Explaining The Lack of Proficiency in Arab Armies with Solutions to Modernize
Arab armies in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA region) currently do not perform as proficiently as Western militaries in North America, Europe, or even East Asian militaries. Because of stagnation, corruption, and a lack of a constitution, Arab militaries are plagued by human rights abuses and a lack of unit cohesion.
Numerous wars and conflicts in the region have seen Arab armies suffer unnecessary casualties, minimal unit cohesion, and failed reconstructions of their wartime doctrines. Whereas other regional militaries, such as Israel and Turkey, excel, the rest struggle to adapt with proficiency and modernization.
Despite numerous challenges, militaries in the Arab world remain in a state of perpetual limbo. Some are currently adopting new doctrines and tactics to revitalize their armed forces and restore the readiness level the region lacks. Reviewing several key points, we can examine why MENA armies were constituted to avoid becoming competent and proficient.
Lack of Cohesion in Different Sects
In the ancient and medieval eras, the Arab world was united under the umbrella of various empires, forming caliphates and sultanates. Under the allegiance of ruling authorities, Arabs under united armies conquered the Romans, Crusaders, and even the Mongol Ilkhanate, as the latter three suffered major problems of infighting and usurpations.
After the Sunni-Shia split in the seventh century, which led to various sectarian conflicts, the unity among Arabs gradually decreased. Various Sunni caliphates and kingdoms would fight Shiite empires and vice versa. The old Sunni caliphates saw Shias as ‘heretics’ in an age where religious persecutions set the tone before modern-day nation-states.
Instead of equal status of all religious and ethnic groups, with the opportunity to climb up the military hierarchy, rank and file ended up being defined by the dominant religious sect of each MENA nation. For example, in Lebanon, the army fractured in the seventies as Maronites, Druze, Sunnis, and Shias alike all aligned to various political parties and affiliations.
Despite fractured unity among Sunni and Shia Arabs, both Islamic religious sects maintained strong loyalty among their regional tribes, which predated Islam itself, compared to the new modern nation-states. However, a stronger bond to a tribe than a modern MENA country could make the difference in unity, cohesion, camaraderie, command, and control.
In the economic powerhouse Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and the UAE, a Shiite Muslim may not be able to rise through the ranks as easily as his Sunni counterpart. The former Ba’athist Iraq under Saddam Hussein practiced such sectarianism by placating Sunni Muslims over other sects such as Shiites, Turkmen, Kurds, and Assyrians. Placating an ethnic or religious group will not only lead to envy but also heighten sectarianism and the need for revenge–especially as the modern Middle Eastern borders were arbitrarily drawn.
Against the backdrop of the US invading Iraq, the Sunni-dominated Republican Guard and Army were disbanded. When the sectarian majority-Shiite government of Baghdad countries, such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Morocco, the UAE, and Egypt, relied on imports to bolster their armies.
The Gulf states rely not only on American arms exports but also on American forward forces garrisoned in their countries to protect them from existential threats such as the Iranian-led Axis. Simultaneously, Iranian-led Axis nations such as Yemen and former President Assad’s Syria relied on arms imports from Tehran and Moscow.
In the Levant, Lebanon’s Security Forces never fully recovered from the civil war, and even today, the US State Department helps pay the salaries of the army as Beirut’s treasury continues to deteriorate. Simultaneously, the collapse of the Syrian military is correlated with the lack of direct material support from Russia and Iran in late 2024.
Against the backdrop of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in early 2022 and the October 7th Hamas attacks against Israel, neither Moscow nor Tehran could efficiently support Assad due to significant losses in personnel and logistics. Already withdrawing a sizable contingent from Syria, Russian forces were able to do little except advise an already disorganized Syrian army. Furthermore, Israeli air superiority over Syria and the decimation of Hezbollah left the IRGC regional leadership exposed to IDF decapitation strikes.
Poor and Minimal Training
During the 1948 Arab Israeli War and the Day War, the Jordanian Army was able to offer stiff resistance to the Israeli Defense Forces as Britain molded the Kingdom to emulate the UK’s Armed Forces due to the Hashemites in Amman being of British descent.
Despite the extensive training of the Jordanian Army, whose officers frequently gained Western training and assistance, other Arab countries did not have such opportunities. On paper, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Algeria, and Morocco have capable forces in terms of global firepower; however, their nominal preparations for conventional and unconventional conflicts have a negative impact on their capabilities.
Egypt, which has one of the largest militaries in the region, suffered major casualties in various conflicts against Israel, a ‘Vietnam’ quagmire in Yemen, and even a major counterinsurgency in the Sinai Peninsula. While numerous authoritarians in Cairo saw the Egyptian Armed Forces as a military capable of projecting force to any crisis, miscalculations on motivated troops and overestimating capabilities led to Egypt’s aforementioned disasters.
Likewise, Saudi Arabia’s military failed to achieve any substantial objectives during the Saudi-led intervention in Yemen. Saudi Arabia, in the nineties, was able to hide their military’s flaws as direct intervention by the United States during the Gulf War annihilated much of Saddam’s Republican Guard.
In Yemen, the Saudi-led coalition failed to achieve any of its objectives and, to this day, relies on American military technology and exports to keep the kingdom safe. Without direct American assistance during the intervention, such as advisers or special operations forces on the ground to combat the Houthis, the Saudis showed they were more of a self-defense military than an expeditionary one.
The then-Assad-led Syrian army faces major security problems as its main backers, Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah, became preoccupied with their conflicts as well. The lack of preparation for training the Syrian military into a professional force led to Assad’s downfall, as the Syrian dictator lived lavishly under the protection of foreign powers instead of motivating and molding his armed forces.
