Armies of Sand: The Past, Present, and Future of Arab Military Effectiveness

by Kenneth M. Pollack

Since the Second World War, Arab armed forces have consistently punched below their weight. They have lost many wars that by all rights they should have won, and in their best performances only ever achieved quite modest accomplishments. Over time, soldiers, scholars, and military experts have offered various explanations for this pattern. Reliance on Soviet military methods, the poor civil-military relations of the Arab world, the underdevelopment of the Arab states, and patterns of behavior derived from the wider Arab culture, have all been suggested as the ultimate source of Arab military difficulties.

In Armies of Sand, Kenneth M. Pollack's powerful and riveting history of Arab armies from the end of World War Two to the present, assesses these differing explanations and isolates the most important causes. Over the course of the book, he examines the combat performance of fifteen Arab armies and air forces in virtually every Middle Eastern war, from the Jordanians and Syrians in 1948 to Hizballah in 2006 and the Iraqis and ISIS in 2014-2017. He then compares these experiences to the performance of the Argentine, Chadian, Chinese, Cuban, North Korean, and South Vietnamese armed forces in their own combat operations during the twentieth century. The book ultimately concludes that reliance on Soviet doctrine was more of a help than a hindrance to the Arabs. In contrast, politicization and underdevelopment were both important factors limiting Arab military effectiveness, but patterns of behavior derived from the dominant Arab culture was the most important factor of all. Pollack closes with a discussion of the rapid changes occurring across the Arab world-political, economic, and cultural-as well as the rapid evolution in warmaking as a result of the information revolution. He suggests that because both Arab society and warfare are changing, the problems that have bedeviled Arab armed forces in the past could dissipate or even vanish in the future, with potentially dramatic consequences for the Middle East military balance. Sweeping in its historical coverage and highly accessible, this will be the go-to reference for anyone interested in the history of warfare in the Middle East since 1945.

Genres: History, Middle East, Military Fiction, Politics, Military History, Nonfiction, War

696 pages, Hardcover

First published December 6, 2018

Reviews

[Murtaza · Rating 4 out of 5]

The question as to why modern Arab national armies have performed so poorly in battle is a vexing one. Despite benefiting from huge infusions of Soviet, and later American, weaponry and training, the armies of Arab states continue to perform abysmally in every war that they fight, both internally and abroad. Interestingly though, non-state Arab armies tend to fight rather well, even exceptionally. Non-state groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah and Daesh have defeated or fought to a standstill massive armies, while Arab states endowed with heavy weaponry, aircraft and industrial support have failed to achieve military goals repeatedly.

This book is a very thorough and comprehensive attempt to unravel this paradox. For all his intellectual shortcomings during the height of the neoconservative period, Kenneth Pollack has been an expert on Arab militaries ever since his seminal “Arabs at War.” In this book, he methodically lays out his argument as to why he thinks Arab armies have failed. In his view the reasons are the politicization of armed forces, underdevelopment, but most importantly the cultural predispositions of Arab organizations that make them unsuited to modern warfare. Every era has a dominant mode of warfare and Arab states are just not able to produce armies with cultures that can compete under the present mode, which favors rapid low-level decisionmaking and improvisation by junior officers, as well as pilots.

The attributes of hierarchicalism, paternalism and respect for authority are common in Arab armies, Pollack argues. This actually makes them quite good at fighting set-piece battles. It makes them woeful, however, when it comes to the fast-moving improvisational nature of modern warfare. To put it another way Arab armies are not bad at strategy, but they are critically bad at tactics. While they have produced many decent generals and even some very good ones, junior officer performance has been catastrophic. Junior officers in modern Arab armies have shown themselves unable to improvise once battles start and pre-made plans necessarily must go out the window. They are routinely outmaneuvered and flummoxed by the rapidly changing circumstances characteristic of modern war. They have tended to rely on orders from the top that, among other things, are inevitably too slow in coming. They have been unable to maneuver in battle to defend themselves or to take advantage of opportunities when they arise, leaving them easy prey for fast moving adversaries even when they are far better armed.

Relatedly, military pilots have only been able to perform set maneuvers and have not shown the dynamism necessarily for modern aerial warfare. It is jarring to note that the Israeli Air Force scored an 86:0 kill ratio against the Syrians in the 1982 Lebanon War. The traditional explanation for this is that they have had superior aircraft technology because the United States arms Israel. But for decades the Arab armies had high-quality technology from the USSR and lately have gotten American weaponry too. They have just not been able to use them effectively or dynamically. Part of this is due to logistics and maintenance, but much more is due to poor pilot performance. The Chinese had similar handicaps in the Korean War, but their freshly-trained pilots, products of a poor and largely uneducated society, still did considerably better fighting against the WW2-hardened U.S. Air Force.

I’m not a big fan of cultural explanations for political phenomena. They can and do tend to lapse into lazy racism and orientalism. At the same time it is hard to argue that culture is irrelevant or nonexistent. We need explanations for otherwise inexplicable catastrophes like the 1967 Arab war against Israel and the collapse of the Iraqi armed forces in 2014. Listening to Pollack’s cultural explanations sometimes feels a bit archaic and Bernard Lewis-y. Having said that, he makes a relentless and thorough comparative case putting Arab armies side by side with Chinese, Argentinian and Chadian — all of whom faced similar problems with underdevelopment and politicization.

Only the Arab armies failed to compete every time throughout the 20th and early 21st centuries, despite often having serious material advantages over opponents and the undeniable bravery and unit cohesion of Arab soldiers. Their armies have just shown themselves to be very rigid, which makes them easy prey for the more tactically agile armed forces typical of the modern warfare. Their failures have nothing to do with “race,” but are rather related to the cultural habits of mass organizations. These happen to be changeable and undeniably are changing in the Arab world.

The question remains though, why is Hezbollah so effective? Or ISIS for that matter? The first caveat is that these groups are relatively effective. ISIS was able to push over an Iraqi army that had already been hollowed out by corruption and had been terrified by its relentless psychological warfare campaign. Once the U.S. Air Force turned their weapons on ISIS it was no longer able to sustain itself, even with marginal improvements in Iraqi military performance. Hezbollah has done better, but even in the 2006 war where it defeated Israel its casualty rate was something like 5:1. The Israelis just happened to have low tolerance for losses. In Syria as well Hezbollah has mostly fought inferior civilian militias and has deployed its most elite, battle-hardened cadres for major battles.

Nonetheless, these groups do fight better than armies. A big reason for this is that non-state groups operate on a cell-based structure. This is because both Hezbollah and ISIS had their origins in clandestine terrorist groups, where cells were the norm. This structure actually forces tactical level decision-making by commanders, since there is not usually even a hierarchy to appeal to for support during battle. Both these groups were also freed from the heavily-politicized bureaucracies typical of modern Arab armies. They are able to operate quickly, responsively and even at times meritocratically, which makes them better than Arab armies though still not necessarily world class. ISIS in particular has also benefited from the contributions of foreign fighters bringing the military-friendly gifts of their own cultures, as well as attracting “uncommon” people from the Arab world who, one could say, are liable to think with more radical individualism and less respect for authority and hierarchy than their more well-adjusted compatriots.

I’m not sure how to evaluate Pollack’s skills as a compiler of representative sources on cultural psychology. But he is a good military historian. He runs through a detailed, massive litany of battles fought in the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Latin America. A subtext of the book is the incredible waste of wealth and humanity wrought by the repeated creation and destruction of these giant military apparatuses in developing countries. He concludes by pointing out that the Arab world is presently experiencing a massive and revolutionary cultural flux, which may end up making it more suited to the next generation of warfare. Even without such changes, a future dominant mode of warfare that is more heavily reliant on the strategic use of advanced technology and less on the tactical acuity of junior commanders could end up reversing present military imbalances. Such a change in relevant strengths would lead to serious geopolitical consequences in the Middle East, as strategic-level Arab commanders are quite competent.

I was mainly interested in this book for two reasons. The first is that I was always perplexed at the bad performance of Arab militaries against Israel, against Iran and even against their own poorly-armed domestic insurgencies. But militaries have also been the typical social engineering laboratories of postcolonial societies and I was interested in whether the failure of Arab armies might be due to the “flawed modernity” that often results from trying to adopt unsuitable institutions from abroad. I think that the book did tend to confirm a degree of this. Regardless of whether Pollack’s cultural thesis is correct (to his credit he acknowledges the irreducible complexity of the question), I respect the level of work and thoroughness that went into constructing this book.

[Christian D. D. · Rating 5 out of 5]

My professional acquaintance, Ken Pollack, current American Enterprise Institute (AEI) scholar and former CIA analyst, has written an outstanding book that is a must-read for anybody wanting to gain a fuller sense of perspective on the current security situation in the Middle East as well as the history going back to the early days of the Cold War, i.e. the immediate post-WWWII era. The book examines various hypotheses in an effort to explain the underwhelming performance of Arab armies (and air forces; the navies don't really get any coverage here), from alleged over-reliance on Soviet doctrine to economic underdevelopment to politicization to (ultimately most significantly, as it turns out) longstanding cultural factors & traits.

It's also an excellent book for military history buffs in general and readers with an interest in Arab culture. Furthermore, it is NOT an anti-Arab polemic (contrary to what any race-baitig PC Thought Police might assume), as Mr. Pollack gives a fair & balanced (if you'll pardon me for plagiarizing Fox News's slogan) big picture historical perspective that covers not merely Arab military failures but their successes, from the Jordanians in 1948 to the Egyptians in the initial phases on the 1973 War to the Syrian commandos in 1982 to the Iraqis in the last two years of the Iran-Iraq War (1987-88), and especially non-state (terrorist) armies such as Hezbollah and the Islamic State/ISIS/ISIL/Da'esh. And while Ken's overall assessment of the past and recent history of Arab military performance is rather dim, he concludes with indications that there is still plenty of potential for significant improvement, especially with the advancements of 21st century technology and the accompanying cultural shifts.

Highly recommended.

