Why Middle East armies (except one) perform so poorly, without ethnic or religious...

[Daerio]

Where is the fantasy that the west is winning this war coming from?

Upon what do you base your opinion that Middle East "armies" are performing poorly? The fact that they've never been successfully occupied by any outside force for any extended period of time?

This strange argument that the only way to win a war is on the open battlefield reminds me of British arrogance and pride during the revolutionary war.

We aren't winning this war. We aren't ravaging ISIS. We don't have a victory plan or an exit strategy. It's a quagmire. Russian involvement in the area only ensures we'll never have any hope of winning any sort of victory. We lost this war before it began, and we need to cut our losses.

[sarahtasher]

While what you say is true, the thing is that the said armies perform extremely poorly.

[Deleted]

Iraq and Iran both did really well fighting each other,

Trench warfare and human wave tactics, despite a large amount of armor on both sides.

hell Iraq did very well against a US lead coalition (the first one), I mean obviously they were going to lose but they put up a very good fight, by comparison Georgia (a NATO hopeful) did worse against just Russia.

Iraq did take tremendous losses without affecting the outcome of the (the first) war, Georgia took minimal losses....

[dim]

They perform poorly because they have little to no military tradition and organization. Israel is an exception because they are heavily supported by West in all terms, from tech to training. Turkey allows Israel to use her air space to train. There are further training exchange going on between these two countries. Israel is getting all the valuable help in terms of military. Turkey and Iran has their own military traditions aging quite back. They had their states and military up and running ages ago. They were always organized. And then you have rest of the ME which were either part of Ottoman Empire or were Colonized. You can't develop a military tradition when you are colonized, or subject to another.

i pretty much agree with this....during the history of Middle East, you basicaly had 3 powers (if we exclude Romans and Alex the Great) rulling the lands in last 2000 years......Persia, Ottomans and Egypt. All 3 nations had a long military traditions, the rest were mostly Arab tribes and Beduins.

I have been following great YT channel - The Great War by Indy Neidell, if you are interesed in WW1 in week by week reports I recommend you check it out. And one of the latest episodes were about fights in the ME, Lawrence of Arabia and overall happenings.

Basicaly, Arab tribes sided with British against Ottomans with a promise that after the war they will be able to make Arab Kingdom. British said yes since they needed help in the area, but on the side already agreed with French and Russians how they will devide ME after Ottomans Empire falls. So pretty much backstabbing the Arabs from the start. Lawrence who was british officer working with Arabs, stated in his writing that Arabs were good only in defence, due to their total dissorganization when attacking cuz they were acting as raiding parties and not as an organized military.

That was simply their way of fighting for centuries and its hard to change that in a short time. After the war, British/French/Russians devided ME like they agreed and 100 years later that deal was pretty much the root of all ME problems today. You have strong Turkey military, strong Iran military....but ME countries always stayed under influence of Western interest. So you can sell them the best military equipment, but if they dont have their own military tradition they dont look serious without help of the allies.

[sarahtasher]

BTW, an insurgent group (like ISIS)is not an ''army''.

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i pretty much agree with this....during the history of Middle East, you basicaly had 3 powers (if we exclude Romans and Alex the Great) rulling the lands in last 2000 years......Persia, Ottomans and Egypt. All 3 nations had a long military traditions, the rest were mostly Arab tribes and Beduins.

I have been following great YT channel - The Great War by Indy Neidell, if you are interesed in WW1 in week by week reports I recommend you check it out. And one of the latest episodes were about fights in the ME, Lawrence of Arabia and overall happenings.

Basicaly, Arab tribes sided with British against Ottomans with a promise that after the war they will be able to make Arab Kingdom. British said yes since they needed help in the area, but on the side already agreed with French and Russians how they will devide ME after Ottomans Empire falls. So pretty much backstabbing the Arabs from the start. Lawrence who was british officer working with Arabs, stated in his writing that Arabs were good only in defence, due to their total dissorganization when attacking cuz they were acting as raiding parties and not as an organized military.

