Description
This paper examines how Iran’s strategic culture shapes practices of "conflict management" in the contemporary Middle East. Challenging conventional liberal approaches that privilege conflict resolution as the primary pathway to regional order, it argues that enduring instability in the region is systematically sustained through patterns of managed confrontation that remain below the threshold of large-scale interstate war. Drawing upon Alastair Iain Johnston’s third-generation framework, this study conceptualizes strategic culture not as a static mindset, but as a dynamic, bounded repertoire of ideas and practices that actively structures threat perceptions, deterrence logics, and calibrated escalation.
Methodologically, the paper employs a qualitative interpretive analysis of Iranian policy discourse, official rhetoric, and regional security practices between 2018 and 2026—a critical period spanning from the "active resistance" strategy to recent direct and proxy military confrontations. It demonstrates how these strategic narratives facilitate a system of tacit bargaining and measured antagonism that neither resolves deep-seated conflicts nor triggers comprehensive regional war. By shifting analytical attention from conflict outcomes to conflict governance, the paper contributes to critical debates on regional order and security in the Global South, offering a robust framework for understanding Middle Eastern security as an enduring, calculated system of managed friction rather than a series of episodic failures of peace.