RANDOM STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS:

pp. 18-19: “Meanwhile, in their 1980 invasion of Iran, the Iraqis turned in a performance that rivaled Arab experiences in the Six-Day War for ineptitude. They would eventually go on to eke out a meager victory over an isolated and exhausted Iran in 1988, only to be crushed by the US-led Coalition during the Persian Gulf War two years later. The Saudis and Egyptians both participated in that conflict too, but did nothing to impress.” Actually, in fairness, I daresay that the Royal Saudi **Air Force** did pretty well in that campaign, but their Army, not so much.

—p. 21: “Finally, I am going to look at the exceptions to the rule. Not every Arab military stunk. Some did notably better than others, whether the Jordanians in 1948, the Egyptians in 1973, the Iraqis in 1988, Hizballah in 2006, or ISIS/ Da’ish in 2014. These are critically important. For any explanation to be worthwhile, these outliers need to be exceptions that prove the rule, rather than exceptions that it just can’t explain.”

—p. 31: “US military personnel have frequently expressed a high degree of respect for many of the Emirati senior officers they have worked and fought with since 2011.” Interesting; 2011 was the year I arrived in the UAE for my contract assignment with the Abu Dhabi’s equivalent of the JROTC programme.

“The extensive American experience in Iraq since 2003 has provided a wealth of insight into the Iraqi officer corps, and US personnel can point to Iraqi generals who range from superb leaders to utter incompetents, and everything in-between.” I can personally vouch for this.

-p. 35: “Finally, like many of the Gulf Arab states, the post-Saddam Iraqis have had to bring in Western contractors to handle the most sophisticated Western weapons, such as their M1 tanks and F-16 fighters, which have proven too advanced for their own personnel to sustain.” Once again, I can personally vouch for this (Lockheed Martin was doing the arming and maintenance).

—p. 36: “the neglect of Egyptian enlisted personnel shown by their officers.” Reminds me of what Richard “Demo Dick” Marcinko (CDR, USN, Ret.) AKA The Rogue Warrior, founding C.O. of SEAL Team 6, observed in the early 1980s about the Egyptian officers corps treating their enlisted troops like “manservants.”

—p. 40: “Arab military history demonstrates that of all the problems experienced by the Arabs in combat since 1945, a pervasive cowardice has not been among them. It puts the lie to the slanders of those who have dismissed the Arabs as cowardly soldiers.” And most of the IqAF soldiers I interacted with, trained, and mentored didn’t strike me as cowards. Some were lazy and prone to goofing off, but certainly not cowards.

—p. 41: “Indeed, what is truly noteworthy about Iraqi performance in the Gulf War is not that 200,000–400,000 deserted or surrendered to coalition ground forces, but that after 39 days of constant air attack, the destruction of their logistical distribution network, their lack of commitment to the cause, and their clear inferiority to Coalition forces, another 100,000–200,000 Iraqi troops actually stood their ground.”

—p. 53: “Soviet doctrine also emphasizes reliance on maneuver to concentrate overwhelming mass at the decisive point of the front (the schwerpunkt, as the Germans termed it).” Hey, sounds also like the Jominian concept of concentration (from the Napoleonic era) taught to the West Point students who eventually became generals on both sides of the American Civil War.

—p. 243: “If you have been paying attention at all to the earlier chapters of this book, you will recognize that weapons handling has been one of the big problems of the Arab armed forces since 1945.” Yep, I and my fellow expat security contractors have consistently observed piss-poor and unsafe weapons handling amongst the Emiratis and Iraqis alike.

—p. 245: “A common Middle Eastern joke is to explain that the Arabic word for ‘tomorrow,’ bokhra, carries a similar connotation to the Spanish mañana, but without the same sense of urgency.” Ditto for their use of “inshallah.”

“At other times, however, they did a superb job, with the Egyptians in 1973 and the Iraqis in 1987–1991 leading the way. I could easily add the Jordanians in 1948, the Syrians in 1973, **and at least part of the Iraqi security forces in 2015–2017**.” (emphasis added) Yep; the IqAF troops I initially trained & mentored at Balad back in 2015 showed a lot of eagerness and enthusiasm for learning.

—p. 305: “For instance, in 1980, the Libyan garrison at Abeche was provided with piped-in music, sports facilities, air conditioning, an irrigated wheat field, and even a Guernsey cow for the commander’s milk.” And at Balad Airbase from 2015-2018, the base commander(s) had either a private sheep farm or a koi pond!

—p. 363: “I’m certainly not the first person, or the first Westerner, to write about Arab culture. Unfortunately some who went before me treated it in a cavalier fashion that veered off into stereotyping, racism, and other problems. Moreover, in the West, there are many common notions associated with the Arab world that are exaggerated, outdated, or just inaccurate. One of the rules for handling a topic as ineffable and potentially dangerous as culture is to be precise. So let me be precise.....Just as I do not consider the dominant Arab culture to be the traditional Bedouin culture, I also do not consider Arab culture to be identical to the religion of Islam. Although the overwhelming number of Arabs are Muslims, a textual evaluation of the Islamic religion does not provide the key to patterns of culturally regular Arab behavior.” Good on ya, Ken! So many Westerners are so damn ignorant in this regard.

—p. 364: “It is generally the case that a religion is constantly reinterpreted to meet the changing needs of its community—needs that are expressed in its culture. One need only look to the ever-evolving doctrine of the Catholic Church to see this in action.” Dominus Vobiscum!

—p. 369: “For example, a great many authors see a pervasive fatalism among Arabs (something I and other frequent visitors to the Middle East have certainly encountered).” One of my former CBP colleagues, told of a story from his Army Airborne days of training with their Egyptian counterparts: if the Egyptian paratrooper’s main parachutes failed to open, they wouldn’t bother opening their reserve chutes, because “inshallah” that the main didn’t open, and chose to fall to their deaths instead.

—p. 373: “The tendency of the dominant culture to discourage innovation and creativity is among the more striking features noted by many Western observers of the Middle East.” The Al Bayariq Leadership Program in Abu Dhabi that I worked on with a company called Al-Shaheen Adventure LLC from 2011-2012 did try to foster more creativity and innovation, but with only limited success.

—p. 389: “This is how Arab society values technical work and manual labor. There is a consensus within the scholarly literature that Arab culture evinces a disdain for both.” I’ve found this to be especially prevalent in the Gulf states (Kuwait, Qatar, UAE), hence the overwhelming number of expat and Third Country National (TCN) workers; the only Emiratis I knew of who were willing to engage in manual labor were those of partial Western parentage and/or lived in the U.S. for a significant amount of time. Conversely, I’ve found this attitude to be less prevalent amongst Iraqis, Jordanians, and Egyptians.

—p. 415: “It isn’t found in the formal curriculum. You won’t find a class in any Arab school called ‘Conformism 101.’ Instead, you will find it in the teaching method itself: in how students are taught to think, to learn, and to behave.” Going back to my aforementioned Al-Bayariq experience, again, we tried to improve on this, but with only limited success. But then again, their cultural well-mannered rigid obedience of authority was a tad more selective when it came to expat teachers/instructors vs. Arab authority figures.

—p. 424, 426: “In recent decades, there has been some movement toward reforming the educational method in some parts of the Arab world, with the larger reform agendas of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE singling out education as key targets for fundamental transformation. However, such efforts have still been modest so far, and it remains to be seen how far the changes will go and whether they will last.....American instructors in the Middle East had to go to great lengths to design special programs to allow real give-and-take between the students and teachers.” Like I was saying.

—p. 439: “While it is possible that powerful socializing institutions such as the armed forces can teach their members to think and act differently from the wider society, it is not the norm. Throughout history, most militaries have trained their troops in ways that tended to mirror that of their wider society. When that happens, military training reinforces the behavioral patterns inculcated by civilian education, formal and informal. In the case of the Arab states since the Second World War, their military training overwhelmingly mimicked the family childrearing and school-teaching practices of their wider society. In this way, military training in the Arab armed forces reinforced the behavioral patterns emphasized by the dominant societal culture.”

“As a side note before diving in, every one of the aspects of Arab military training I describe below, often backed up by various historical examples, is something that I have had repeatedly confirmed to me by American or Western trainers (and often experienced myself) in Iraq, Jordan, Egypt, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia during my 30 years of experience with Arab militaries.”

—p. 440: “For the most part, operations in Arab militaries are conducted “by the book.” Arab armed forces teach their soldiers and officers there is only one right answer to any military problem, and only one right way of handling a situation. This right answer is then practiced constantly until it can be performed unthinking from memory. This approach is employed in battle regardless of other factors such as terrain, mission, the forces available, or the enemy’s strength and disposition.”

“Arab military personnel are typically taught that the “school solution” is not one they are expected to figure out on their own on the spot. Instead, the correct approach will be told them by higher authority. Arab soldiers and junior officers are generally taught not to act on their own, but to wait for orders from their superiors.”

—p. 441: “Arab soldiers and officers almost universally have been taught only a small range of specific skills narrowly related to their mission. Just as Arab schoolchildren are taught to consider different subjects discrete and unrelated, so too Arab military personnel have been taught to consider the different elements of modern armed forces to be discrete and unrelated.”

“Arab armed forces generally suffer from having too little practical field exercises to hone their skills. Like Arab schoolchildren, Arab military units are taught skills but haven’t always been allowed to practice them. Instead, skills and operations are typically demonstrated to them by instructors, and the trainees are made to practice only the simple sub-elements that would have to be combined into more involved procedures in battle. Field exercises tend to be insufficient or nonexistent among most Arab armies, while Arab pilots regularly log far fewer flying hours than their Israeli or NATO counterparts.”

—p. 442: “At every level, Arab drills and maneuvers are heavily scripted....Even worse, Arab soldiers and officers are frequently graded on how they perform their specific task and not whether they accomplished the overall goals of the exercise.”

—p. 443: “In general, Arab training has rarely, if ever, attempted to simulate the real problems of battle by unexpectedly changing familiar activities, introducing novel forces or situations, or otherwise surprising the participants. Instead, training drills remain absolutely unchanged from one iteration to the next, and training maneuvers followed the same scripts time and again with little variation. 17 Indeed, American trainers in Iraq in 2003–2011 and 2014–2017 complained endlessly about these problems and their frustration in trying to get the Iraqis to change their ways.”

