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The US isn't very concerned that its literate, educated NCOs will get together and overthrow the government (although with the current political situation I'd say the risk is higher than it used to be). In Vietnam, they tried to assassinate the president [1].

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1962_South_Vietnamese_Independ...

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No idea why you got downvoted. The author of the article definitely agrees with the basic thrust of you argument, although maybe not your speculation in the parentheses. If you look at arab militaries as existing in-of and for themselves, they appear to be incredibly inefficient and badly organized and should be reformed. But if you look at them from a political perspective, they're still inefficient and badly organized, but there's a lot of solid political logic as to why.

In the case of many arab regimes, having an ineffectual and divided military isn't a bug, it's a feature.

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