Hi tekboy; Re the reason for the fact that the Arab countries (as well as every other 3rd world country) have ineffective armies.
(1) It's partly about psychological training. The 1st world spent a lot of effort figuring out how effective training is done and the 3rd world just hasn't figured it out. Possibly the most important thing that the US figured out since WW2 is how to train soldiers to kill. It turns out that humans are, by nature, fairly peaceful creatures, and tend to prefer alternatives to violence: cowering, running away, or giving a threat display (shooting over their heads). The classic study was by S. L. Marshall in WW2:
Men Against Fire: The Problem of Battle Command
S. L. A. "Slam" Marshall was a veteran of World War I and a combat historian during World War II. He startled the military and civilian world in 1947 by announcing that, in an average infantry company, no more than one in four soldiers actually fired their weapons while in contact with the enemy. His contention was based on interviews he conducted immediately after combat in both the European and Pacific theaters of World War II.
To remedy the gunfire imbalance he proposed changes to infantry training designed to ensure that American soldiers in future wars brought more fire upon the enemy. His studies during the Korean War showed that the ratio of fire had more than doubled since World War II.
"This is one of the great volumes on fighting published since World War II and should be required reading for every staff officer as well as every combat officer of the arms which fight on the ground. It deserves a place among the really great volumes on combat and command." -- Military Affairs
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Here's a US military reference:
American military leaders have been very successful in their task to create combat-effective units. In response to the War Department’s World War II research that revealed that less than 25% of riflemen fired their weapons in combat, the military instituted training techniques—such as fire commands, battle drills, and realistic marksmanship ranges--that resulted in much improved combat firing rates. In the Korean War, 55% of the riflemen fired their weapons at the enemy,[1]and by the Vietnam War that rate had increased to 90%.
...
By conducting extensive post-combat interviews, Marshall discovered that the great majority of combat soldiers were unable to overcome their moral reservations about killing. [6] He documented the stunning fact that less than 25% of the rifleman in combat fired their weapons, and “that fear of killing, rather than fear of being killed, was the most common cause of battle failure.”[7] Furthermore, his researchers found that the willingness (and unwillingness) of soldiers to fire their weapons was a constant—the same minority of soldiers fired their weapons in successive battles; rarely did a non-firer become a firer. He concluded that the military training of that day made the already-willing soldiers more skilled at killing, but it did not make all--or even most—soldiers willing to kill in combat.[8]
Marshall’s research has survived the test of time. Subsequent historical studies of over one-hundred pre-WW II battles have corroborated Marshall’s observation that most soldiers were unable to overcome their own aversion to killing another person. [9] For example, battle reenactments and laser test trials have indicated that casualty rates in past battles should have been much higher than they actually were, and presumably would have been greater if most of the combatants had fired their weapons.
...
This conditioning, this training on pop-up marksmanship ranges, does enable soldiers to kill on the battlefield, and the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu provides great evidence of that. In that 17-hour fight, a few hundred soldiers from Task Force Ranger and the 10th Mountain Division battled thousands of Somalis in fierce, urban combat. The Americans suffered only eighteen dead, while they killed an estimated 300-1000 Somalis. They achieved this extraordinary casualty ratio by being well-trained.
...
I just started picking them out as they were running across the intersection two blocks away, and it was weird because it was so much easier than you would think. You hear all these stories about "the first time you kill somebody is very hard." And it was so much like basic training, they were just targets out there, and I don't know if it was the training that we had ingrained in us, but it seemed to me it was just like a moving target range, and you could just hit the target and watch it fall and hit the target and watch it fall, and it wasn't real. They were far enough away so that you didn't see, or I didn't see, all the guts and the gore and things like that, but you would just see this target running across in your sight picture, you pull the trigger and the target would fall, so it was a lot easier then than it is now, as far as that goes.[23] [italics added]
...
Many military officers disputed Marshall’s findings, which did not surprise him. “In the course of holding post-combat interviews with approximately four hundred infantry companies in the Central Pacific and European Theaters, [Marshall] did not find one battalion, company, or platoon commander who had made the slightest effort to determine how many of his men had actually engaged the enemy with a weapon.” Marshall had discovered that what the military’s leaders had taken for granted—that well-trained soldiers will utilize their training to kill the enemy—was a false assumption.
There are reasonable explanations for officers’ unwillingness to accept Marshall’s findings. For one, relatively few officers had ever personally experienced the difficult task of an infantryman—they had not looked down the sights of a weapon and tried to kill someone; that wasn’t their job. Marshall’s research revealed that the typical soldier’s resistance to killing another person was “unrealized” until that moment of truth when it was time for him to fire his weapon. Having not themselves faced that critical juncture, it’s understandable that officers would discount it.
Furthermore, some officers objected to Marshall’s findings because they felt that they besmirched the honor of their soldiers. In fact, though, Marshall went out of his way to emphasize that soldiers’ failure to fire their weapons was not indicative of cowardice. He noted that most non-firers performed important and dangerous tasks, such as providing medical aid, distributing and delivering ammunition, and running messages, that supported their firing comrades.
usafa.af.mil
I think this book covers the subject as well:
Acts of War: The behavior of Men in Battle
shop.barnesandnoble.com
(2) Along with improvements in psychological training, the 1st world also has a better selection process. Volunteer armies tend to be more motivated, but more importantly, the US Army gives psychological tests to screen people who are queasy about killing away from the front line. The 3rd world, by contrast, either takes conscripts, or worse (coercion, graft, etc.).
(3) And the 1st world does have slightly better weapons, and usually huge supplies of ammunition and other supplies.
(4) Air power is very important.
There is nothing particularly bad about the Arab armies. It's just that they're at the same level of every other 3rd world army, about 50 years out of date.
These are things that are very important to the US' foreign policy because if these 3rd world nations ever catch a clue and start training their armies better we wouldn't be able to walk over them with minimal casualties. We could still beat them, but it would take a lot more of our guys.
-- Carl |