—p. 444: “In virtually all of the Arab militaries, training manuals are typically Arabic translations of British, Russian, and (increasingly) American manuals that are rarely read or taught, let alone put into practice.” Case in point: the Emiratis misinterpretation of the British Army drill manuals via the silly concepts of “Salute to the Left/Right.”

—p. 450: “of military training could condition them to act differently from the manner encouraged by the society at large, Arab military training does not do so. Instead, Arab military programs, modeled as they are on the educational methods of the larger society, reinforce these patterns of behavior. The result are soldiers and officers conditioned to act and think in certain ways—ways that reflect the values and priorities of the dominant culture.”

—p. 491: “An important difference between Shi’a and Sunni Islam is the concept of ijtihad, meaning independent reasoning or interpretation. Most schools of Sunni Islam argue against ijtihad, insisting that the Quran should be taken literally.....Israelis, for that matter) claim that this instills a greater willingness among Shi’a to think for themselves, rather than simply waiting for an authority figure to tell them how to act.” Say, a bit like Catholicism vs. Protestant Fundamentalism.

—p. 514: “When a man (or less often, woman) comes to power of any kind in the Arab world, it is expected that he will bring his relatives, clansmen, tribesmen, and coreligionists/ co-ethnicists in with him and give them plum positions within the hierarchy he controls.” As the one saying goes, “Birds of a feather flock together,” or as Dr. Steve Lamy at the USC School of International Relations likes to say, “People seek cognitive consistency and avoid cognitive dissonance.”

—p. 520: “Indeed, globalization has had a profound impact on the Arab world already. It made the Arab Spring possible, and it is now reshaping Arab culture. Thus economic change bred political change that is now evolving into cultural change. There is a growing willingness of people to speak their minds. The younger generation is less willing to blindly follow authority figures. More are willing to take action to change their circumstances (a trait that Hizballah, Da’ish, and other new model Arab armies have doubtlessly benefited from). Experts on the Arab world note that childrearing practices are changing in response. ‘The available data consistently show . . . fewer parents viewing obedience as their primary goal, and more saying they encourage independence and use praise and reasoning to shape their children’s behavior,’ according to Gregg. Other anthropologists have found that better-educated parents are becoming more concerned with the success of their children in school rather than just instilling loyalty to the extended family. In other words, the politics, economics, and even the culture of the Arab world is changing, and changing in some remarkable ways. Thus, the fact that these three features of the Arab states conspired to cripple Arab armed forces in the past should not be taken as a sign that they will continue to do so in the future. At some point, they may no longer produce the same patterns of behavior that were so deleterious to Arab military effectiveness in the prior era. It will likely take several decades, but if the trend lines for change in the Arab world bear out, someday they may even benefit Arab armies in combat.” Going back to my stint in the UAE and Iraq, I saw some tentative hopeful signs of this as well.....or as the Arabs themselves might say, "Inshallah."

[Marcus · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good book overall. However, it suffers from one serious fault that somewhat undermines its value. The author does a great job of debunking individual explanatory variables when considering why Arab armies perform badly. What he fails to do is give much thought to the interaction between variables, and how this might change their explanatory power. For instance, he might be right that the Soviet influence is not a reason why Arab armies perform poorly, and that technological backwardness is likewise not a reason for their poor performance, but he rarely gives much thought to the possibility that two or three variables might be problematic when they are combined. This is just an example; I don't mean to suggest that these are the two causal variables at work. My point is only that this book, which is very good as it is currently written, falls short of being truly great by the way it treats variables in isolation, rather than considering potential interactions. I think the author's own thesis fails for this same reason. He is probably right that culture plays a big role in Arab military performance. However, I wasn't persuaded that it plays that role in isolation. I consider it far more likely that the real answer is culture's interaction with one or more of the variables he tries to dismiss.

[Sherif Gerges · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good and extremely educational for me; Armies of Sand addresses one of the most crucial topics for understanding the present geopolitical complexities and tensions among Middle Eastern states.

In Armies of Sand, Pollack examines four principal reasons for the ineffectiveness of Arab military forces: their adoption of Soviet military doctrine, the politicization of their officer corps, the bad economics of Arab societies, and—perhaps most significantly—Arab culture. Pollack's opinion is that it is the latter that explains the failings of Arab armies over the decades, and by juxtaposing Arab military forces with non-Arab forces from nations at similar stages of development, he (in my non-expert opinion ), convincingly disentangles the various reasons that explain Arab failing.

I was honestly taken aback, and not always in a comfortable way, by how directly Pollack points to elements like group conformity, strict obedience, and a lack of innovation as core traits, which he argues are ingrained through the region’s educational systems and play a crucial role in shaping military inefficiency.

Altogether, this is a great read although it was hard for me to assess the completeness of his analysis, although to my naive eyes it seemed very rigorous. This is the first book I've read on the subject, but will doubtlessly be reading more.

[teohjitkhiam · Rating 5 out of 5]

“The central conservative truth is that it is culture, not politics, that determines the success of a society. The central liberal truth is that politics can change a culture and save it from itself.” - Daniel Patrick Moynihan, U.S. politician, quoted

The Middle East since 1948 has and still remains the churning charnel grounds for Arab armies. With the rare few exceptions and some exceptional non-state actors, time and time again, Arab armed forces generally returned a dismal record despite in most instances possessing superior numbers and equipment. In 1967, “[t]he Arab coalition threatening Israel had every material advantage. Altogether..would deploy roughly 275,000 men against Israel with about 1,800 tanks, 2,000 armored personnel carriers (APCs), and 1,700 artillery pieces. For its part, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) would field about 130,000 troops with roughly 1,000 tanks, 450 APCs, and maybe 500 artillery pieces..” Yet within six days, the Arab coalition were ignominiously defeated, suffering heavy casualties and incurring great loss in equipment. In 1980, taking advantage of the political turmoil following the Islamic Revolution in Iran and of Iraq's material advantages, Saddam Hussein invaded Iran in hopes of quick victory but ended up in a quagmire for nearly a decade before settling for a return to status quo ante. Kenneth Pollack's Armies of Sand is an historical analysis of the reasons that supposedly frames the persistent failures of the varied Arab armies across the decades. By Pollack's own reckoning, there are four theories currently in favor supposedly explaining the largely dismal performances of the Arab armies from past to present: employment of Soviet doctrine, politicization i.e. skewed or inverted civil-military relations, socio-economic underdevelopment, and Arabic cultural patterns and predilections. The book is thus an auditing of those assertions against the historical evidences.

Pollack postulates that the Soviet doctrine has long been misunderstood. Robert Leonhard in The Art of Maneuver stated a similar opinion. This negative stereotyping largely arose from the persistent dismal performances of the many Soviet-trained and -equipped Arab armed forces and later by that of the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan after a decade of insurgent warfare that profusely bled the Red Army. Both authors contend that the Red Army's operational doctrine, typically portrayed as being highly rigid and solely dependent on massing of firepower, is maneuver-based from an operational level perspective despite its command-push orientation. The analysis of the performances the Cubans in the Angolan Civil War against South Africa and North Korea's invasion of South Korea against the UN/U.S. Forces, thus Pollack makes a convincing argument that Soviet doctrine is hardly to blame for the poor showing of the Arab armies in general. And that it was the Red Army juggernaut that steamrolled the Wehrmacht in the Second World War, the forge in which the Soviet doctrine was battle-tested and refined, is yet another testament. What seems at fault is the inflexible and unthinking application of Soviet doctrine, something that the Soviets themselves did not advocate, taken to its “logical” extreme. One of the more egregious example cited by Pollack is the Soviet doctrine of emphasizing ground-controlled interception (CGI) in air operations: In the 1982 Lebanon War, bereft of ground radar and communications, “[Syrian pilots flying MiGs] flew into combat mindlessly, making little or no effort to maneuver in dogfights with the Israelis.” 86 of those MiGs would be shot down with zero losses for the Israelis.

Both politicization and socio-economic undervelopment have long been a bugbear for less-developed and -industrialized countries in term of fielding a professional regular armed forces capable of undertaking sustained military operations against an external foe. Yet were both or one quite enough to explain away the poor showing of the Arab armies? Consider again, North Korea in 1950 and Cuba in 1975, both countries possessing highly-politicized armies and were underdeveloped at the point of their engagements. Pollack's analysis, if not at least the historical records, of the initial successes of North Korea's Soviet-equipped and -trained army in the early stages of the Korean War against the U.S. and likewise that of the Cubans in the Angolan Civil War that finally forced the retreat of the South African Defence Force across the border, is a persuasive counter-argument that politicization and underdevelopment may not necsesarily play an outsized role in the assessment of the expected performances of armies hailing from third world countries.

Thus Pollack is reduced to the sole remaining if somewhat controversial claim of a dominant Arabic culture as the Achilles' heel of Arab militaries. Herein lies the meat of the book. The author devotes approximately forty percent of the book in examining the cultural narrative and its impact on the Arab society. Understandably, there are trepidations when it comes to assessing cultural narratives. An assertion of a cultural narrative can or may lead to stereotyping, which if not correctly intrepreted, could in turn result in blind ethnocentrism. The 2012 UFMCS Red Team Handbook asserts that stereotyping, so long as it is not negative or distorted, serves well as a general template describing the sum of the society rather than that of the individual that forms part of it. Pollack himself writes, "it is critical to bear in mind that culture is least useful in understanding the behavior of an individual, and appears most readily in the behavior of large groups over time...Conversely, the collective actions of smaller groups, let alone individuals, are more likely to be shaped by idiosyncratic factors.” Pollack employs the "Delphi" method, a process used to arrive at a group opinion by surveying a panel of experts to circumvent his own personal experiences in order to arrive at an “objective” consensus of what he describes as a “dominant Arabic culture” that spans the Arab-denominated Middle East and North Africa.

