The insanity and wickedness of Islam (not just radical islam, but even parts of supposedly "moderate" Islam) tends to produce cultures that are horrendously corrupt and full of individuals who are self-seeking, only want to advance themselves, and have no loyalty to the state or to any kind of positive ideals. That, in turn, tends to produce pretty pathetic military forces.
One need only look at a comparison of the military forces of the western democracies and the arab dictatorships. In the west: We have disciplined, ordered forces that utilize both advanced technology and also very rigourous, demanding training to create a force that dominates the battlefield both tactically and strategically. The ultimate example today of this is the Iraq War (the actual War, not the occupation) which only lasted three weeks. American and British forces were so well coordinated, trained, and deployed, that the Iraqi Army and Republican Guard was essentially given a choice between death at the hands of precision guided munitions and death at the hands of the US and Royal Marines.
On the other hand, the Iraqi army trained niether long nor hard, instead being mired in a culture of paranoia and ambition in which, at any time, anyone could be denounced as a traitor to the Baath party and then tortured and executed. There was no unit loyalty, no respect or strength of character in the officers (who were chosen because of thier political leanings, not thier competence) and no real warfare doctrine to speak of. Despite thier inferior equipment (Iraq was fielding Vietnam and Korean-war era gear) they could still have put up a terrific resistance against the Coalition forces had they simply been highly trained, good quality men, something which does not require advanced technology to create.
But they were not. As a result, the ground and air war was so lopsided that it was ridiculous. We lost more men and machines to weather conditions and friendly fire than to enemy action.
So, no, I don't think that, militarily, the Arab/Muslim world will ever be a threat to the Western world, not on anywhere near the scale that the Communist world was. To be a threat, they'd have to stop being the Arab world, and become something else.
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Re: splitting Iraq
Date: 2007-03-02 05:41 am (UTC)The insanity and wickedness of Islam (not just radical islam, but even parts of supposedly "moderate" Islam) tends to produce cultures that are horrendously corrupt and full of individuals who are self-seeking, only want to advance themselves, and have no loyalty to the state or to any kind of positive ideals. That, in turn, tends to produce pretty pathetic military forces.
One need only look at a comparison of the military forces of the western democracies and the arab dictatorships. In the west: We have disciplined, ordered forces that utilize both advanced technology and also very rigourous, demanding training to create a force that dominates the battlefield both tactically and strategically. The ultimate example today of this is the Iraq War (the actual War, not the occupation) which only lasted three weeks. American and British forces were so well coordinated, trained, and deployed, that the Iraqi Army and Republican Guard was essentially given a choice between death at the hands of precision guided munitions and death at the hands of the US and Royal Marines.
On the other hand, the Iraqi army trained niether long nor hard, instead being mired in a culture of paranoia and ambition in which, at any time, anyone could be denounced as a traitor to the Baath party and then tortured and executed. There was no unit loyalty, no respect or strength of character in the officers (who were chosen because of thier political leanings, not thier competence) and no real warfare doctrine to speak of. Despite thier inferior equipment (Iraq was fielding Vietnam and Korean-war era gear) they could still have put up a terrific resistance against the Coalition forces had they simply been highly trained, good quality men, something which does not require advanced technology to create.
But they were not. As a result, the ground and air war was so lopsided that it was ridiculous. We lost more men and machines to weather conditions and friendly fire than to enemy action.
So, no, I don't think that, militarily, the Arab/Muslim world will ever be a threat to the Western world, not on anywhere near the scale that the Communist world was. To be a threat, they'd have to stop being the Arab world, and become something else.