July 14, 2006
Arab armies are pretend armies
I have always been fascinated by the ability of Arab armies to fold under a serious attack. The examples provided by Israel in it's many wars with it's neighbors and more recently the two gulf wars. In each case a preening Arab military force was completely routed in comically epic fashion by a much smaller opponent. In the case of Israel an opponent that was not always better supplied with weapons. I doubt many realize that the United States fielded a much smaller fighting force then Iraq in both Gulf wars. In fact it was one of the reasons the war critics thought we would fail. Norvell B. De Atkine does an excellent job of explaining why in this article.
Why this unimpressive record? There are many factors—economic, ideological, technical—but perhaps the most important has to do with culture and certain societal attributes which inhibit Arabs from producing an effective military force.The article too detail packed to summarize in this post but goes a long way in explaining the incompetence of the Arab military and gives insights into the events of the last decade. Be sure to read it all.
Posted by Sid at July 14, 2006 12:30 AM | Middle East
Comments
Nifty.
Posted by: Sida A at July 14, 2006 01:02 PM