The author describes the traits that forms the dominant Arabic culture within Arab family life, its impact on the method of education and management of civilian organizations, and the general state of Arab military training and practices. One of those traits described is the manipulation of information to avert shame (“ayb”) or its precautionary dissemination (“taqiyya”) in face of persecution. Pollack argues that it is practiced in Arab societies to preserve group loyalty, socially “correct” behavior, and out of fear of dishonor. It cascades into the military chain of command, whereby battlefield reports of adverse outcomes or total collapses are censored, redacted, or fabricated before being passed up to the chain of command, as the Egyptian high command discovered in the aftermath of the 1967 Six-Day War. To address the proverbial elephant in the room, Pollack does not consider Islam as framing the dominant Arabic culture but rather "religions are essentially products of a culture". Simply put, Islam did not shape Arabic culture but rather is shaped by it. The historian Robert Hoyland in his Arabia and the Arabs made some observations on this separately. Certain pre-Islamic "Jahilliyah" tribal practices described by Hoyland (stoning of offenders whom stole from temples) made a seamless transition into of the juridical and cultural fabric of some Arab countries (stoning in Arab Saudi as a judicial capital punishment) and accepted or declared as "Islamic”.

In conclusion, I am swayed by counter-arguments put forth by Pollack for non-cultural reasons and trepidatious at falling in line with arguments for a cultural narrative: a trait mentioned includes centralization and deference to authority, which is not out of place in Confucianism. The author convincingly conveys that the inflexible and unthinking practise of Soviet doctrine, regular politicization of the armed forces by Arab rulers and generals, and socioeconomic underdevelopment did affect the final report card on the many Arab armies in the field. Yet Pollack makes a compelling case that those reasons, alone or in combination, could not possibly be the chief cause(s) for the lackadaisal showing of the Arab armies over time. With regards to the dominant Arabic culture, he describes how its strengths are put on display in the brilliant set-piece offensive operations (Egypt in the 1973 October War) and mounting tenacious, courageous static defenses (Iraqi Republican Guards in the 1991 Gulf War). Arab rulers and generals could field a relatively small number of so-called “elite” troops but is judged by Pollack as constrained by the dominant Arab culture from fielding a larger standing number of the same quality from the general population. By the Darwinian process of incessant warfare, Arab rulers and generals have learn to play to the strengths of their armies rather than demand blood from stone as in the past.

[E. Kahn · Rating 2 out of 5]

SPOILER: It's Arab "culture," specifically education, that's to blame for bad performance by Arab armies, according to the author, anyway.

And yeah that's a spoiler because the author does not reveal his thesis until well past halfway into the book. Tsk tsk.

This is not a very convincing argument, honestly. The author peppers his description of Arab education (surprisingly homogeneous for a bunch of countries that basically just share a language group, again according to the author) with a bunch of doubtful anecdotes and misunderstood jokes, eg, a Moroccan teacher who allegedly taught his students that 3 times 4 is 11 because that's what it said in the textbook. When questioned about the obvious misprint, he supposedly said that it had been 12 in the previous textbooks, but because it was 11 in the new ones, he thought the result had changed. It's not a great joke, but it's very obviously a joke.

Another weird assertion: most Arab high school students do not read science books aside from the assigned textbooks. Has this man met any high school student from anywhere?

There's also a bunch of idiosyncratic spellings of Arabic nouns and that weird Wehrmacht worship that pervades the genre but that's kind of par for the course.

I'll give it two stars because the first few chapters provide entertaining accounts of military disasters and those are fun.

[Christian D. D. · Rating 5 out of 5]

My professional acquaintance, Ken Pollack, current American Enterprise Institute (AEI) scholar and former CIA analyst, has written an outstanding book that is a must-read for anybody wanting to gain a fuller sense of perspective on the current security situation in the Middle East as well as the history going back to the early days of the Cold War, i.e. the immediate post-WWWII era. The book examines various hypotheses in an effort to explain the underwhelming performance of Arab armies (and air forces; the navies don't really get any coverage here), from alleged over-reliance on Soviet doctrine to economic underdevelopment to politicization to (ultimately most significantly, as it turns out) longstanding cultural factors & traits.

It's also an excellent book for military history buffs in general and readers with an interest in Arab culture. Furthermore, it is NOT an anti-Arab polemic (contrary to what any race-baitig PC Thought Police might assume), as Mr. Pollack gives a fair & balanced (if you'll pardon me for plagiarizing Fox News's slogan) big picture historical perspective that covers not merely Arab military failures but their successes, from the Jordanians in 1948 to the Egyptians in the initial phases on the 1973 War to the Syrian commandos in 1982 to the Iraqis in the last two years of the Iran-Iraq War (1987-88), and especially non-state (terrorist) armies such as Hezbollah and the Islamic State/ISIS/ISIL/Da'esh. And while Ken's overall assessment of the past and recent history of Arab military performance is rather dim, he concludes with indications that there is still plenty of potential for significant improvement, especially with the advancements of 21st century technology and the accompanying cultural shifts.

Highly recommended.

RANDOM STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS:

pp. 18-19: “Meanwhile, in their 1980 invasion of Iran, the Iraqis turned in a performance that rivaled Arab experiences in the Six-Day War for ineptitude. They would eventually go on to eke out a meager victory over an isolated and exhausted Iran in 1988, only to be crushed by the US-led Coalition during the Persian Gulf War two years later. The Saudis and Egyptians both participated in that conflict too, but did nothing to impress.” Actually, in fairness, I daresay that the Royal Saudi **Air Force** did pretty well in that campaign, but their Army, not so much.

—p. 21: “Finally, I am going to look at the exceptions to the rule. Not every Arab military stunk. Some did notably better than others, whether the Jordanians in 1948, the Egyptians in 1973, the Iraqis in 1988, Hizballah in 2006, or ISIS/ Da’ish in 2014. These are critically important. For any explanation to be worthwhile, these outliers need to be exceptions that prove the rule, rather than exceptions that it just can’t explain.”

—p. 31: “US military personnel have frequently expressed a high degree of respect for many of the Emirati senior officers they have worked and fought with since 2011.” Interesting; 2011 was the year I arrived in the UAE for my contract assignment with the Abu Dhabi’s equivalent of the JROTC programme.

“The extensive American experience in Iraq since 2003 has provided a wealth of insight into the Iraqi officer corps, and US personnel can point to Iraqi generals who range from superb leaders to utter incompetents, and everything in-between.” I can personally vouch for this.

-p. 35: “Finally, like many of the Gulf Arab states, the post-Saddam Iraqis have had to bring in Western contractors to handle the most sophisticated Western weapons, such as their M1 tanks and F-16 fighters, which have proven too advanced for their own personnel to sustain.” Once again, I can personally vouch for this (Lockheed Martin was doing the arming and maintenance).

—p. 36: “the neglect of Egyptian enlisted personnel shown by their officers.” Reminds me of what Richard “Demo Dick” Marcinko (CDR, USN, Ret.) AKA The Rogue Warrior, founding C.O. of SEAL Team 6, observed in the early 1980s about the Egyptian officers corps treating their enlisted troops like “manservants.”

—p. 40: “Arab military history demonstrates that of all the problems experienced by the Arabs in combat since 1945, a pervasive cowardice has not been among them. It puts the lie to the slanders of those who have dismissed the Arabs as cowardly soldiers.” And most of the IqAF soldiers I interacted with, trained, and mentored didn’t strike me as cowards. Some were lazy and prone to goofing off, but certainly not cowards.

—p. 41: “Indeed, what is truly noteworthy about Iraqi performance in the Gulf War is not that 200,000–400,000 deserted or surrendered to coalition ground forces, but that after 39 days of constant air attack, the destruction of their logistical distribution network, their lack of commitment to the cause, and their clear inferiority to Coalition forces, another 100,000–200,000 Iraqi troops actually stood their ground.”

—p. 53: “Soviet doctrine also emphasizes reliance on maneuver to concentrate overwhelming mass at the decisive point of the front (the schwerpunkt, as the Germans termed it).” Hey, sounds also like the Jominian concept of concentration (from the Napoleonic era) taught to the West Point students who eventually became generals on both sides of the American Civil War.

—p. 243: “If you have been paying attention at all to the earlier chapters of this book, you will recognize that weapons handling has been one of the big problems of the Arab armed forces since 1945.” Yep, I and my fellow expat security contractors have consistently observed piss-poor and unsafe weapons handling amongst the Emiratis and Iraqis alike.

—p. 245: “A common Middle Eastern joke is to explain that the Arabic word for ‘tomorrow,’ bokhra, carries a similar connotation to the Spanish mañana, but without the same sense of urgency.” Ditto for their use of “inshallah.”

“At other times, however, they did a superb job, with the Egyptians in 1973 and the Iraqis in 1987–1991 leading the way. I could easily add the Jordanians in 1948, the Syrians in 1973, **and at least part of the Iraqi security forces in 2015–2017**.” (emphasis added) Yep; the IqAF troops I initially trained & mentored at Balad back in 2015 showed a lot of eagerness and enthusiasm for learning.

—p. 305: “For instance, in 1980, the Libyan garrison at Abeche was provided with piped-in music, sports facilities, air conditioning, an irrigated wheat field, and even a Guernsey cow for the commander’s milk.” And at Balad Airbase from 2015-2018, the base commander(s) had either a private sheep farm or a koi pond!

—p. 363: “I’m certainly not the first person, or the first Westerner, to write about Arab culture. Unfortunately some who went before me treated it in a cavalier fashion that veered off into stereotyping, racism, and other problems. Moreover, in the West, there are many common notions associated with the Arab world that are exaggerated, outdated, or just inaccurate. One of the rules for handling a topic as ineffable and potentially dangerous as culture is to be precise. So let me be precise.....Just as I do not consider the dominant Arab culture to be the traditional Bedouin culture, I also do not consider Arab culture to be identical to the religion of Islam. Although the overwhelming number of Arabs are Muslims, a textual evaluation of the Islamic religion does not provide the key to patterns of culturally regular Arab behavior.” Good on ya, Ken! So many Westerners are so damn ignorant in this regard.

