The Middle East and its armies

[unhappycamper]

http://atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MID-01-190914.html



The Middle East and its armies
By Brian M Downing
Sep 19, '14

Recent events have shown the ineffectiveness of armies in the Middle East, from Libya to Iraq, and extending beyond the region into Afghanistan. Training missions can teach troops to shoot and march and salute, but not to hold up under fire. Several armies have struggled or collapsed in recent conflicts, despite superior armaments, training, and numbers. Only a few have acquitted themselves well in battle.

The Libyan army collapsed in the face of lightly-armed rebels and a measure of NATO air support. The Syrian army has been driven from most of the country by a miscellany of rebel forces and can only maintain a stalemate with the help of Hisbollah and Iranian advisers. The Iraqi army was sent fleeing by a few thousand Islamic State (IS) troops and is only slowly regaining ground with outside help. And of course Saddam Hussein's army was devastated in a matter of a few days by the US and allies in 1991 and 2003.

Today, the prospect of 2,000 IS troops invading Saudi Arabia - a country with an army and national guard of several hundred thousand and a sizable air force - causes shudders in and out of the region.

These failures do not stem from Islam or colonial legacies. Nor are they restricted to the Middle East, as the Ukrainian army's timorous performance in Crimea demonstrated, perhaps especially to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Failures stem from organizational and demographic problems that are unlikely to be redressed in coming years. This has great import for regional security and for future alignments with outside powers.