That was simply their way of fighting for centuries and its hard to change that in a short time. After the war, British/French/Russians devided ME like they agreed and 100 years later that deal was pretty much the root of all ME problems today. You have strong Turkey military, strong Iran military....but ME countries always stayed under influence of Western interest. So you can sell them the best military equipment, but if they dont have their own military tradition they dont look serious without help of the allies.

No, positively not : Egypt and Syria were partners of the Soviet Union, Iraq and Libya bought tons of Soviet and Chinese equipment.

[Kuntantee]

Taking over a month to lose versus a coalition consisting of Kuwait, USA, Saudi Arabia, UK, France, Egypt, Syria, Morocco, Oman, Pakistan, Canada, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bangladesh, Italy, Australia, Netherlands, Niger, Sweden, Argentina, Senegal, Spain, Luxembourg, Bahrain, Belgium, Sierra Leone, Poland, Philippines, South Korea, Czechoslovakia, Greece, Turkey, Denmark, New Zealand, Hungary, Norway and Afghanistan.

Is non "not very good".

You think Turkey fought in Iraq?

[Daerio]

BTW, an insurgent group (like ISIS)is not an ''army''.

Western nations drew their national boundaries and control their national governments. ISIS represents an army that surpasses national boundaries.

Honestly, you don't get to define the discussion in such a way. It's silly to make all the assertions you're making about how to measure what's going on, when the reality is plainly that despite all that semantical nonsense, we are losing this war against armies (Not ISIS though, apparently) you purport as weak and ineffective.

Another embarrassing defeat, similar to Vietnam. People didn't talk about the Viet Cong being weak and ineffective because they chose to avoid direct firefights.

[sarahtasher]

While various miltias and insurgents groups in the Middle East are more effective, the issue is that regular armies (ones using tanks, aircraft, conventional warfare) are very poor. The sentence could be phrased as ''why the conventional armies are so bad'' but it would amount to the same thing.

[dim]

No, positively not : Egypt and Syria were partners of the Soviet Union, Iraq and Libya bought tons of Soviet and Chinese equipment.

ok, maybe I used the word Western a little openly. Ofc, Russia had a huge impact on the region also......but that falls in the British/French/RUSSIAN influence after the WW1 as I stated in that post.

but regardless of the fact if it was West or the East influence.....it was the influence that shaped the region up to this day.

[sarahtasher]

Another issue is how officers are selected for a variety of reasons, in which ''competence'' (TBF, an hard to ascertain value) is rather low.

Textbook example, Saddam's airforce. He bought Mirage aircraft from France, and send pilots there to be trained. The pilots were not only Sunnis, they were Tikritis. France essentially flunked the whole contingent....and Saddam still make them pilot the Mirages (were, surprisingly, the said pilots, with state-of-the-art aircraft and ultramodern anti-shipping Exocet missiles, had trouble hitting oil tankers. Likewise, in Syria, all pilots (and most of tankists for instance, have to be Alawis.

[ParanoiD84]

I don't even know why I fucking bother.

Is it for naming afgan in a middleeast thread? i know very well it's in south asia but mainly put it there as they share the same shittyness when it comes to combat even when trained by outside help. Large army but cant do shit with it. I do hope they get better though so they can take control over their country and get better to combat the problems from pakistan to.

So no need for a geography lesson.

[sarahtasher]

As the poster above said in a colorful way, having stable, efficient and sustainable militaries (especially ones that does not indulge in funding insurgents (1) and invading neighbouring countries) would go a long way to stabilize this region

(1)If you think the USA are prone to do that, you should see the list of la-la-la dictators and terror groups funded by Khadaffi and Saddam.

[Hottage]

Mostly because they lack leadership, a lot of the officer positions in Middle Eastern armies are still granted to people of privilege instead of those who show proper military leadership qualities (similar to how European armies were run around the time of the First World War).

Because these important leadership roles are basically bought by those with the right connections and money, when it gets time to do actual leadership shit, they turn tail and run - leaving their infantry to fend for themselves.

The lack of leadership from the leadership also leads to lack of discipline, grooming standards and all the other requirements of a modern, professional fighting force.