—p. 364: “It is generally the case that a religion is constantly reinterpreted to meet the changing needs of its community—needs that are expressed in its culture. One need only look to the ever-evolving doctrine of the Catholic Church to see this in action.” Dominus Vobiscum!

—p. 369: “For example, a great many authors see a pervasive fatalism among Arabs (something I and other frequent visitors to the Middle East have certainly encountered).” One of my former CBP colleagues, told of a story from his Army Airborne days of training with their Egyptian counterparts: if the Egyptian paratrooper’s main parachutes failed to open, they wouldn’t bother opening their reserve chutes, because “inshallah” that the main didn’t open, and chose to fall to their deaths instead.

—p. 373: “The tendency of the dominant culture to discourage innovation and creativity is among the more striking features noted by many Western observers of the Middle East.” The Al Bayariq Leadership Program in Abu Dhabi that I worked on with a company called Al-Shaheen Adventure LLC from 2011-2012 did try to foster more creativity and innovation, but with only limited success.

—p. 389: “This is how Arab society values technical work and manual labor. There is a consensus within the scholarly literature that Arab culture evinces a disdain for both.” I’ve found this to be especially prevalent in the Gulf states (Kuwait, Qatar, UAE), hence the overwhelming number of expat and Third Country National (TCN) workers; the only Emiratis I knew of who were willing to engage in manual labor were those of partial Western parentage and/or lived in the U.S. for a significant amount of time. Conversely, I’ve found this attitude to be less prevalent amongst Iraqis, Jordanians, and Egyptians.

—p. 415: “It isn’t found in the formal curriculum. You won’t find a class in any Arab school called ‘Conformism 101.’ Instead, you will find it in the teaching method itself: in how students are taught to think, to learn, and to behave.” Going back to my aforementioned Al-Bayariq experience, again, we tried to improve on this, but with only limited success. But then again, their cultural well-mannered rigid obedience of authority was a tad more selective when it came to expat teachers/instructors vs. Arab authority figures.

—p. 424, 426: “In recent decades, there has been some movement toward reforming the educational method in some parts of the Arab world, with the larger reform agendas of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE singling out education as key targets for fundamental transformation. However, such efforts have still been modest so far, and it remains to be seen how far the changes will go and whether they will last.....American instructors in the Middle East had to go to great lengths to design special programs to allow real give-and-take between the students and teachers.” Like I was saying.

—p. 439: “While it is possible that powerful socializing institutions such as the armed forces can teach their members to think and act differently from the wider society, it is not the norm. Throughout history, most militaries have trained their troops in ways that tended to mirror that of their wider society. When that happens, military training reinforces the behavioral patterns inculcated by civilian education, formal and informal. In the case of the Arab states since the Second World War, their military training overwhelmingly mimicked the family childrearing and school-teaching practices of their wider society. In this way, military training in the Arab armed forces reinforced the behavioral patterns emphasized by the dominant societal culture.”

“As a side note before diving in, every one of the aspects of Arab military training I describe below, often backed up by various historical examples, is something that I have had repeatedly confirmed to me by American or Western trainers (and often experienced myself) in Iraq, Jordan, Egypt, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia during my 30 years of experience with Arab militaries.”

—p. 440: “For the most part, operations in Arab militaries are conducted “by the book.” Arab armed forces teach their soldiers and officers there is only one right answer to any military problem, and only one right way of handling a situation. This right answer is then practiced constantly until it can be performed unthinking from memory. This approach is employed in battle regardless of other factors such as terrain, mission, the forces available, or the enemy’s strength and disposition.”

“Arab military personnel are typically taught that the “school solution” is not one they are expected to figure out on their own on the spot. Instead, the correct approach will be told them by higher authority. Arab soldiers and junior officers are generally taught not to act on their own, but to wait for orders from their superiors.”

—p. 441: “Arab soldiers and officers almost universally have been taught only a small range of specific skills narrowly related to their mission. Just as Arab schoolchildren are taught to consider different subjects discrete and unrelated, so too Arab military personnel have been taught to consider the different elements of modern armed forces to be discrete and unrelated.”

“Arab armed forces generally suffer from having too little practical field exercises to hone their skills. Like Arab schoolchildren, Arab military units are taught skills but haven’t always been allowed to practice them. Instead, skills and operations are typically demonstrated to them by instructors, and the trainees are made to practice only the simple sub-elements that would have to be combined into more involved procedures in battle. Field exercises tend to be insufficient or nonexistent among most Arab armies, while Arab pilots regularly log far fewer flying hours than their Israeli or NATO counterparts.”

—p. 442: “At every level, Arab drills and maneuvers are heavily scripted....Even worse, Arab soldiers and officers are frequently graded on how they perform their specific task and not whether they accomplished the overall goals of the exercise.”

—p. 443: “In general, Arab training has rarely, if ever, attempted to simulate the real problems of battle by unexpectedly changing familiar activities, introducing novel forces or situations, or otherwise surprising the participants. Instead, training drills remain absolutely unchanged from one iteration to the next, and training maneuvers followed the same scripts time and again with little variation. 17 Indeed, American trainers in Iraq in 2003–2011 and 2014–2017 complained endlessly about these problems and their frustration in trying to get the Iraqis to change their ways.”

—p. 444: “In virtually all of the Arab militaries, training manuals are typically Arabic translations of British, Russian, and (increasingly) American manuals that are rarely read or taught, let alone put into practice.” Case in point: the Emiratis misinterpretation of the British Army drill manuals via the silly concepts of “Salute to the Left/Right.”

—p. 450: “of military training could condition them to act differently from the manner encouraged by the society at large, Arab military training does not do so. Instead, Arab military programs, modeled as they are on the educational methods of the larger society, reinforce these patterns of behavior. The result are soldiers and officers conditioned to act and think in certain ways—ways that reflect the values and priorities of the dominant culture.”

—p. 491: “An important difference between Shi’a and Sunni Islam is the concept of ijtihad, meaning independent reasoning or interpretation. Most schools of Sunni Islam argue against ijtihad, insisting that the Quran should be taken literally.....Israelis, for that matter) claim that this instills a greater willingness among Shi’a to think for themselves, rather than simply waiting for an authority figure to tell them how to act.” Say, a bit like Catholicism vs. Protestant Fundamentalism.

—p. 514: “When a man (or less often, woman) comes to power of any kind in the Arab world, it is expected that he will bring his relatives, clansmen, tribesmen, and coreligionists/ co-ethnicists in with him and give them plum positions within the hierarchy he controls.” As the one saying goes, “Birds of a feather flock together,” or as Dr. Steve Lamy at the USC School of International Relations likes to say, “People seek cognitive consistency and avoid cognitive dissonance.”

—p. 520: “Indeed, globalization has had a profound impact on the Arab world already. It made the Arab Spring possible, and it is now reshaping Arab culture. Thus economic change bred political change that is now evolving into cultural change. There is a growing willingness of people to speak their minds. The younger generation is less willing to blindly follow authority figures. More are willing to take action to change their circumstances (a trait that Hizballah, Da’ish, and other new model Arab armies have doubtlessly benefited from). Experts on the Arab world note that childrearing practices are changing in response. ‘The available data consistently show . . . fewer parents viewing obedience as their primary goal, and more saying they encourage independence and use praise and reasoning to shape their children’s behavior,’ according to Gregg. Other anthropologists have found that better-educated parents are becoming more concerned with the success of their children in school rather than just instilling loyalty to the extended family. In other words, the politics, economics, and even the culture of the Arab world is changing, and changing in some remarkable ways. Thus, the fact that these three features of the Arab states conspired to cripple Arab armed forces in the past should not be taken as a sign that they will continue to do so in the future. At some point, they may no longer produce the same patterns of behavior that were so deleterious to Arab military effectiveness in the prior era. It will likely take several decades, but if the trend lines for change in the Arab world bear out, someday they may even benefit Arab armies in combat.” Going back to my stint in the UAE and Iraq, I saw some tentative hopeful signs of this as well.....or as the Arabs themselves might say, "Inshallah."

[Random Guy · Rating 3 out of 5]

