Why Arabs Lose Wars

Middle East Forum ^ | Dec 1999 | Norvell B. De Atkine (Col. Ret.)

[semaj]

It obviously makes a big difference, however, when the surrounding political culture is not only avowedly democratic (as are many Middle Eastern states), but functionally so.

Great analysis. This statment was a little off mark though. I guess the author was trying to be nice.

As an air defense advisor to the Saudi Air Defense Forces, I know all too well the frustration that comes with working with Arab "military" organizations.

[USAFJeeper]

As a USAF instructor here I can say that he speaks the truth. We had Kuwaiti and Egyptian officers at the time in training as well as a few enlisted. We simply were NOT allowed to fail them. They were simply passed through and no mention of GPA was ever put in the perm records. We even had a liason office that would sometimes tell us what to do with a particular student.

Hey they were paying for USAF training, no skin off my back if it was faked.

[The_Media_never_lie]

Because, their scimitars are a little outdated.

[USMCVet]

Bump

[Leisler]

Mass production is mentioned in Thucydides's "The Peloponnesian Wars". 400 B.C. Adam Smith discussed it in depth in "The Wealth of Nations", 1700s (?). So, that's Greeks and Brits, never mind the Chinese.

[Terabitten]

If I had to create an Army from the ground up with the express intention of failing in combat, it would look like what the author describes.

[50sDad]

Earliest mention my poor education comes up with was Eli Whitney, known better for the cotton gin, inventing identital replacement parts, rather than hand-made, purt-near fixes of machinery. What is the actual mention from Thucydides's text...I'm curious.

[Buggman]

Good article. Bump for a reread later.

[Terabitten]

There is an excellent book called "Closing With the Enemy" by LTC(ret) Michael Doubler that addresses the topic of why the US won the ground war in the European theater in WWII. Doubler's position is that we won because we were able to apply tactical and operational lessons learned on the battlefield faster than the German army, which was hamstrung by the General Staff in that regard. In other words, the US Army was able to take a good idea from a staff sergeant squad leader and quickly "get the word out" to the entire theater of operations. The Germans, OTOH, would study the problem at the General Staff level and provide an "answer" from there.

The obvious answer is that armies from essentially democratic countries understand that the "right" answer can come from anywhere, and they are not afraid to accept an answer from anywhere. Armies from less democratic nations, however, find it far more difficult to accept an answer from "below."

[jiggyboy]

LOL I'm retiring the "already-posted" trophy in your name.

[ASA Vet]

I know there was an even older posting of it. I had it on "my links" for a number of years, but deleted it a few months ago. It's healthy to be able to laugh at ourselves. The trophy would look nice on my home page, but I've seen others beat the 2 year mark.

[1903A3]

The main reason they succeeded then is that the Christian armies of the time where even less effective and more badly leaded

[Richard Kimball]

A friend of mine from the oil industry was talking to me about training firefighters in Arab countries. You can make huge bucks in the ME right now, and, of course, end up being decapitated.

The oil contracts don't just include the price of oil, but also a phenomenal number of patronage jobs for the Arab regime. In these countries, unlike the US, your ability to move upward in society is almost entirely based on your relationship. Therefore, their goal is not to work hard and advance, but not to work at all. They view work as being demeaning. The goal is to reach the point where you have a bunch of people working their @sses off to support your life style.

Here, my biggest problem when commanding a fire is keeping my people from advancing into situations that are too dangerous. There, he said it was practically impossible to get people to even enter a burning structure.

[I still care]

Years ago my philosophy professor told us he thought the success of a people lay in their language. I disagreed, that the success of a people lay in their concept of God and their relationship to Him.

When I read the Koran, I am struck by the absolute obedience demanded to overwhelming rules. The breaking down of everything into law. And while they call their god "the merciful, the compassionate" I never saw much of either in it.

We all know how people respond to the law. They figure out ways to get around it. Look at the hearts of people coming out of communism. Many of them learned that authority is just something to figure out how to get around.

[ASA Vet]

Anyone who would enter a burning building is obviously nuts.

[M Kehoe]

...and the tenacity of a cockroach.

Sorry to disagree, but the cockroaches down here will fight you. And if they think they're loosing, they go airborne to get away.

;^)

5.56mm

[ccmay]

It may well be that these seemingly permanent attributes result from a culture that engenders subtlety, indirection, and dissimulation in personal relationships.

i.e., two-faced lying and backstabbing. Yes, that seems to describe the "culture" to a T.

-ccm

[knarf]

I suppose that was the tenacity I was referring to ... probably the wrong word to use .. but my intent was that quality that is ... like the x42's ... "Larreh .. Ah know these people ... they ain't goin' away!"

[Leisler]

What we are talking about not one in five thousand Americans has any idea of. Sad. Poor Eli, his gin was so simple that it was copied right off the bat and the only money he really got was from decent and grateful souther governments that recognized his discovery.

From a decaying memory. Thucydides mentions that half way through the wars, the stress and loss of skilled trades to the wars, required shops to use imported unskilled labor, that each did one task and passed the work down a bench to the next laborer. Bows, arrows, pikes.

What you were thinking of is machined, metal parts, which most famously were standardized by, I believe, Colt. Henry Ford can be given credit for the moving assembly line, in which the laborer stood still and the part came to him and left him by the powered assembly line.

Anyways, mass production has probably been around since caveman and flint days.

As to Arab mentality in general. I think it very akin to any primitive raiding peoples, savages, American Indians, Pacific island people. Pretty much their 'culture' is a dead end in a knowledge world.

[Ready4Freddy]

Same w/ jumping out of a perfectly good airplane... ;>)

Anyone who would enter a burning building is obviously nuts.