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Armies of Sand: The Past, Present, and Future of Arab Military Effectiveness Illustrated Edition, Kindle Edition

by Kenneth M. Pollack (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

4.6 117 ratings

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Since the Second World War, Arab armed forces have consistently punched below their weight. They have lost many wars that by all rights they should have won, and in their best performances only ever achieved quite modest accomplishments. Over time, soldiers, scholars, and military experts have offered various explanations for this pattern. Reliance on Soviet military methods, the poor civil-military relations of the Arab world, the underdevelopment of the Arab states, and patterns of behavior derived from the wider Arab culture, have all been suggested as the ultimate source of Arab military difficulties. In Armies of Sand, Kenneth M. Pollack assesses these differing explanations and isolates the most important causes. Over the course of the book, he examines the combat performance of fifteen Arab armies and air forces in virtually every Middle Eastern war, from the Jordanians and Syrians in 1948 to Hizballah in 2006 and the Iraqis and ISIS in 2014-2017. The book ultimately concludes that reliance on Soviet doctrine was more of a help than a hindrance to the Arabs. In contrast, politicization and underdevelopment were both important factors limiting Arab military effectiveness, but patterns of behavior derived from the dominant Arab culture was the most important factor of all. Pollack closes with a discussion of the rapid changes occurring across the Arab world, and suggests that because both Arab society and warfare are changing, the problems that have bedeviled Arab armed forces in the past could dissipate or even vanish in the future, with potentially dramatic consequences for the Middle East military balance. Sweeping in its coverage, this will be the go-to reference for anyone interested in the history of warfare in the Middle East since 1945.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A masterful, wide-ranging, compelling study of why Arab armies have typically fared poorly in combat. With this certain-to-be classic work, Ken Pollack solidifies his position as one of the world's foremost scholars on Middle Eastern military and political affairs." -- General David Petraeus (US Army, Ret.), former Director of the CIA

"Ken Pollack argues convincingly that efforts to uncover causes of military success or failure must begin far from the battlefield. He shines new light on social, economic, political, and cultural impediments to improving military effectiveness in Arab states. His argument that the influence of culture is predominant is certain to generate introspection among Arab leaders and their overseas partners who support their military reform efforts. This should be read and debated by readers who want to understand better this complex and important region." -- H.R. McMaster, Former National Security Advisor and author of Dereliction of Duty

"Few if any military analysts know as much, or have thought as deeply, about Arab armies as has Ken Pollack. In Armies of Sand-a masterpiece of political science-he distills a lifetime of learning to grapple with the most important and most difficult questions that lie at the intersection of technology, culture and politics. Essential reading for anyone interested in understanding the dynamics of warfare in the Middle East." -- Max Boot, author of Invisible Armies

"Armies of Sand belongs in the library of every military professional serving in the Middle East, whether Western or Arab. It is a unique blend of military history and social science that comprehensively explains the military effectiveness of our Arab friends and foes alike. Pollack has courageously and objectively tackled the sensitive subject of culture, which we ignore at our peril. Armed with its insights, future commanders might avoid the surprises and frustrations that have long been the hallmarks of military operations in this theater of persistent conflict." -- Lieutenant General Sean MacFarland, U.S. Army (Ret.); Commander of Coalition forces in Iraq and Syria, 2015-2016

"This is a path-breaking volume on an uncomfortable topic: Arab military failure. Kenneth Pollack is the model of the engaged scholar, whose extensive field experience on today's battlefields complements his knowledge of military affairs and the Arab world more broadly. The volume is lucid, comprehensive and fascinating. His conclusions about the relationship between culture and military effectiveness will be controversial, but they are compellingly put and will set the terms of debate for years to come." -- Eliot A. Cohen, Robert E. Osgood Professor of Strategic Studies, Johns Hopkins-SAIS

About the Author

Kenneth M. Pollack has been an expert on Middle Eastern military and political affairs for over thirty years. He has served as a Persian Gulf Military analyst at the CIA and Director for Persian Gulf Affairs at the NSC. A longtime Senior Fellow of the Brookings Institution, where he ran the Saban Center for Middle East Policy, he is currently a Resident Scholar of the American Enterprise Institute. His books on the politics and military of the Middle East include the bestsellers The Threatening Storm, Arabs at War, and its sequel The Persian Puzzle.