The mylitary analysys in this book is superficial at best. When an arab army goes to war it's failure has to be complete. For instance he describes Jordan in Six day war saying that htey have failed just as miserably as the rest of the arab armies. Their casualties were however comparable with Israels (700 killed vs 500 dead IDF troops, allmost 1 to 1) which cannot be said about any other front of this conflict, where jewish casualties were several orders of magnitude lower. He than describes Egypts involvment in North Yemen Civil war. Many authors have criticized Egypts deployment there, except they all fail to notice one tiny detail. The faction that Egypt supported did eventually come to power. That doesn't sound like a complete failure to me. Than the author goes on to talk about Iran-Iraq war. And again. it was a complete failure on the side of iraquis. But than he describes Iranian counteroffensive, stating that waves of mujahideen would tie the Iraqi units down creation oppenings for the remnants of Iranian military. How come there were only remants of Iranin regulars if all Iraquis did was getting trashed? Theis successes like battle of Dezful should have been mentioned as few and far between as they were.
Another part of his book is dedicated to the Soviet way of war. His point is that arab reliance on USSR for mylitary aid had nothing to do with their multiple failures. He describes how the Red Army changed throughout WW2, how it became more flexible and thus more effective but failes to notice lend lease role in said changes. About 70% of soviet radios during that period were american made irk and their quality was far superior to those made by soviets themselves (I'm not even talking about communication between units, early t-34 had intercomms so crappy gunner had to virtually hit driver on the shoulders with his feet in order to communicate with him). You can change your command structure as much as you like but if you can't, well, command it it will all be for not.
In order to proove his point Kenneth Pollack finds three examples of soviet proxys defeating american proxies and boy oh boy, there is so much wrong with each one of them. First is the North Korean offensive in summer 1950. Soviet trained army crushed the american trained one and even some US army units. That is a legit example, isn't it? Well, it isn't. The thing is ROK army was deliberatly underequipped lest Rhee gets any funny ideas about trying to reunite Korea by force while Stalin stood behind similar wishes from Kim and provided all necesary hardware. Thus during the aerly stage of the Korean war neither US ROK nor army had any AT assets capable of stopping a T-34. Rather than praising NKPA for their success one has to wonder why did it take them that long. Huderian would be in Pusan in a week or so. When hovever said AT assets started arriving on the Korean peninsular NKPA advance was grinded to a bloody halt.
The second example is the Ogaden war where Cubans helped Ethiopia repell Somalian offensive in said province. What's wrong with that one? Well, both Cubans and Somalians were soviet trained. Somali had a pro soviet goverment but Ethiopia also overtherw their NATO oriented ruller becoming a soviet satelite. In the end USSR desided to back the Ethiopians since their most famous poet had ethiopian background. It should also be mentioned that Cubans deployed T-62 tanks versus an army that still mostly relied on T-34 with only a few dozen newer T-55. It's a technological gap, not Desert Storm big but a technological gap still.
The final example also comes from Africa and this one is my favourite. It's Angola and Cuban deployment there. Pollack describes how Cubans defeated boer regulars and portuguese mercenaries alike but failes to notice how few these forces were. They still believed that it was Kongo and a hundred white mercenaries could defeat several thousand spear armed simbas. The africans, however, were learning. By 1970 they no longer brought spears to gun fight. For example in the Battle of Quifangondo there were only 100 portugese with 3 SADF artillery pieces.
Pollack than talks about ambush at Ebo as if it was some great milytary disaster, no less than Majuba hill reversed. He doesn't give any exact figures on troop strenght or losses though and for a good reason. The thing is SADF suffered no fatalities that day with only 1 WIA. Its UNITA allies suffered only 2 fatalities. In spite of being caught with their pents down South African quickly pulled themselves out of killing ground and met Cuban flanking force with devastating fire from vehicle mounted MGs. And no, they didn't lose 70 percent of their vehicles. Only the lead armored car was abandoned to the enemy. Others took some damage, some of them had to be towed, but they weren't lost. Cuban/MPLA casualty figure is unknown but is estimated as high as 60 men KIA. What a great sucsess!
Later in the text author describes the battle of Cassinga and how Cubans "got the worst of it". An entire cuban battalion was destroyed in an ambush by SADF paratroopers with as many as 150 fatalities.
And finally, Cuito Cuanavale. It was a draw rather than a victory in spite of Cuban fielding high end soviet hardware like SA-8 SAM while SADF suffered from both obsolete equipment and material shortage due to various embargos. But, no ammount of soviet arms or Cuban tactical ingenuity helped them win the civil war that dragged well into the 90 only being ended by Executive outcomes PMC. That PMC was made of the very same SADF soldiers that cubans have "defeated", how ironic.
But wait, some of you might say, what about Vietnam, namley 1975 offensive. While NVA was indeed backed by the USSR they weren't using soviet tactics. Soviet way of mechanized offensive is simply inaplicable to vietnamese terrain. Instead chralie used said terrain to their full advantage sneaking great masses of infantry behind ARVN positions. Bringing guerilla tactics to tank warfare is a Chineese trademark move. Book "Walker bulldog vs T-54" by Chris McNab describes a situation where an ARVN tank company finds it's position on a hill under intense NVA artyllery barage. They therefore deside to retreat to the opposite slope only to find enemy with RPG waiting for them. This tank company never returns to its firing position.
A rather long review, but have patience, we are closing to the conclusion. While soviets themselves achieved way more than any one of their proxies their way of war is still a part of the problem. Pollack than speaks about arab culture. I don't know first thing about cultural studies so I won't judge that part of the book, it could have some value.
The one interesting point about soviet military and culture/economics that Pollack misses is that a lot of arab countries remained capitalist in spite of collaborating with soviets. I've read a bunch of memoirs by former soviet military advisors ot Egypt. They mostly talk about chasing hooker and visiting strip bars. Neither of this forbiden capitalist pleasures were legally available to soviet citizens. Also a lot of soviet cpecialists military and civilian alike went to Egypt to purchse household appliances, most often Sharp tape recorder. So this people were often more concerned with material pleasures than sucsess of units they were advisiong.

[M · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good dissection of the causes of the middle eastern militaries' embarrassing performance in the last few decades.

The author was able to refute many popular ideas and dig deep down to a root cause which is related the current cultural traits of the population.

Albeit the approach to the culture was cautious, it wasn't -for me- properly presented in the context of the book. The author was able to hit many major points but misinterpreted some of the cultural traits and misattributed some of their causes.

Overall, the book is an eye-opening and well researched, recommended as a starting point into middle eastern military history.

[Jan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Impressive, extensive and perhaps 2-3 books (Arab Military Efficency, Middle East - and some other- military History - since 1945 and Culture and Warfare in one, but still worthwhile.

[Philip · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really interesting book in that it provides a good survey of American and general western military involvement throughout the world past ww2, which Pollack uses as a comparison point for Arab military involvement in their own sphere of influence during the same time period. It's really useful to see what the American opinion is on things post the second world war, as it feels like most popular culture is generally hyper focused on ww2, and also getting the general sentiments of how Americans feel about the Arab world and culture. Considering they've now spent so much time and money there I think it's important for Americans themselves and other occidentals to see the information and experience their military has generated.

For myself this was the first time I had read a fairly unbiased general summery of events like the Vietnam or Korean war, and it was surprising to see an American military analyst say generally nice things about the competence of their opponents in that time period. Pollack makes a point that these societies come from a completely different culture (usually Soviet influenced), and had totally different resources available to them, both which affected how they perform in combat. Pollack even notes that if it wasn't for the American ability to bring to bear overwhelming firepower NK could have been able to win the Korean War, this coming from an army which at the start of the conflict could only arm 25% of their men, the rest being given grenades or ordered to fight hand-to-hand. With examples like these Pollack starts to develop his theories on how culture impacts tactical combat ability.

This is also the first time I've read a sort of theoretical discussion about the nature of culture with it's practical applications. Pollack does begin to drift towards discussions of psychology, sociology, and anthropology, referencing Arabic scholars to make his points, which should give you an idea of the breadth of scope Pollack covers in this work. As a general reader I found this stuff fascinating and as a non-military person it brings to mind how important a developed and almost isolated military culture is to a nations defense strategy. The breadth Pollack covers also makes it difficult to provide a summary of his work, but I can say after reading that the conversation he provides is not purely military and so can hold interest to those not interested in reading about various wars. Honestly, a really important book to read for anyone interested in further insight into how the American military apparatus views the world.

Some quotes I liked:

Contrary to popular belief, Chinese forces rarely employed "human wave" attacks. Human wave assaults entail hurling masses of lightly armed infantry against an enemy position in an effort to take that position through shock and attrition. The idea is that the horde of soldiers will simply swamp the position despite their paucity of skills or weaponry. The Chinese regularly employed massed infantry tactics, but rarely human wave attacks. The differences are subtle but important.
In Korea, Chinese forces were so lightly armed that they could not generate adequate firepower for virtually any military operation. Consequently, the Chinese had to employ masses of infantry for those roles in which better-equipped armies would normally use firepower. Specifically, Chinese armies could not use firepower to cover the movements of a unit or to pin an adversary while another force maneuvered against it. Instead, the Chinese had to use infantry assaults for all of these tasks. In addition, the Chinese at times employed what they called the "short attack" -a variant of the Soviet echelon attack, albeit without tanks. In a short attack, Chinese infantry formations would repeatedly attack a narrow enemy defensive sector in hopes of wearing down the defenders and creating a breakthrough they could exploit. While manpower-intensive, both of these approaches represented more sophisticated uses of light infantry than what is traditionally meant by a "human-wave attack."
The most common Chinese tactic was to employ masses of infantry to keep constant pressure on a position-just as a Western force would use firepower to do the same-while other elements outflanked and enveloped the enemy position. Obviously, this resulted in terrible casualties because keeping pressure on a UN position required the Chinese to send large numbers of lightly armed infantry into the heavy firepower of US and allied units....Bloody or not, Chinese tactics were highly effective, securing victory after victory despite the lopsided imbalance in weapons and equipment. (Pg.313)

In other words, what made Sparta the greatest military of its era was its culture. Spartan culture was consciously engineered to produce large numbers of men who would axiomatically perform in the manner that was most conducive to success in the phalanx, and as long as Spartan culture continued to produce large numbers of such men, and as long as the phalanx was the dominant mode of war-making, Sparta was the greatest military power.
The same phenomenon was at work in later eras with English longbowmen, Parthian cataphracts, Mongol horse archers, Swiss pikemen, British men-of-arms, German panzer divisions, and any number of other dominant military forces that won not because of better technology, but because their societies produced relatively large numbers of men with a skill set that enabled them to use the existing technology in the best way possible. And because they produced considerably more such men than their rivals, in some cases having men uniquely able to employ the military technology of the era, they had an enormous advantage over their foes. (Pg.347)

Consequently, it is critical to bear in mind that culture is least useful in understanding the behavior of an individual, and appears most readily in the behavior of large groups over time. The larger the number of people, the more likely that their collective actions will reflect culturally regular patterns of behavior. Conversely, the collective actions of smaller groups. let alone individuals, are more likely to be shaped by idiosyncratic factors. This is because individual personalities can more easily shape group actions when the group is small. As groups get larger, their collective personality tends to increasingly reflect the culturally regular persona, rather than the quirks of individual members of the group. (Pg. 360)

In fact, Dwairy began his 2006 book on the practice of psychotherapy in the Arab world by warning, "Western counselors and therapists who work with Arab and/or Muslim clients usually realize immediately that they are not dealing with an independent individual, and discover the tremendous impact of the family, culture, and heritage on the client's thoughts, attitudes, feelings, and behavior." In study after study, Arab countries score very high in surveys of collective thought and behavior.
For these reasons, Rugh-a cultural anthropologist who has worked in a half-dozen Arab states-noted in her book on Egyptian families that "Individualism has little positive value in Egyptian society, and often is equated with a number of negative outcomes." She also relates a revealing story about an Egyptian class at an Egyptian university taught by an American professor, which had just read Thoreau's Walden: "The consensus of the class was that Thoreau was not accomplishing anything useful by his anti-social behavior; he had abrogated his role as a social being. He should in fact be considered 'crazy' and would be so considered if he should try to live in this way in the Egyptian context. The concept of self-realization and self-reliance were totally lost on the students." (Pg.381)

