conflict, including camouflage, concealment, and deception.
According to Iranian strategic thinking, the mosaic defense is a challenge to a Clausewitzian reading of the Iranian center of gravity; Iran survives not by defending the “main center of power” but by dispersing said power across multiple operational nodes. Speaking in western military language, Mosaic Defense is a reinterpretation of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) mosaic warfare guided by the principles of mission command. The Iranian system exists across multiple autonomous operational and tactical cells dispersed through the provinces. These cells maintain maneuver, logistical, and command autonomy while remaining guided by previously established strategic directions.
Why Now?
As the U.S. considers plans for a potential land operation and deploys of brigade and division sized ground forces to the gulf region, the United States should reassess its strategic calculus.
The bottom line is that the Mosaic doctrine is not a novelty but a concept Tehran has been developing for at least two decades. However, if the doctrine and force structure was fit for purpose, why did Iran choose to activate it only now and not during the 12-Day War? There are three considerations. First, Iran contended with a harsh reality during the 12-Day War as “unexpected” IDF attacks severely disrupted its C2 structure, leading to chaos, vacant command positions, and difficulties sustaining coordinated tactical actions. Second, Iran may have anticipated the attacks due to the massive U.S. military build-up in the region. This afforded Iran the time to coordinate responses and plan for multiple contingencies, including a potential ground invasion. Third, Iran was operating under significant political and economic vulnerability associated with international sanctions and anti-regime protests that intensified across the country in late 2025.
The United States still fails to fully grasp the implications of Mosaic Defense. At a moment when strategic objectives remain unclear or undefined, there is an evident underestimation of Iran’s capabilities and resilience. This is not something that should be taken for granted. As the U.S. considers plans for a potential land operation and deploys of brigade and division sized ground forces to the gulf region, the United States should reassess its strategic calculus. The likely Iranian response to such an action would impose significant political and economic costs not only on the U.S. but on the broader international system. There is a serious possibility of another protracted and unresolved war in the middle east.
