Interesting analysis of Arab military training and culture
http://denbeste.nu/external/deAtkine01.html
http://denbeste.nu/external/deAtkine01.html
Why Arabs Lose Wars
- Thread starter DemoCoder
- Start date
I think I'll actually borrow some of the author's own words:
The author falls into the same trap he wishes to avoid. Quite frankly I don't think it's all that worth responding to, as it makes generalizing statements he attributes to culture present in other cultures, (such as the statement about a reliance on memorization, which Japanese culture also placed, (and in fact still places), highly during the height of Japanese Imperial power). He also completely ignores the role of overwhelming military power or political structure in the outcome of wars, (IE why would a highly authoritarian regime hand much of the decision making power of a military to lesser officers). He makes his generalizations about the Arab world looking strictly through the lense of the most highly developed sectors of the world, ie the West. Etc, etc, etc. It's getting late and I don't feel like spending a whole lot of time on this. I'm sure plenty of other people will be taking cracks at this, and so I don't think I need to comment any more.
The author falls into the same trap he wishes to avoid. Quite frankly I don't think it's all that worth responding to, as it makes generalizing statements he attributes to culture present in other cultures, (such as the statement about a reliance on memorization, which Japanese culture also placed, (and in fact still places), highly during the height of Japanese Imperial power). He also completely ignores the role of overwhelming military power or political structure in the outcome of wars, (IE why would a highly authoritarian regime hand much of the decision making power of a military to lesser officers). He makes his generalizations about the Arab world looking strictly through the lense of the most highly developed sectors of the world, ie the West. Etc, etc, etc. It's getting late and I don't feel like spending a whole lot of time on this. I'm sure plenty of other people will be taking cracks at this, and so I don't think I need to comment any more.
Clashman said:
No he doesn't. He makes his comments through the lens of having trained and worked with the Arab militaries. You didn't read the article looking for things that were interesting, you looked through it based on the title of the article alone trying to find things wrong with it.
For example, a huge section of the article deals with the issue of NCOs, mistreatment of lower ranking enlisted men, politics in middle management command (hoarding information, turf). No comment?
I suppose the article offends you because it is not culturally relative.
Pax, Morale is a big factor in winning and losing wars, even given technogical superiority.
Because having a dictatorship is not indicative of your military prowess, last I heard Egypt has a democracy. Reading a bit of the article, I must say that some of it does make sense, ever hear of a friendly military exercise with arab countries (outside of the gulf war).Clashman said:
later,
CosmoKramer
Newcomer
Bah! So was DDR...
epicstruggle said:
Err, yeah...sort of like the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East. A couple of the smaller states, Qatar and UAE, can be said to have made significant reforms, but that's it. Outside Israel and Qatar, the only other place in the region with a free press is occupied Iraq.
Iran as it currently stands is perhaps closer to a democracy than Egypt: at least it has fair elections for President and a parliament, although the candidates are chosen by the mullahs and once in office have absolutely no power. And Iran has a much more modern and egalitarian society than almost all of the Arab world, even though it is a fundamentalist theocracy.
Power in Egypt is almost entirely held by one man, President Mubarak. There have only been three rulers since the 50's. The office has evolved from an open military dictatorship under Nasser to a supposedly-elected one today, but every election has been rigged (although Mubarak likely would have won anyways, because he holds almost complete political power himself and thus there is no credible opposition). There is officially a free press, but in reality much of the media is government-run and the independent papers are always in danger of getting banned for saying the wrong thing. It is illegal to criticize Mubarak, and political dissidants are often thrown in jail.
How can all this happen in a supposedly democratic country? Well that's the best part: you see, Egypt is in a State of Emergency. And has been. Ever since 1981. In fact, the State of Emergency law has recently been extended until 2006.
Some democracy.
But it's immensely freer than Saudia Arabia, Yemen, Syria. Jordan is still a monarchy. Lebanon has relatively democratic institutions in theory, but in fact it is controlled by the Syrian army. And so on.
First my source comes from cia.gov's factbook:Dave H said:
North Korea:"authoritarian socialist; one-man dictatorship"
Egypt:"republic" (sigh, translated to the masses as democracy)
Egypt might have rigged the election, but at least they have some sort of democracy which could change the power if they had good grass roots support.
later,
CosmoKramer
Newcomer
K.I.L.E.R said:CosmoKramer said:
Memory is a democracy?
I thought memory was a storage device?
DDR = Deutsche Demokratische Republik = Democratic Republic of Germany = East Germany
me too. wasnt sure what the hell you were talking about.'
later,
later,
Similar threads
