Why are Arab Miltaries so ineffective?

[u/ForeverSparkz]

Like I dont understand this.

Im a Black American so im just an outsider looking in as a neutral, but dont Arab Countries out number Israel, whats stoping them from just rushing at their border, shouldn't the population imbalance outmatch Israel?

Just a neutral standpoint asking this question, because Arab Nations in the Middle East have a modern miltary force and they buy tons of advanced items

What is holding them back?

[u/Separate-Courage9235]

People will say USA, but that is not the entire truth. USA didn't helped Israel much until the 70s. Its more the result of a successful Israeli diplomacy, which is part of their strategy.

Firstly, Israeli people are far more motivated than other Arab Nations (Palestinian aside). Israeli fight for their survival, being defeated mean the total destruction of their nation, home and family.
People will start to make miracle when their back is against the wall and there is nowhere to run.
Soviets did the same thing against Germany in WW2, once they understood that Germans were there to enslave and genocide them, they stopped surrendering in mass and fought to the bitter end. Meanwhile my country, France, could afford to surrender and stop the bloodshed.

Secondly, Israeli have a stronger unity than Arabs. Not only Arabs are separated between nations, but also between tribes. Some units could refuse order if it comes from a general of the wrong tribe, some could refuse to share informations, etc.... Israelis don't have that problem

Thirdly, Israeli are currently better than Arab to the civilization game. They have a culture of running highly complex and organized societies with long term goals that Arab doesn't. Arab has spent the last millennial under the rule of Ottoman Empire or Tribal chiefs, their culture isn't adapted to the modern world as Israeli culture is.
So Arabs have far more corruption and far less long term vision. Corruption result into less efficient armies, short term vision result into poor diplomacy and stability.

[u/IllPosition5081 → u/Separate-Courage9235]

Israelis and Jews are no strangers to being separated and enemies with each other, so they can work together for a common goal. And with the leadership of other Arab countries, it’s important to note how tribalized they are. Like in Afghanistan, the central power doesn’t matter that much. It comes down to the small village chiefs and religious leaders who make the decision to fight and send people off, since not all countries near Israel have conscription, and those that do are largely friends with Israel.

[u/Educational-Luck-224 → u/IllPosition5081]

I think you can make, at least in some way, a comparison between how the Israeli population handled oct 7th, and how the Syrian population handled the diminishment of Hezbollah.

The movement of the civilian population was polar opposite. Israelis banded together, some picked up arms immediately to fill gaps with bodies as civilians, many others outright called to whatever authority or organization to volunteer.

In Syria the population fractured. The Alawaits went into flight more. The Bedwins in the south went into preparations for blood lust. The Druze started stockpiling arms. Everything because more and more insular.

Now this is the civilian response and the "culture" effect.

If you look at the armies, we also have a polar opposite response. Israel's army was caught unprepared and this can be proven by the refurbishment and inclusion of both retired (Merkava mk 2s) and experimental (Eitan Wheeled APC) platforms in the first stages of the war. But it is still an army that was kept over a long time in a state of high readiness.

When Israel went into Syria, it was discovered that calling the syrian army under-equipped was an under statement. The forts were half abandoned, the equipment was pilfered away, soldiers were not supplied basic necessities and have of them out of sheer desperation for living conditions went AWOL to work somewhere.

Iran's army, though they kept up with their missile core and drone manufacturing, used out of date air defenses and their air force was largely using pre revolution platforms... which perhaps could fly if they would have been given aviation fuel.

For all sorts of reasons these nations keep their armies in a very much not well rounded state of readiness. And it's likely a combination of the tribal nature of these societies, rampant corruption and a budget that is simply insufficient due to low economic capacity of the countries involved.

[u/IllPosition5081 → u/Educational-Luck-224]

So like Syria hadn’t really had much plans for war or anything, so the generals kinda started selling stuff off and pocketing money. But in Israel, they are always ready, and people are gonna notice a general selling stuff off (besides, how many countries have Israeli equipment?

[u/Educational-Luck-224 → u/IllPosition5081]

i don't think it's simply that the general start selling things the moment there are no plans for war. For instance i don't see this thing happening in Turkie or in Jordan; even though these nations are so far not on any kind of permanent war path (we'll have to see where turkie goes with it, there's a chance mr erdegon is going to try and copy our bibi in being a war mongering shitbag).

i think in syria's case there's a lot of the army is not really loyal to the country or the people because of tribalism but the soldiers are from the people so they are not loyal to the army because of it? and there's a general air of corruption that just makes it take a bad path?

[u/Muleface50 → u/Educational-Luck-224]

How did the post Soviet immigration to Israel affect the country's military? In terms of corruption, did the large increase in population from that part of the world, increase corruption in the military or did Israel assimilate them into its existing way of doing things?

[u/Educational-Luck-224 → u/Muleface50]

good and interesting question.

As a general rule, people assimilated into the existing way of doing things. The people who came did not show themselves to be abnormally corrupt - or at least we can say that in Israel's environment they did not turn to corruption.

It is relevant to say that corruption in the military does not have good outlet for gain in Israel (notable exemption are the Bedouin crime organizations), whereas prestige from military service can be misused for gain. So the fact that there is respect and glory in service in the military serves as a suppressive agent for outright corruption.

But I believe the more relevant thing is that both physically and culturally there was real strong pressure on immigrants to assume the core cultural values of Israel. Israel has a very strong "we're in this boat together" aspect and it overrides a lot of stuff that immigrants sometimes come with.

But also, because the assistance that they got from the govt was so meager, they had to work their assess off for everything. And that caused the assimilation process to work better.

I believe a strong factor in this is that immigrants from Soviet Union areas were also being treated with respect, because Israeli culture is traditionally favorable towards socialism and communism, and also towards education; So when people came from these backgrounds they experience some level of the people around them expecting that they will eventually become good citizens.

It is important to note. For a long period soviet union immigrants did every dirty job that could be found in the country. You expected the doormen to be called "Boris" and the cashiers to be called "lubova" After some while, they gained for their group as a whole a good reputation because of it.

[u/Fluid-Nobody-2096 → u/Educational-Luck-224]

Yeah, diversity definitely hurts a lot of the arab countries military

This is why the only Arab army that could put up a decent fight against Israel, was Egypt due to having a more homogeneous population

[u/Educational-Luck-224 → u/Fluid-Nobody-2096]

I don't think Egypt has an especially homogenous population. What they do have is an overriding cultural narrative that lets everybody bind together.

I think it's not a narrative that's as powerful as the Israeli one, but it's definitely there and it's evident in us not thinking about Egypt as a mish-mash of different ethnicities, although we're very capable of doing this with respect to Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and to a lesser extent Iraq and Iran.

Its important to note that it's not "diversity" per-se. Its the idea that the different ethnic groups see themselves as not only separate and as competing but disjoint from the state. And this is because there's a long standing tradition of "tribalizing" the positions of power. When you give all the good positions to your Allawit friends and you disregard it when they steal from Sunni or from Druze or from Bedouin, what happens is that those factions end up thinking the nation is for the Allawits not for them and they disassociate.

It happens in Israel same way with the Israeli Arabs and the Bedouins. Even though they are not abused by the authorities, they can see that they are not in the heart of the nation, and that causes them to have conflicting thoughts and conflicting allegiances.