You don’t need a brain to be clever. The animal kingdom is full of remarkable examples. The coin-sized jellyfish has no brain but can trick and avoid predators by changing shape, colour and size. Replacing the brain is its “nerve-net”—a decentralised web of neurons that communicates and enables it to adjust its form and movement to evade external threats.
Within hours of unleashing “Epic Fury”, US and Israeli forces decapitated the Iranian regime—destroying its central nervous system, assassinating even Ayatollah Khamenei. But the regime did not die. Despite successive and multiple assassinations, the regime was not even paralysed. Instead, Iran downed two American fighter jets, maintained a barrage of drones and missiles, wounded its neighbours and sent economic shockwaves around the world.
How has Iran survived so far? By being a strategic jellyfish. Its “brain” was blown up, so it adapted, relying on its “nerve-net”—a decentralised system of administration that ensures the business of war and daily life goes on. Adaptation is key to survival, said Charles Darwin, because it makes us resilient when confronted with change or calamity. But the key to resilience is preparation. Iran’s “nerve-net” did not mushroom overnight. It evolved.
Iran has been preparing for this war for 45 years—from 1979 when the brutal pro-US Shah Pahlavi regime was overthrown, through the horrific eight-year Iran-Iraq war when US ally Iraq gassed Iranian civilians, endured decades of US-led threats, conflicts, sanctions, amputation from the global financial system and Israeli assassinations of Iranian leaders. As the Chinese war strategist Sun Tzu advised, “Know thy enemy”. Iran studied and prepared. If the enemy systematically targets its leaders, then the threads of decentralised webs must be spun to create alternate networks.
Learning from the ruinous Iran-Iraq war, Iran dispersed power plants around the country to avoid destruction of the whole network. “Import substitution” stimulates local production of medicines, car-parts, white goods, even steel that Iran then exports to Gulf neighbours. Apart from Hormuz Strait, they trade overland especially with China, its biggest trading partner. It uses the barter system, exporting oil in exchange for grain and machinery. Local councils assess local needs, buy, sell, plan, decide, implement. Despite corruption, repression and civilian hardship, Iran’s economy is more diversified than its neighbours.
But Iran’s military is severely degraded due to decades of sanctions that denied access to spare parts, upgrades and modern fleets. Its defence budget is pitiful, “a rounding error in our military budget”, notes American economist Paul Krugman satirically. Iran adapted by improvising, creating swarms of low-cost, high-impact drones.
Drones are cheap, but deploying fighter jets to intercept them is expensive. Iran’s Shahed-136 drone costs about $30,000. It costs that much to keep an American F-35 fighter jet airborne for an hour. The jet itself costs over $100 million. The missiles jets use to intercept drones cost $1 million apiece. The math is unsustainable, even for cash-rich Gulf nations fighting Iranian drones.
Experts say it is a war crime when Donald Trump threatens to bomb Iran “back to the stone ages, where they belong”. Iran belongs to an ancient, sophisticated civilisation. It has suffered huge damage—factories, universities, clinics, apartments, bridges are wrecked, 2,000 dead, inflation is 40 per cent. Yet, it survives and surprises. Supermarkets are stocked; gas is available, civil servants receive salaries, even year-end bonuses. The nerve-net hums. After a terrifying night of bombings, morning dawns with the muezzin’s comforting call to prayer, civic-minded rescue volunteers clearing debris and the delicious smell of freshly baked naan.
Pratap is an author and journalist.