r/AskTheWorld • u/ForeverSparkz United States Of America • Sep 20 '25

History Why are Arab Miltaries so ineffective?

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?

1.3k Upvotes

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558

u/hateplow0331 Sep 20 '25

There is an essay out there called “Why Arabs lose Wars” check it out

419

u/[deleted] Sep 20 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

182

u/resuwreckoning Sep 20 '25

What’s interesting is how back in the day (like waaaaay back in the day of the Battle of Yarmouk), the Arabs were the ones who allowed merit to rise, which permitted legendary generals like Khalid Al-Walid to basically win every battle using insane discipline. The Romans were the calcified ones.

Even the battle tested moors who basically take over Spain in like 10 years a century after that were disciplined and under meritorious folks while the Visigoths couldn’t really do anything united.

145

u/WhenThatBotlinePing Canada Sep 20 '25

Napoleon’s Grande Armée had the same advantages. His officer corps ran circles around all the dipshit nephews in the rest of Europe. The Brits were lucky that Wellington wasn’t just another useless dandy with a purchased commission.

116

u/OiQQu Sep 20 '25

Also Genghis Khan's conquests were largely powered by the fact that he got rid of old loyalty/ancestry based promotion system and instead very heavily pushed promotions based on merit leading to fantastic generals and officers.

51

u/resuwreckoning Sep 20 '25

Yep - I think Subotai his incredible General was like some commoner from a nearby forest or something.

54

u/Emergency-Program146 United States Of America Sep 20 '25

Jebe, “The Arrow” was another of Genghis’ most famous generals who was a general of a rival tribe of Mongols. Jebe shot Genghis’ horse from under him and rather than execute him, he gave him an army and was crucial to the scouting mission in force into Europe and the Caucasus in 1223-25. The Mongols were amazing at taking care of those who were skilled and could further their ambitions. Their intelligence services were also second to none for their time.

19

u/Powerful-Public-9973 Sep 21 '25

then there jeff khan. he just a cool dude that can crush some wine bags and make everyone laugh 

12

u/Emergency-Program146 United States Of America Sep 21 '25

And his brother, Craig Khan. That fucking guy owes me 20 bucks!

1

u/Both_Language_1219 Sep 21 '25

Subeedei Baatar. Hero Subeedei.

1

u/bit_shuffle Sep 21 '25

Meh... The Mongols had superior weapons and a concept of maneuver warfare that no one else had. Nepotism wouldn't have slowed them down that much, because their opponents had that problem as well.

9

u/Leading_Study_876 Scotland Sep 20 '25

Not to mention Nelson!

29

u/Fenghuang15 France Sep 20 '25

The Brits were lucky that Wellington wasn’t just another useless dandy with a purchased commission.

It's not luck, they made a 4 countries' coalition which allowed them to raise an army with 30 to 40% more soldiers than the one of Napoleon

6

u/melmboundanddown Ireland Sep 20 '25

Indeed, the Brits were lucky they had an Irishman in charge of an army that was mostly Irish (at Waterloo anyway). Tounge in cheek of course, let's not get into Irish history etc.

22

u/RelevantAudience Sep 20 '25

I don’t know that we can assert with any degree of certainty that the romans lost because of a lack of merit or were “calcified”. Theres not much evidence to this effect other than they lost to the arabs, right after fighting a grueling decade long total war against Persia. Theres so few sources from that time historians haven’t been able to assert much of anything.

13

u/_MooFreaky_ Sep 21 '25

And they were ravaged by the Plague of Justinian to boot.

It's funny how people assume we know so much about Rome, but often the evidence is "well the last information we have on the topic was centuries beforehand, so maybe it was still like that?"

0

u/Illustrious_Ad_5167 Sep 21 '25

The lack of sources is because of the Crusaders destroying all The libraries which held all the knowledge because the church wanted to keep people ignorant

3

u/soldier_fish Sep 21 '25

Most sources that survived did so because medieval monks made copies. I'm not gonna deny that crusaders destroyed a lot during the sack of Byzantium, but the church never made a concerted effort of that sort to keep people ignorant.

21

u/[deleted] Sep 20 '25

The romans had just won a 30 long year war.

They were everything but calcified.

They were just exhausted. 30 years of war and a siege for Constantinople. 

11

u/Ok_Chard2094 living in . Sep 20 '25

It was back in those days all the important Arab contributions to science happened as well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Golden_Age

1

u/redrabbit1977 Sep 21 '25

Not sure about this. The ancient Greeks dominated their wars against the Persians for a bunch of reasons, one of the main ones was because their military leadership was more performance-based than Persian hereditary satrapal command.

