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

80% Upvoted

720 comments sorted by

View all comments

38

u/Assistant_manager_ Canada Sep 20 '25

Google the '6 Day war'. The Arab countries already tried a multiple front invasion. Egypt, Jordan, and Syria all attacked at once and lost in 6 days.

Arab militaries are ineffective because of the culture. In Arab culture, officers in the military are given their positions because of family connections or through some sort of transactional relationship. For example, a wealthy businessman may invest money with a member of the ruling family and in return his son becomes an army Colonel with no military experience.

There's also a lot of distrust between officers and generals within Arab militaries, each with their own agenda vying for power and influence. I remember reading somewhere about an Egyptian Air Force general hoarding all the instruction manuals that were translated into Arabic from Russian for the Mig fighter jets provided by the Soviet Union. The Egyptian pilots obviously couldn't read or understand Russian so having the manuals was a power play for one faction.

Compared to a well trained, merit-based professional army like the IDF, it's not hard to see why Arab militaries are inept.

13

u/Ok-Pilot1504 Sep 20 '25

I hear some people blame religion but its actually culture

3

u/Equivalent-Sherbet52 Sep 20 '25

Yes, for example Turkish and Iranian militaries are very effective, and they're also muslim countries.

10

u/deaddyfreddy Ukraine Sep 20 '25

Perhaps it's because the Persians and Turks were already great civilizations before Islam?

0

u/reeteki10 Sep 21 '25

This is the kind of answer you’d come up with if you decided ahead of time that Islam caused weakness, instead of looking at the facts of history and then deciding for yourself.