David de Vries, an Earphones Award-winning audiobook narrator and veteran stage actor and director, spent three years in the cast of Wicked and was the last Lumiere in the Broadway production of Beauty and the Beast. He has also appeared in numerous films and voiced commercial campaigns for companies large and small, including American Express, AT&T, UPS, Motorola, Georgia-Pacific, Delta Airlines, Coca Cola, and Ford, among others. He can be seen in a number of feature films, including The Founder, The Accountant, Captain America: Civil War, and Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk. On television, his credits include House of Cards, Nashville, and Halt and Catch Fire.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B07KKLSMJH
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Oxford University Press; Illustrated edition (December 6, 2018)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ December 6, 2018
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 22946 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Print length ‏ : ‎ 696 pages
Page numbers source ISBN ‏ : ‎ 0197524648

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Kenneth M. Pollack

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I am an expert on the political-military affairs of the Middle East. I have served as a Persian Gulf military analyst at the CIA and the Director for Persian Gulf Affairs at the National Security Council in addition to a stint in the Department of Defense. I have been in the think tank world--Council on Foreign Relations, The Brookings Institution, and now the American Enterprise Institute--since I was thrown out of government by the incoming George W. Bush Administration in 2001. I have a BA from Yale and a PhD from MIT.

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Kindle Customer

Extremely Informative

Reviewed in the United States on June 4, 2020

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Dr. Pollack's extensive research from both first hand experience and research on the Arab armies really shows in the book. His analysis is spot on; history has shown that armies are often a product of the country's culture. Whether it is Sparta, Rome, or the Mongols or the Imperial Tsarist armies, you can tell a lot about their generals and training biases. One thing I appreciate is that Pollack is objective - neither praising or condemning the Arabs.

I believe he is trying to get to the root of the problem, rather than superficial or even mid-level explanations such as politicization and underdevelopment. Pollack cited another author - Bernard Lewis - who wrote "What went wrong?" who also tries to explain Arab culture and why they have lost to the West time and time again in the last 400 years. Pollack's analysis focuses on recent wars - the last 70 years - but when put together, you really get a better sense of geopolitics and warfare that often follows.

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JB Battle

Loooong Read...be ready!

Reviewed in the United States on December 11, 2019

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It's well written. Tends to get long and redundant about the Conflicts...we get it.
He's done some extensive research which is all inside this book.

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Christian D. Orr

"Mumtaz!" (Excellent!)

Reviewed in the United States on August 11, 2019

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My professional acquaintance, Ken Pollack, current American Enterprise Institute (AEI) scholar and former CIA analyst, has written an outstanding book that is a must-read for anybody wanting to gain a fuller sense of perspective on the current security situation in the Middle East as well as the history going back to the early days of the Cold War, i.e. the immediate post-WWWII era. The book examines various hypotheses in an effort to explain the underwhelming performance of Arab armies (and air forces; the navies don't really get any coverage here), from alleged over-reliance on Soviet doctrine to economic underdevelopment to politicization to (ultimately most significantly, as it turns out) longstanding cultural factors & traits.