Lack of Trust in Officers
Ruling governments, secular, and authoritarian, seldom have faith in the officer corps for fear of potential coups, uprisings, or defections, as seen in the early months of the Syrian Civil War. Due to this mistrust, field commanders are unable to make critical decisions independently, which leads to battlefield catastrophes.
During the Six-Day War, the Egyptian army could have moved to a defensive posture after the Israeli shock and awe. However, Abdel Nasser, the President of Egypt, did not allow his officers to withdraw their garrisons and equipment in time, as his propaganda made it seem like the Egyptians were on the offensive.
The Egyptian President also underestimated his garrisons in the Sinai by assuming the Egyptian Armed Forces had adequate equipment and coordination to prepare for the inevitable confrontation with Israel. Utilizing site surveys together with his field officers, Nasser perhaps could have made a more comprehensive decision before closing the Strait of Tiran, which inevitably baited the Israelis to strike first.
Costly decisions of Nasser, who failed to take advice and suggestions from his field commanders, led to a general retreat of Egyptian troops by the Israeli military in the Sinai in 1967. In the Western world and even Israel, field commanders are allowed to have more autonomous decision-making and authority over platoon and squad-sized elements to complete the mission.
Another major example would take place in Northern Iraq in 2014 during ISIS’s shocking lightning offensive. The inexperienced Iraqi army, constituted to be more pro-Shia compared to the Sunni-led Republican Guard, panicked as the officers did not have the critical decision-making to hold Mosul. The US failed at overseeing the post-Saddam Iraqi army to be secular and non-aligned to any ethnoreligious dispute, which extremist factions took advantage of.
The lack of communication between the command staff in Baghdad and field commanders in Mosul had disastrous results. The Iraqi army fled en masse during ISIS’s lightning offensive in Northern Iraq in 2014. Tens of thousands of disoriented Iraqi troops would furthermore be captured and executed in gruesome ways by the terrorist organization.
Only a few years later, the little freedom that field officers in Syria were given was exposed by rebel and Islamist groups. The Assad regime, which rose to power from the Syrian Ba’athists, made sure its regime was coup-proof by limiting the command of field officers and general staff, giving little command and control to overstretched forces. Due to such limitations and lack of communication by Bashar al-Assad, who hastily fled without giving orders to field officers during the major 2024 rebel offensive, the middle-echelon officers either surrendered their garrisons, abandoned their posts, or were overrun.
Leadership Keeps the Military from Enhancing Capabilities in Fear of Coups
Against the backdrop of the Ottoman Empire’s capitulation and partition, also known as the Sykes-Picot Agreement and Treaty of Sèvres, many of the newly formed Arab states included Western-installed leaders.
Coup attempts and usurpations by military officers took place frequently during the Cold War, including the shocking and execution of the Hashemite monarchy in Iraq. The fear of their militaries becoming too powerful was a prominent concern of Arab leaders, and therefore, steps were taken to hamper the growth of armies.
In fear of Arab military officers becoming too ambitious, high-ranking colonels and generals may not have limited authority over unit movements without the signature of a defense minister, the President, the Prime Minister, or the Emir. In the Gulf states, you must be part of the ruling elite to have authority over the slightest troop movement and garrison. Often, officers have little authority, and those who become popular amongst their constituents can suddenly be forced to retire early in fear that a field commander or general staff could move to power.
The Doctrine is to Protect the Elite over the Citizens
Overall, the primary purpose of Arab armies is not to defend their citizens—they are constituted to protect the ruling elite. In the Middle East and North Africa, Arab military and security forces are rife with human rights abuses against their own citizens, including sexual assaults and acts of torture.
Compared to fighting adversaries such as Israel, MENA militaries have been constituted to quell uprisings and civil unrest. Examples could be found in Lebanon in the 1950s, Syria in the 1980s and 2000s, Bahrain in 2011, Egypt in 2013, and numerous others.
The common structure of perpetual military stagnation in the Arab world is rooted in various conundrums, including sectarianism, a lack of trust in officers, fears of coups, reliance on foreign powers, inadequate training, and a ghost defense industry. Until MENA countries can address such problems, further internal conflicts and perhaps more battlefield humiliations in the region could very much continue.
Solutions Towards Enhancement and Modernization
A major hurdle to modernizing stagnant Arab armies is the trust between the lower ranks and the general staff. Because most of the Middle East and North Africa have totalitarian or hybrid regimes, the ruling elite ultimately wants to keep the status quo, even if it means breaking the national security apparatus.
Formulating a revitalized doctrine towards modernization will require trust between Arab autocracies and not just their general staff but also their field command. In Western militaries, generals unofficially act as unofficial diplomats, with Lieutenant Colonels and full-bird Colonels managing and directing regiments and battalions. Assigning additional responsibilities to field commanders in MENA militaries can also be essential to growth.
Furthermore, continued enhancement for officers in Western military academies and reinvigorating the non-commissioned officer corps will produce results in small-unit leadership and cohesion among regional garrisons.
Mending sectarianism within Arab militaries and emphasizing national pride will also be instrumental. Sunnis, Shiites, Christians, Druze, and others should be able to rise the ranks, regardless of ethnic and religious background, just as the Western world does.
Stagnation amongst militaries in the Middle East and North Africa is a recurring but fixable issue. Enhancing the capabilities of field officers, creating a non-commissioned officer corps, mitigating sectarian bias, and mending trust between senior leadership and ruling heads of state should be prioritized if the region wishes to catch up to other peers, such as Israel and Turkey, which have more proficient armed forces.
