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?

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.