A number of authors argue that Islam, as it has come to be taught-although not necessarily as it was originally conceived-has worked against the spread of rationalism and technical knowledge. This has translated into the teaching of science by rote memorization with little attention to scientific methods of inquiry in many Arab primary and secondary schools. Pervez Hoodbhoy despairs that "Although Muslims form one-fifth of the world's population, they are barely noticeable in the world of scientific research, and Muslim countries are the most abjectly dependent among developing countries upon Western technology and know-how." Indeed, no less a scholar than Albert Hourani has written that in the dramatic expansion of education following independence in the 1950s, "there was a tendency to concentrate on academic education which would lead to government service or the liberal professions," because "the use of the hands as well as the mind, was alien to the concept of education" in Islamic culture. Tarek Heggy echoes the notion that this trend is a product of the twentieth century: before independence, few Arabs could afford the education and idleness of a government job, but post-independence, the establishment of public education and government guarantees of public-sector jobs for all college graduates suddenly made this a viable option of huge numbers of people. (Pg. 391)

The GLOBE study found that societal culture had a far greater impact on leadership, management, and organizational behavior than market forces and industry effects (i.e., industry-wide practices across societies). This and other such studies have increasingly demonstrated that, despite the Darwinian competition of the marketplace (akin to the competition of combat), organizations function very differently in different societies. They have found that this holds true even for businesses nominally owned by foreign entities, which have to take on the patterns of behavior of the host country to survive and thrive. (Pg.408)

In Arab schools, "A student . . . learns natural science or technology exactly as if it were sacral knowledge from the Koran and Hadith," according to Bassam Tibi. He has elsewhere written, "In Muslim societies, where higher institutions of learning have a deeply-rooted procedure of rote learning, the content of positive sciences adopted from Europe is treated in a similar fashion. Verses of the Quran are learned by heart because they are infallible and not to be inquired into. Immanuel Kant's Critiques or David Hume's Inquiry, now available in Arabic translation, are learned by heart in a similar manner and not conceived of in terms of their nature as a problem-oriented inquiry." Derek Hopwood has observed that even at modern Syrian universities there is an "Overemphasis on the reproduction of knowledge and examination-passing. Students complain that on graduation they are not good engineers or computer programmers, but that they have learned how to pass examinations." (Pg.429)

The first is a point about generalship. That is that one element of great generalship consists of knowing the abilities of your own forces (and those of the enemy) and conducting operations in ways that play to the strengths and capabilities of your own forces and do not demand that they accomplish things that are beyond them. This insight is at least as old as Sun Tzu, but it is too often forgotten in discussions of military leadership. These often revolve around questions of strategy, logistics, and weaponry, all of which are undoubtedly important. But as important as whether a particular strategy was the best one-or was logistically possible-is the question of whether the forces under a general's command were capable of executing it. Or if it played to their strengths and away from those of their enemy. Most of the operations devised by the most successful Arab generals weren't necessarily brilliant feats of strategy. Some were logistically impressive, but that too was only tangentially related to their success. These operations succeeded largely because the generals in question understood the forces under their command, their (limited) strengths and (significant) weaknesses, and they carefully crafted plans that their forces could handle, and eschewed strategies beyond the abilities of their troops. It is all well and good to argue that Iraq should have employed a mobile defense against the US-led coalition in 1991, but it's also absurd because Iraqi forces could not have executed one. Saddam's generals understood this and did the best they could, and in so doing, they salvaged a small but important victory from the wreckage of DESERT STORM. (pg.516)

[Ali Juhdi · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 Stars.
While the book makes a great argument that Arab armies are terrible it takes its sweet time explaining why.
It's not until 2/3rd of the book until the writer gets to the crux of the matter, and that the educational culture (both formal and informal) in Arab countries prioritize obedience to authority over creativity and innovativeness. This is a valid point that I noticed while going to school in different Arab countries and abroad.
However, the book fails to compare this educational system to other Asiatic systems such as the Japanese and the Chinese which also value obedience and encourage uniformity.

Overall great book, although I am not really that much of a fan of military history, I enjoyed the premise because it touches on many things in the Arab World beside military matters.

[Danny · Rating 3 out of 5]

Exhaustively researched, but ultimately flawed. I'm not a much of a military history guy, so this book was a bit of a slog, but Pollack's extensive research makes this book a must read for anyone focusing on the armies of the Middle East. Ultimately, however, some of his overall analysis is flawed. I particularly think that his comparison of Arab armies to those of Asian and Latin American militaries is problematic on several fronts. The level of blame Pollack places on Arab culture lacks a nuanced understanding of the region.

[K C · Rating 3 out of 5]

Much too long and detailed for me, who doesn't know the difference between a brigade and a battalion, and there were times when I wondered what had possessed me to pick up this book. But it was so clearly written and well structured and some of the case studies were so interesting, as I skimmed over many of the details, that in the end I felt it had given me a muchh clearer perspective on military strength in the Middle East and what is needed to succeed.

[Jerryno01 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Libro fantastico, scritto in maniera chiara. Oltre ad analizzare i problemi degli eserciti arabi, facendolo in maniera strutturata e progressiva (con parecchi esempi, che magari per un lettore non interessato potrebbero sembrare troppi) da bravo analista militare, offre degli interessanti insight finali sul futuro

[Joseph · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Past, Present, and Future of Arab Military Effectiveness
Armies of Sand: The Past, Present, and Future of Arab Military Effectiveness by Kenneth M. Pollack is an outstanding book by an author who has spent thirty years examining various Arab militaries. Pollack is a former CIA analyst who has written one of the great books in the study both of the modern Middle East and modern warfare.

Despite the fact that the Middle East has seen more conventional warfare than any other region of the world since 1945 – the region’s military history reflects the poor performance of Arab armies in these conflicts. Arab historians have often taken different views to explain the relative failure of Arab militaries to achieve their military objectives in the 20th century.

The fault Pollack surmises is not a lack of courage. He also dismisses theories that economic underdevelopment and reliance on the Soviet system were the primary factors. Communist Chinese forces in the Korean War overcame a lack of familiarity with modern technology to conduct maneuver warfare against an array of United Nations forces. In Ethiopia and again in Angola, the Cuban military was able to achieve feats of arms against a better motivated and highly trained South African forces along with their UNITA allies. Nor does he feel that the fact that many Arab military armies have been deployed as “palace guards” — meant to protect dictatorships against internal threats rather than external enemies was an important factor in underperformance.

The performance of Arab armies examined largely focuses outside the Francophone Arab countries and the author has little to say about the current Saudi, Sudanese and UAE efforts in Yemen or elsewhere. Indeed, the admission of Sudan is quite curious because the country has been continuously at war since 1983.

The book contains a number of useful case studies such as the performance of Syrian units during the 1982 Arab invasion of Lebanon in which the Israeli army became the first force to conquer the capital of an independent Arab state in centuries. The author provides detailed analysis of obscure conflicts such as Libya’s wars in Chad– a topic surely of interest to many contemporary readers given the Khalifa Haftar, one of the commanders in that campaign now leads the best armed faction in the current Libyan Civil War. The author heaps praise on the Chadians for fighting a flexible, raid centric type of warfare that succeeded in driving back the Libyan incursion but, it is unclear what role the French (and the CIA) played in Chad behind the scenes. But, there is no doubting Chadian military prowess indeed even today the Chadian armed forces are considered one of the most capable in Africa.

After much throat-clearing the author finally argues that it is culture which has led to the underperformance of Arab militaries. Arab culture does not reward innovative thinking and initiative taking by junior officers. For example, in 1973 a Syrian armored column penetrated deep into the Golan Heights. A mere 10 minutes form their objective the force went into night lagger in observance of their orders. There is no “strategic corporal” in Arab armies, Pollack suggests. Creative tactical thinking is not rewarded in Arab armies. In set piece actions where rehearsals can be conducted such as the 1973 Egyptian offensive across the Suez Canal, the Arab militaries perform well (indeed logistics and engineering are two areas where if anything Arab armies have overperformed historically). This theory may prove controversial to some but, there is no doubt this book along with his previous work “Arabs At War” are the definitive accounts of late 20th century Arab military performance.

[Baher Soliman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kenneth M. Pollack believes that the educational culture (formal and informal) in Arab countries gives priority to obedience to authority over creativity and innovation, and this is the reason for the lack of effectiveness and efficiency of Arab armies. He systematically presents his argument for why he believes Arab armies failed. In his view, the reasons are the politicization of the armed forces, but more importantly the cultural predispositions of Arab organizations that make them unsuitable for modern warfare. Every era has a dominant style of warfare, and Arab countries are unable to produce armies with competitive cultures under the current situation, which favors quick, low-level decision-making and improvisation by junior officers, as well as pilots.


Pollack raises a legitimate question: Why do Hamas and Hezbollah tend to fight better than Arab armies? Pollack believes that this is due to the hierarchy that makes junior officers in modern Arab armies unable to improvise once battles begin, and here fighters from the underground groups Hamas or Hezbollah seem better. One of the main reasons for this is that non-state groups operate according to a structure based on... cell. This is because the origins of both Hezbollah and Hamas go back to underground groups.  In fact, this structure forces commanders to make decisions at the tactical level, where there is usually no hierarchy to which they can turn for support during battle. These two groups were also freed from the highly politicized bureaucracy that characterizes modern Arab armies. They are able to act quickly, responsively and sometimes even on merit, making them better than Arab armies.

This is the hypothesis of Kenneth Pollack, who surprises us by saying that technological backwardness is not a reason for the poor performance of Arab armies. In the past, the Egyptian writer Muhammad Jalal Kishk wrote after the Egyptian defeat in the Six-Day War that Arab armies were created to protect regimes, not to fight wars. Abdel Nasser's army lacked competence due to corruption. He placed his friend Abdel Hakim Amer, an incompetent, at the head of the army. Amer destroyed the upper ranks, and placed the incompetent at the head of the leadership of the main branches of the armed forces. The result was greatly humiliating, after that, when the leaders of the October War wrote their biographies. Speaking about the only victory over Israel, they mentioned that one of the factors of victory was the return of competent people to their positions.