[Macaquerie]

Mostly because they lack leadership, a lot of the officer positions in Middle Eastern armies are still granted to people of privilege instead of those who show proper military leadership qualities (similar to how European armies were run around the time of the First World War).

Because these important leadership roles are basically bought by those with the right connections and money, when it gets time to do actual leadership shit, they turn tail and run - leaving their infantry to fend for themselves.

The lack of leadership from the leadership also leads to lack of discipline, grooming standards and all the other requirements of a modern, professional fighting force.

See, that's what I don't understand. Why the hell would any country want a military that's run that way? It's not as if these countries just haven't been tested and got complacent, they've gone to war repeatedly over the last few decades and pretty much got their asses thoroughly kicked every single time. Shouldn't that at least give them some incentive to improve their organization?

[sarahtasher]

As said, it's easier said than done. You would have thought that the Iraqi military would have learned something from the Iran-Iraq war, but the only major difference was that the invasion of Kuwait was considerably better organized than the invasion of Iran. The airforce was not much better, the maintenance was not much better, the tactical conducts of units was not much better...

[Kellhound]

Trench warfare and human wave tactics, despite a large amount of armor on both sides.




Iraq did take tremendous losses without affecting the outcome of the (the first) war, Georgia took minimal losses....

Georgia also had a fraction of the military power of Iraq.

[Hottage]

See, that's what I don't understand. Why the hell would any country want a military that's run that way? It's not as if these countries just haven't been tested and got complacent, they've gone to war repeatedly over the last few decades and pretty much got their asses thoroughly kicked every single time. Shouldn't that at least give them some incentive to improve their organization?

It's not really that they want it, it's just a tradition thing which Europe grew out of but some other countries have not.
For them a military rank is a status symbol, a possible route to embezzle some government funds and not much else.

[Gaidax]

As said, it's easier said than done. You would have thought that the Iraqi military would have learned something from the Iran-Iraq war, but the only major difference was that the invasion of Kuwait was considerably better organized than the invasion of Iran. The airforce was not much better, the maintenance was not much better, the tactical conducts of units was not much better...

Because many of such regimes exist thanks to the support of powerful families and clans, so to get their support you need to give them credit by giving them a piece of the power pie.

Correct people need to be placed in places of power, but in this case correct person is not a talented military officer, but a guy who is loyal to the leadership and has some influence via family ties. Basically, he could be some absolute clown and a moron, but if he is a son or such of some influential bigshot - he will get the job.

[caervek]

Trench warfare and human wave tactics, despite a large amount of armor on both sides.

Also stuff like the only combat launches and only kills of the F-14 launched AIM-54 Phoenix missiles, some of which were used to bring down Tu-22 supersonic nuclear bombers. That's some cool ****.

Iraq did take tremendous losses without affecting the outcome of the (the first) war, Georgia took minimal losses....

Iraq may have suffered more casualties but both Iraq/Georgia got slapped down by more powerful opponents who smashed their military and destroyed their bases, both had their militaries set back decades and were made to think twice about invading their neighbours again. It's just Iraq put up more of a fight and took longer to lose.

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You think Turkey fought in Iraq?

No hence why I didn't say that. I said they were part of the coalition that did, they didn't send troops but allowed their air bases to house hundreds of aircraft and be used to stage strikes, they also had patriot missile batteries deployed on their territory.

[Guy4123]

Also stuff like the only combat launches and only kills of the F-14 launched AIM-54 Phoenix missiles, some of which were used to bring down Tu-22 supersonic nuclear bombers. That's some cool ****.


Iraq may have suffered more casualties but both Iraq/Georgia got slapped down by more powerful opponents who smashed their military and destroyed their bases, both had their militaries set back decades and were made to think twice about invading their neighbours again. It's just Iraq put up more of a fight and took longer to lose.

The enemy force was also mostly made up of expeditionary forces from countries thousands of miles away instead of a bordering nation. The coalition total force size was 1.47 times larger than the Iraqi force (956k to 650k) while the Russian force was 2.8 times larger than the Georgian forces (70k to 25k).


They're not really comparable wars from the get go. You wouldn't compare WWII to the Falklands War would you?