Article

2003-06-10 Iraq

Edited for the good bits. Read the whole thing, as they say.

IF THE insularity of a police state breeds weakness, it can, however, also foster a peculiar kind of ephemeral strengthâalbeit one whose destructive force is more often turned inward in the guise of terror than outward in the form of real power. In the first Gulf war, a third of a million Iraqi soldiers either surrendered with little fighting or deserted before the shooting started. But the more startling fact may be that at least another quarter-million survived the war and returned home to train their rifles on their own unhappy people. Republican Guardsmen who had romped into Kuwait in the summer of 1990 to loot, rape, and murder, and who in late February 1991 were mauled in a few minutes by the 1st Armored Division at the Medina Ridge, had recouped sufficiently only days later to slaughter mostly unarmed Kurds and Shiites by the tens of thousands. (Twelve years later, some of these same Guardsmen or their younger brothers and cousins would themselves be annihilated in less than two weeks by American airpower, Marines, and the 3rd Mechanized Division.)

This dual tendencyâto run before competent enemies and to murder innocents at homeâis another reflection of a broader military and indeed societal pathology. As Pollack stresses, Arab societies do not produce indigenous sophisticated weaponry. Indeed, their militaries are almost entirely parasitic on Western or westernized arms industries. The need to import weaponry means that their systems are always a generation behind, and this institutionalized obsolescence inevitably portends defeat when fighting is not intramural but rather cross-cultural, against the societies that design and make such arms in the first place.

Posted by mojo 2003-06-10 01:49 pm|| || Front Page|| [11136 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Makes sense to me.
As has been pointed out many times before: The Arab societies are not coming from the same place as the western world. They have NEVER had a real democracy, and as tribal societies, don't even have a sense of nationhood. They are culturally (and for the most part, intellectually) in what western society went through during the dark ages or medieval times. They need at least one generation and probably two generations to obtain the education and infrastructure to even attempt a democratic society, and they are not going to get it. What they will get is another man with a moustache, like uncle saddam. Damn shame. Just a damn shame.

Posted by Anonymous Troll 2003-06-11 00:44:27|| 2003-06-11 00:44:27|| Front Page Top

#2 I hate to disagree but the military capabilities of a nation depend on its political, economic and military institutions. Men seldom fight hard as they might if an option other than a police state beckons. One should recall a million Russians fought for the Germans in WWII. Further. the Vietnamese fought well, because their military institutions were well thought out and developed. The Jordanians have performed consistently well, while the Iraqis have performed in a manner that made the Italians look like Prussians. Technology is a misleading indicator of a nations military capabilities.

Posted by TJ Jackson 2003-06-11 03:12:23|| 2003-06-11 03:12:23|| Front Page Top

#3 The Italians didn't fight that badly in WWI (cf Vittorio Venetto) but in WWII they found that they had no weapon able to deal with the Matilda tank and that second line units still had guns without hydraulic brakes (BTW such guns were invented around 1890). To undestand what that means look at a Secession War or Napoleonic movie: each time a gun is fired the recoil moves it backwards by several yards: this not only slows fire but it also makes fire correction impossible: the British would observe where the shell had gone and shorten or lenghten their fire until it was right on target. Italian units who had those jukyard guns couldn't. Having a bad government, a bad cause, bad officers, bad training are moral destroyers, but nothing worse than having equipment who doesn't keep you alive (by killing the ennemy).

About the Jordanians: they stood aside from Kippour so the only reference against Israel is 1967 where the Israelis exerced some restraint for political reasons. The American military attache could observe them during the 1970 war agsint Palestinians and told they were lousy fighters.

For the Prussians: are you referring to those 6000 Prussians manning a fortress who surrendered to tiny force of Napoleon's cavalry?

Posted by JFM 2003-06-11 04:45:13|| 2003-06-11 04:45:13|| Front Page Top

#4 This is all interwoven. Good technology comes from the freedom to pursue good ideas. Political, economic and military institutions are all reflective of the values the population of a state holds dear, believes in. From those come come the technical skills required on the battlefield.

Or to put it another way, the old saw is backwards. Right makes Might. Having an accurate idea of how reality works, instead of dreams and idealistic fantasies of how it "should" work, results in success on the battlefield. The side with the more accurate intel on the opponents capabilities, morale, intentions, as well as his own, and has a better understanding of physics and such, has an edge.

Posted by Ben 2003-06-11 04:54:04|| 2003-06-11 04:54:04|| Front Page Top

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