The cultural idea that Pollack spoke about may seem weak here, in the face of Arab authoritarianism, which largely controls the structure of the Arab armed forces. The fact that Arab presidents and kings fear their people more than they fear the nation’s enemies is what contributes greatly to the corruption of Arab armies, turning them into mere security apparatuses for the authorities. This is in addition to transforming military institutions into investment institutions that aim only for profit and the formation of a wide financial relationship network with... ins and outs.

[Mattthew McKinney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very comprehensive and well written book. Although I disagree with some of the conclusions, I found it to be an incredibly interesting conversation.

In ascribing the two main causes of the poor performance of Arab armies - cultural factors and to a lesser extent politicization - Pollack clearly knows he is treading on dangerous ground when addressing the former. I give him credit, however, for openly acknowledging the problematic nature of treating cultural factors and relying - when possible - on work done by Arab citizens. While not perfect, Pollack does go out of his way to "tread carefully" on this difficult topic of conversation.

While demonstrating the factor is not uniformly causal, I do think Pollack overly minimized the role played by Soviet doctrine in the failure of some Arab armies. When analyzing this factor, an element lacking in his analysis was the role of ideology. For example, Pollack discounted the role played by Soviet doctrine by identifying successful, non-Arab armies that employed Soviet doctrine, including the Cubans and North Koreans. However, in doing so, he did not account for the role played by ideological adherence to Communism and a lack of corresponding ideological component for most Arab wars (with the possible exception of Arab nationalism during the 67 war). To what degree was Communist ideology critical to the success of these other armies? A more interesting comparative study in this section would have - in my opinion - been looking at Soviet doctrine adopted by other African, Asian, or South American nations that did also did not adhere to Communist ideology.

Moreover, Pollack later ascribes some of the success of both Hizballah and ISIS to the role played by ideological conformity and "zeal." But he never addresses the lack of an equal ideological cause as a possible underlying factor in the failure of some Arab armies (such as the poor performance of the Egyptian component of forces in the Gulf War).

Pollack's case studies were generally strong, although I would have very much liked to have heard a deeper discussion of the Lebanese army (both its failures during the civil war and vast improvement in the last decade), and a broader comparative study of Arab (Iraq) versus Persian (Iran) military performances beyond just a discussion of the Iran-Iraq war.

Finally, I felt Pollack could have spent more time at the end of the book on prescriptions for improving Arab military performances and Western interaction with Arab nations. Although he very briefly mentions a few very good recommendations at the end of the book, and arguably other lessons are "self evident" in the reading of the book, I felt he could have done a more comprehensive job organizing these thoughts and spending more time on commentary.

All of these critiques, however, do not distract from the fact that this was an extremely interesting, easily digestible book that had me engaged the whole way through. 5 stars!

[Andrew Tollemache · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good analysis of why arab armies have fared so poorly in the 75 or so years since the founding of the Israeli state in 1948 and not just against the Israelis. Pollack includes the terrible performance of the Libyans against Chad and the dismal showing of the Iraqis against the US more recently. Pollack reviews the current or most prevealent theories about poor arab performance such as: reliance upon Soviet military doctrine, politicized militaries, economic development (or lack thereof) etc. Pollack finds all of those explanations lacking. The Cubans had no problem fighting effectively with Soviet doctrine, the Chadians were far less economically developed than the Libyans and they way out performed Quadaffi's forces and the Argentinians had a very politicized military and did respectably well against the Brits in the Falklands.
In the end Pollack blames overall arab culture for fostering the pathlogies that have held back arab military performance. He cites how a fear of shame and shaming makes arab military training almost worthless. He tells how the Egyptian Air Force hates training with the US Air Force because the Americans insist of brutally honest after action reviews that can be very critical of the participants. Shame has a tendency to make arab officers make up and blatantly lie to their superios in situation reports to such an extent that in order to fix issues from the 6 Day War in 1967, the Egyptian Army created a sophisticated eavesdropping operation to listen in on Israel's officers status updates to get an honest assessment of their own progress.
The culture explanation is vulnerable to descending into bad sociology (a.k.a sociology), but Pollack makes the best form of that argument that he can.

[David Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent analysis of Arab military performance since World War II. Pollack examines in depth the common explanations for the overall poor performance of these forces including Russian doctrine, politicized officers, economic and industrial underdevelopment, and culture. In the end, Pollack argues that the dominant cultural aspects of Arab countries, strongly reinforced by family and education processes, do not produce the knowledge, skills, and abilities required for success on today's battlefield. Pollack includes very detailed and useful comparisons throughout the book to give his argument depth and breadth, and, in the end, Pollack delivers a convincing set of conclusions. The biggest weakness of this work is one that Pollack acknowledges repeatedly and works diligently to mitigate - the risk of overgeneralizing cultural traits. The inclusion of interdisciplinary studies and a well contoured explanation of the academic, but necessary, nature of generalizing to some extent to enable advancement of an argument helps a great deal in this area. This book should be read by military professionals assigned to advising or security assistance roles in the Middle East. People with a general interest in the Middle East or military history will also find much to appreciate here.

[Stephen Howard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very thoughtful and I'm sure controversial book on Arab military effectiveness, or specifically the lack of it. The book reviews 4 different explanations of the lack of effectiveness (Soviet methodology, politicization of the military, underdevelopment, and culture), accepting the latter 3 but placing the most emphasis on culture.

The book goes out of it's way to try to define how it is using culture and compartmentalize the conclusions drawn from it, emphasizing that the only conclusions that can be drawn from Arab culture are how it effects modern maneuver warfare. It does, by dint of the sources used, also touch on the impact of Arab culture on Arab economies.

The largest question mark for me: if, as stated in the book, manual labor is looked down on in Arab society, why wouldn't it be worth classifying any junior officer who joined the military of their own volition as culturally abberant?

[Benjamin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent research that goes into detail on the topic without losing sight of the forest for the trees. The comparisons between Arab armies and non-Arab armies so as to derive conclusions on a range of factors possibly affecting military effectiveness were particularly enlightening. My main complaint is that no such comparative studies were attempted in the critical final section of the book dealing with cultural factors. While these are the hardest to pin down in concrete terms, given that the author took the positive step of focusing strictly on aspects of culture as they have practical influence on military performance, surely it would have been possible to find examples of other cultures that share some those traits described and use conflicts they were involved in as a basis for comparison. In any case, that's a relatively minor point overall in what otherwise stands out a wonderful piece of military scholarship.

[Ahmed · Rating 2 out of 5]

The premises and research are excellent and neatly done. however, his conclusions aren't.

The author discusses potential causes of Arabic armies' bad performance like Politics and economy, before settling on culture as the main culprit. he gives examples of other armies that did better that Arab armies even if they are at a disadvantage economically, or more politicized that Arabic armies to prove his point.
but he doesn't give examples of cultures similar to Arab countries. For example, Indian culture and the whole far east who have similar "traditional" values. but their performance is not evaluated!! because this will invalidate his point.

His conclusion, then, can't be taken seriously.

One more thing I didn't like about the book style, though doesn't affect its worth, is the amount of copy-paste from other authors' work.

[Marc Liebman · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is phenomenal. It explodes the myths of why the Arab armies often fail to perform. Talking head like to blame it on doctrine or equipment, but the reasons they fail when fighting each other or worse, first world army. In ARMIES OF SAND, Pollack compares how armies organized and equipped along the same lines performed in similar battle scenarios to Arab armies of Iraq, Libya, Iran, Syria, Egypt, and Jordan to those of Cuba, South Africa, North Korea and the Peoples Republic of China. The book is fascinating and reads like a novel. It is a must for any student of military history interested in the Middle East and Arabian Gulf.

[solo · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5★, rounded up. the author clearly has a narrative to spin. and as with any attempt at a very broad generalisation, the result is, at times, a bit of over-simplification, having to hammer a few square pegs into round holes or outright dismissal of counter-examples with a single hand-wavy paragraph.

on the positive side: he's got a point, the book is well-researched and sourced/referenced, and is worth the read despite its shortcomings - if only as a broad intro into the history of wars in the ME, with plenty of pointers to other material to dig into afterwards.

[Kieran Schafer · Rating 4 out of 5]

An informative read detailing the shortfalls of Arab military strategy in 20/21st century warfare.

While the author has done a great deal of research and delivers well studied analysis, I felt that many points are often reiterated over and over in excess. The author seemingly explains a message, then rewords it and delivers it again.

This is not to take away from the content of the book, merely the delivery of said content.

Overall a great read and would recommend to those seeking practical information regarding the subject.

[Asmizal Ahmad · Rating 5 out of 5]

Always had this curiosity to learn about why the Arab armies in 1973, with their preponderance of top Soviet tanks and equipment failed spectacularly. As well as other post 1945 battles where Arab armies were involved. Kenneth researched it with an unbiased view and reach to some interesting factors and reasons.

A good book for anybody interested in the military efficiency of Arab forces post 1945.

[Robert E Jastrow · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an extremely well research and informative study of Arab military disfunction since World Wr Two. The author meticulously Studies the many factors effecting Arab military performance and his conclusions as to each factor are amply supported by facts and figures. For those interested in the modern history of the Middle East and its volatile military history, this is an essential read.

[Andrew Garrie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Must read for any soldier or student of military history. Great exposure of elements that impact military effectiveness. Valuable in its own right for the discussion of Arab militaries, the underlying logic is applicable to any other armed force and provides a method to understand what makes success in a military over the long term.

[J.G. Cully · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent book, packed with detail and very readable. Kenneth delves into the particulars of numerous conflicts, not just those in the middle east, to explain Arab military victories, and defeats, since the 1940's. Required reading for anyone with an interest in the middle east, it's past and it's future. Highly recommended.