In one of the last operations of the Cold War, the U.S. military conducted a covert operation to acquire 21 Soviet-produced MiG-29 fighter jets from Moldova.
Again, one of the aims was to prevent these high-performance aircraft from falling into Iranian hands, thereby further destabilizing already turbulent Middle Eastern affairs. In 1997, the aircraft arrived in Dayton, Ohio, where it proved an essential tool for American Air Force acquisition to understand Soviet aviation technology.
American test pilots flew MiG-29s to their limits, exposing their capabilities in dogfighting engagements, where they were found to be superior, especially through advanced helmet-mounted targeting.
This information and experience thus helped the United States to upgrade its fighter technologies and prepare itself more robustly against potential encounters with Russian aircraft in future conflicts.
According to an American test pilot, the MiG-29 was even comparable to, if not superior to, the US F-15 and F-16 fighters.
Overnight, the small Moldovan country near Russia found itself in possession of a fleet of 34 MiG-29s and eight Mi-8 Hip helicopters. Subsequently, unable to maintain this arsenal, it endangered selling planes to Iran.
Washington feared that Iran might come into possession of the MiG-29C version, which carried nuclear weapons, thus further raising tensions in the Middle East. The U.S. purchased a considerable quantity of these warplanes and imported them surreptitiously to the United States.
These seized MiG-29 aircraft provided the United States Air Force with a new, foreign platform to interrogate in detail.
The intelligence from these aircraft was essential since it arrived at the most critical low point in Russo-American relations up to that time. Knowing the capabilities and training of the likely Russian adversary may be crucial when the next dogfight begins.
The Israelis also took the MiG-29s. They probably thought sometime down the line Iran would take them, too. Israeli pilots flew them and couldn’t dogfight against them unless flown by an experienced pilot. The thrust on the MiG-29 was phenomenal, and its helmet-mounted cueing system was more advanced than anything in the American or Israeli arsenals at the time.
In the meantime, North Korea significantly influenced Iran’s missile capabilities. After the killing airstrike at an Iranian diplomatic building in Damascus was put to the Israeli Air Force, Tehran said that there would be retaliation. And this became the point of attention on Iran’s missile stock, which could strike inside Israeli territory. This stretches back to the early 1980s when it became one of the first clients for North Korean ballistic missiles and bought several hundred Hwasong-5 missiles during the Iran-Iraq War.
During the early 1990s, North Korea started developing the Hwasong-7 missile, which was five times the range of the Hwasong-5 and therefore could attack targets as far off as 1,500 kilometers. This was a missile that, in the West, would be known as the Rodong-1, and it presented an extremely compelling opportunity for Iran, which was increasingly running into obstacles in attempting to modernize its conventional forces in light of U.S. intervention. The Hwasong-7 would enable Iran to strike American bases throughout the Middle East and at key oil infrastructure in the Gulf as well as Israeli targets.
The Hwasong-7 has also been licensed-manufactured in Iran as the Shahab-3 and several versions have been jointly developed with that country. This has included such upgrades as the ability to accept upper stages which provide improved guidance, maneuverable reentry vehicles, and a new rocket-nozzle control system to improve the chances that it will survive to hit any Western or Israeli missile defense systems. Long-range variants of the Shahab-3, including the Ghadr-110 and the Emad, have ranges several hundred kilometers more than the standard model and improved accuracy.
North Korea’s impact on Iran’s missile modernization has gone unabated. The United States unconfirmed reports indicated that there were tests of the Hwasong-10 ballistic missile as early as the mid-2000s in Iran. The longer-range Hwasong-10, with a range over double that of the Hwasong-7, marks North Korea’s first known strike capability against targets on Guam. Widespread reports have indicated the ballistic missiles of Iran’s Khoramshahr series are based on Hwasong-10 technologies, remaining at the center of the country’s arsenal.
Iran’s boasts of developing a hypersonic glide vehicle for its longer-ranged missiles immediately followed North Korea’s development of similar technologies. In a regional balance of power shift, the developments have so far counterbalanced the substantial arms and technology transfers from the Western world into Israel.