The Role Of Culture And The Effectivemenss Of A Country's Military -- A Commentary

PERSONAL ASSISTANCE - U.S. Army Sgt. James Henderson, right, assists an Afghan police officer during call-out training at the police headquarters in Chahar Dara, Afghanistan, Aug. 28, 2010. Henderson is assigned to the 10th Mountain Division. U.S. Navy photo by Seaman Walter M. Wayman

Why Arabs Lose Wars -- Norvell B. De Atkine, Middle East Quarterly

Norvell De Atkine, a U.S. Army retired colonel with eight years residence in Lebanon, Jordan, and Egypt, and a graduate degree in Arab studies from the American University of Beirut, is currently instructing U.S. Army personnel assigned to Middle Eastern areas. The opinions expressed here are strictly his own.

Arabic-speaking armies have been generally ineffective in the modern era. Egyptian regular forces did poorly against Yemeni irregulars in the 1960s.1 Syrians could only impose their will in Lebanon during the mid-1970s by the use of overwhelming weaponry and numbers.2 Iraqis showed ineptness against an Iranian military ripped apart by revolutionary turmoil in the 1980s and could not win a three-decades-long war against the Kurds.3 The Arab military performance on both sides of the 1990 Kuwait war was mediocre.4 And the Arabs have done poorly in nearly all the military confrontations with Israel. 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.

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My Comment: This opinion piece is over ten years old .... but it is timely and true in today's world, and provides a heads up on U.S. attempts to train and organize the Iraqi military into an effective force.