Why Arab armies don't win wars | Hacker News Reader

Why Arab armies don't win wars

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43 pointsTomte23 comments

It's all very simple. Islam is a unique religion in that its main prophet had military chops and there are specific surahs that suggest that fighting well gives you a reward and is a sign of being righteous.

So any competent general has de-facto political legitimacy and is a de-facto threat to whatever government is in place. Most of the leaders in the region know this and as a result armies are staffed with insiders (which the article notes).

Saudi airforce is basically a jobs programme for elite families.

That's mostly a feature of monarchies. Even in European settings, monarchs claimed divine right to rule.

That's why ex: El Cid (a great knight/military commander in Spain) was a threat to King Alfonso. (Doubly so because El Cid is a local hero who could raise a combined Muslim+Catholic Army, while King Alfonso was Catholic only. El Cid actually comes from Al-Sayyid, the nickname the Muslim locals gave to El Cid )

This happened enough in the Catholic monarchies that I have to believe it's really just the shape of Monarchies. Like the King of the Franks King Charlemagne the Great is basically known for his military exploits, with Paladins (his royal guard) forever influencing future Europeans and creating the image of an ideal Holy Warrior.

Did I say military exploits? I mean spreading Catholicism to the pagan Saxons. By conquest. During the Dark and Middle Ages, they spread Catholicism the old fashioned way, with the sword.

I do believe that Kim Jong Um military Uncle was put to death as well, likely as court intrigue and a preventative measure to prevent a powerful well respected General from overstepping his king.

Kings are always worried about their generals. Or better yet, Kings are themselves a general to prove their divine authority.

So then why did damn near every European royal family make a habit of giving every prince and bastard son, including ones not in line for the throne, armies to go play around with?

If you're a crappy king the last thing you want is someone with a "legitimate claim" to the throne with an army to back them up instigating your court to depose you.

Good question.

Followup question: do you know the story of how the Frankish Kingdom of Charlemagne the Great got split up into Lombards, France and HRE (basically modern Germany) ??

Kings juggled the conflicting tasks of choosing an inheritor, as well as preventing their sons from rising up and... let's just say "William the Bastard-ing" everyone.

Yes, on occasion a random bastard son will take over all of Normandy and Briton.

So I don't really know what your question is. That happened, constantly. Brothers killed each other, and sometimes their fathers, in a mad game of power for damn near a thousand years.

But clearly the kings of the time thought the risks were worth the reward. A hereditary title of king means that your followers know who is charge if you died in battle. The risk of your sons deposing you was accepted, because the risks of dying for other reasons (disease, famine, war...) was greater.

Because the parent's central thesis is wrong. Kings didn't war to spread religion because most of them weren't religious. They warred over land and power.

The way feudal societies worked, allegiance was like a (bottom up) tree. If your lord was at war with the king you followed the fool. ACOUP has a good number of posts on the workings of feudal societies if you have the time to read them.

Richard the Lionheart spent 10 years away from home and at most 6 months in Briton.

Do you know why he was fighting in wars in far away lands? It certainly wasn't about land or power (at least, not for Richard)

It was a Crusade. The 3rd Crusade to be precise.

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Also the whole Reconquista thing in Spain, coinciding with the Spanish Inquisition and all that. Plenty of major religious events that interacted with politics and brought glory to commanders.

And then things like the 30 Years War, which had substantial amounts of religious influence of Protestants vs Catholics.

I'm not saying every war was about religion. But Catholics have PLENTY of holy warriors that are even venerated for their battle prowess.

> This happened enough in the Catholic monarchies that I have to believe it's really just the shape of Monarchies.

There are still 12 monarchies in Europe, some of them Catholic, some Protestant. Your theory does not work there. The monarchies and Catholicism itself evolved (to a great degree, courtesy of the French Revolution), while Islam seems to have stalled.

The King of England isn't in charge of the UK though. The power largely rests in Andy Burnham.

The job of the monarchy today is largely traditional. They pass and bless today's (better) government systems.

> The monarchies and Catholicism itself evolved, while Islam seems to have stalled.

Do you know the story of Iranian Democracy from 1960s?

There are... complications... to democracies in the middle east.

> The job of the monarchy today is largely traditional. They pass and bless today's (better) government systems.

I wish: <https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/feb/08/royals-vette...>.

> There are... complications... to democracies in the middle east.

It seems there are complications to all forms of government in the Middle East.

> The King of England isn't in charge of the UK though. The power largely rests in Andy Burnham.

Yes and no...

Firstly there's not been a King of England since 1707, he's king of the United Kingdom (and fourteen other places) and secondly it really depends who you ask. On paper sovereignty flows from the 'Crown in Parliament', many powers are actually the King's and are now vested in other parts of the state. Since the 19th century these powers tend to be used 'on the advice of the Prime Minister / Cabinet'. In theory the King could go against this advice, but Parliament ritually reminds [1] the King's representative what happened the last time a king got too uppity and the courts can still rule on the limits of these powers. There's one view which says the people are fundamentally sovereign (very relevant during Charles I's trial for treason), but while this might be true in practice the orthodox view is that sovereignty comes from the 'King-in-Parliament', a composite body of the King, House of Commons, and House of Lords acting in concert.