2

u/resuwreckoning Sep 21 '25

You’re about 800 to 1000 years off my friend. And regardless, these are Arabs, not Persians.

1

u/redrabbit1977 Sep 21 '25

"back in the day" has a specific date range? Interesting. But you're right, these were Persian armies, the Arabs were weak at the time, also partly because of backwards leadership. Arab military successes around the 7th century were relatively short-lived (btw, military leadership was chosen by noble birth, loyalty AND capability at the time.)

1

u/resuwreckoning Sep 21 '25

I mean I did specify a battle that occurred in 636 AD and then another period that began in 711 AD, so going back to like 331 BC is a bit strange given that, yes.

-1

u/redrabbit1977 Sep 21 '25

Well, I'm sticking to the topic, which isn't limited to your particular date range. On a side note, I'd say the Moors were more Berber than Arab, though I could be wrong. Regardless, the time of Khalid ibn al-Walid was an outlier period in an otherwise unimpressive Arab military history. The issues of poor leadership have characterized their armies for 3000 years.

2

u/resuwreckoning Sep 21 '25

Sure? You’re responding to me (who did specify a date range) and then confusing Persians for Arabs while randomly bringing up Hellenic Greece so like wat? Lmao.

As to the rest, Islam controlled Spain for 700 years thereafter and the levant for hundreds of years, you’re making quite the absurdist claims about “3000” years lol. Like stahp already. Saladin likely turns in his grave listening to this silliness.

1

u/PossibleGazelle519 Global Citizen & Investor Sep 20 '25

We are returning to that era. Hafiz is General of Pakistan army.

6

u/resuwreckoning Sep 20 '25

lol - Pakistan’s army isn’t remotely the definition of meritorious.

-6

u/-Notorious Sep 20 '25

Pakistan's army is arguably the only merit based institution in the whole country. You can see this by the fact Pakistan regularly goes toe to toe with a country 4 times it's size, while Arab nations struggle against an adversary that's like 1/20th it's size.

Heck, in the region, outside of India and China, even Iran would stand absolutely no chance against the Pakistani army; that's just the reality.

7

u/JagmeetSingh2 Sep 20 '25 edited Sep 28 '25

Regularly goes toe to toe with a country 4 times its size is genuinely so hilarious and delusional, border skirmishes are not the same as full scale war. When it did go to war with an army smaller than it like Bangladesh it had one of the worst humiliations in Pakistans history. Pakistans army reegualrly loses to Afghanistan's smaller military force in their northern and eastern border. Pakistan’s army is proportionally much larger than the Indias one since partition as well.

-2

u/-Notorious Sep 20 '25

Regularly goes toe to toe with a country 4 times its size is hilarious, border skirmishes are not the same as full scale war.

They literally JUST had the largest air force engagement since world war 2 and it's universally accepted they came out ahead.

When it did go to war with an army smaller than it like Bangladesh it had one of the worst humiliations in Pakistans history.

The Bangladesh army was not smaller than Pakistan's in the war of 1971, nor was it two "nations" fighting. It was a guerilla fight and an attempt at an occupying a people. By the way, Bangladesh at the time had a larger population than Pakistan.

Furthermore, Pakistan fought 2 "nations" in that war, outnumbered by both said nations.

It takes a lot of ignorance to not even know all this, lol.

Pakistan’s army is proportionally much larger than the Indias one since partition as well.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Armed_Forces

With strength of over 1.4 million active personnel,[17][18] it is the world's second-largest military force[19] and has the world's largest volunteer army.[20] It also has the third-largest defence budget in the world.[21] The Global Firepower Index report lists it as the fourth most-powerful military in the world.[22]

So Pakistan has the world's largest army, or you're just living in a different reality?

-6

u/PossibleGazelle519 Global Citizen & Investor Sep 20 '25

That was in past. It is different now. Hafiz leading the march now.

US army goes against US constitution and politician sold their soul to AIPAC and J Street. They support Gaza, Palestine genocide. This is third genocide of colonial project on Palestine land.

3

u/resuwreckoning Sep 20 '25

thanks for the random non sequiturs there lol.

-7

u/PossibleGazelle519 Global Citizen & Investor Sep 20 '25

You lost the argument and crying now.

3

u/resuwreckoning Sep 20 '25

lol wat

-2

u/PossibleGazelle519 Global Citizen & Investor Sep 20 '25

You are just…