The point is that when Andy Burnham exercises his power in many cases he's in a sense doing 'su king' by virtue of his role as PM rather than acting in his own right. The PM role is weird as well, traditionally (and in my opinion correctly) the PM is merely the first among equals in a collectively responsible Cabinet, the term 'Prime Minister' actually started life as an insult. Of course since the late 20th century the role has become increasingly presidential, but this seems true in Westminster-style systems generally.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Rod#State_Opening_of_Par...

Its not Islam. The article mentions several Muslim majority countries as being more effective militarily than Arab countries, and many other Muslim countries seem to have competent militaries.

Arab armies were historically effective. I wonder whether the resource curse is part of the answer.

This has to be by far one of the most ignorant and bigoted answers I've ever read on this site, or on this question in particular.

If Islam is as unique as you say it is, why is it that Pakistan is able to constantly hold its ground against India, ever since the independence of both countries? Why Afghanistan beat conventional armies regularly, including the most powerful military in the world? Why Chechnya was such a thorn in Russia?

The answer is much simpler - Arab society is built upon tribes, and the tribal system continues today. Rulers of autocratic countries want loyalists from their allied tribes at the top of the military, and tribes do their best to look after solely their own interests. Never mind that oil wealth has also enabled insane defence spending, which means with the right positioning, some well-placed members of the military could stand to earn millions in bribes and skimming, which makes a career in the military all the more lucrative for the tribes.

Which is why ISIS was so skilled and so much of a threat to the Arab countries - because their motivation was not to enrich themselves, it was purely driven by their radical ideology. The best killers are those who don't give a shit about their own lives.

I think you're probably right, but your counterexamples don't really refute the strongest reading of the thesis. The military establishment has always ultimately held the reins in Pakistan, so the dynamic of civilians avoiding threats by rewarding incompetence isn't there - the threat is present anyway and the rewarding isn't in their power. Afghanistan and Chechnya are confederations of tribal warlords, so of course the armed forces are controlled by competent fighters, it's almost a tautology. You need an example where there's a strong civilian central authority that controls the military effectively, and maintains a highly competent military, and isn't constantly troubled by the threat of coups.

A bit tough to do when almost all Islamic-majority countries are located in Asia or Africa, where they're prone to dictatorial tendencies and nepotism runs galore. But the few European ones are doing alright - Albania, Bosnia, Kosovo, heck might even argue Turkey (people outside Istanbul voting for Islamist Erdogan is still democracy in action).

Basically the same arguments, in a longer story: https://www.meforum.org/middle-east-quarterly/why-arabs-lose...

No need to go through an article full of patronizing national bigotry and Islamophobic claims when the answer is already in the title: Arab armies don’t win wars because they are Arabs.

Another point worth mentioning is that apart from Israel, Arab armies have mostly been fighting other Arab armies. So for every predictable Arab defeat, there has to be an equivalent surprise Arab victory.

And while we’re at it, also worth mentioning that about half of Israel’s Jewish population come from Arab countries. Some were even educated there!

I've heard that in some recent battles, the units turned out to have many fewer soldiers than the payroll might suggest. Why? Commanders were registering fake names and pocketing the salaries.

One could ask similar questions about the Americans, or the Russians. America hasnt won a war since 1991. Russia hasnt won since WWII.

Winning wars, as opposed to just battles, requires such an intense emotional commitment to the state being fought for that people are willing to die for the mission. That extends not just to combatants but the citizenry and polity behind them. Few wars of the modern era meet the bar. Wars of national survival may do, so long as the (defending) political class dont screw it up, eg by internal corruption.

tl;dr is that a state should not start a war unless they are prepared --truly prepared-- to finish it. I guess that's why so many politicians shy away from the word "war" to something else.

America has won every war it's fought since at least Vietnam.

Your convoluted extended definition of winning would mean that Germany never defeated Poland or France. Or the British never defeated the Irish.

It's really a testament to how blithely lethal the US military is that you look at the wholesale destruction of one of the largest, most effective non-superpower states in the world and can honestly say out loud "the US didn't win the Iraq war"

Lethality doesnt mean winning, otherwise Vietnam would have been over in a month and the shock and awe of 2003 would not have been followed by ten years of battling with Iraqi militias.

As for Afghanistan, as candidate Trump said in 2012, "Afghanistan is a total disaster. We don't know what we are doing." [0] - not exactly winning. And what do you know, the Taliban are back in charge after he negotiated a settlement.

[0] https://x.com/realdonaldtrump/status/179270017064513536

Sorry to necro but, you're going to seriously tell me that the nazis didn't defeat the poles because poland was free five years later? That Napoleon didn't defeat europe because europe was free ten years later? If Napoleon defeated the Prussians, America defeated afghanistan.

it also has to do with military power if I high ranking officer disciplines an officer of lower rank but that lower rank officer is the cousin of so and so, then there is a problem for the high ranking officer, thus a lack of discipline pervades

Average IQ by country:

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