It's also an excellent book for military history buffs in general and readers with an interest in Arab culture. Furthermore, it is NOT an anti-Arab polemic (contrary to what any race-baitig PC Thought Police might assume), as Mr. Pollack gives a fair & balanced (if you'll pardon me for plagiarizing Fox News's slogan) big picture historical perspective that covers not merely Arab military failures but their successes, from the Jordanians in 1948 to the Egyptians in the initial phases on the 1973 War to the Syrian commandos in 1982 to the Iraqis in the last two years of the Iran-Iraq War (1987-88), and especially non-state (terrorist) armies such as Hezbollah and the Islamic State/ISIS/ISIL/Da'esh. And while Ken's overall assessment of the past and recent history of Arab military performance is rather dim, he concludes with indications that there is still plenty of potential for significant improvement, especially with the advancements of 21st century technology and the accompanying cultural shifts.

Highly recommended.

RANDOM STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS:

pp. 18-19: “Meanwhile, in their 1980 invasion of Iran, the Iraqis turned in a performance that rivaled Arab experiences in the Six-Day War for ineptitude. They would eventually go on to eke out a meager victory over an isolated and exhausted Iran in 1988, only to be crushed by the US-led Coalition during the Persian Gulf War two years later. The Saudis and Egyptians both participated in that conflict too, but did nothing to impress.” Actually, in fairness, I daresay that the Royal Saudi **Air Force** did pretty well in that campaign, but their Army, not so much.

—p. 21: “Finally, I am going to look at the exceptions to the rule. Not every Arab military stunk. Some did notably better than others, whether the Jordanians in 1948, the Egyptians in 1973, the Iraqis in 1988, Hizballah in 2006, or ISIS/ Da’ish in 2014. These are critically important. For any explanation to be worthwhile, these outliers need to be exceptions that prove the rule, rather than exceptions that it just can’t explain.”

—p. 31: “US military personnel have frequently expressed a high degree of respect for many of the Emirati senior officers they have worked and fought with since 2011.” Interesting; 2011 was the year I arrived in the UAE for my contract assignment with the Abu Dhabi’s equivalent of the JROTC programme.

“The extensive American experience in Iraq since 2003 has provided a wealth of insight into the Iraqi officer corps, and US personnel can point to Iraqi generals who range from superb leaders to utter incompetents, and everything in-between.” I can personally vouch for this.

-p. 35: “Finally, like many of the Gulf Arab states, the post-Saddam Iraqis have had to bring in Western contractors to handle the most sophisticated Western weapons, such as their M1 tanks and F-16 fighters, which have proven too advanced for their own personnel to sustain.” Once again, I can personally vouch for this (Lockheed Martin was doing the arming and maintenance).

—p. 36: “the neglect of Egyptian enlisted personnel shown by their officers.” Reminds me of what Richard “Demo Dick” Marcinko (CDR, USN, Ret.) AKA The Rogue Warrior, founding C.O. of SEAL Team 6, observed in the early 1980s about the Egyptian officers corps treating their enlisted troops like “manservants.”

—p. 40: “Arab military history demonstrates that of all the problems experienced by the Arabs in combat since 1945, a pervasive cowardice has not been among them. It puts the lie to the slanders of those who have dismissed the Arabs as cowardly soldiers.” And most of the IqAF soldiers I interacted with, trained, and mentored didn’t strike me as cowards. Some were lazy and prone to goofing off, but certainly not cowards.

—p. 41: “Indeed, what is truly noteworthy about Iraqi performance in the Gulf War is not that 200,000–400,000 deserted or surrendered to coalition ground forces, but that after 39 days of constant air attack, the destruction of their logistical distribution network, their lack of commitment to the cause, and their clear inferiority to Coalition forces, another 100,000–200,000 Iraqi troops actually stood their ground.”

—p. 53: “Soviet doctrine also emphasizes reliance on maneuver to concentrate overwhelming mass at the decisive point of the front (the schwerpunkt, as the Germans termed it).” Hey, sounds also like the Jominian concept of concentration (from the Napoleonic era) taught to the West Point students who eventually became generals on both sides of the American Civil War.

—p. 243: “If you have been paying attention at all to the earlier chapters of this book, you will recognize that weapons handling has been one of the big problems of the Arab armed forces since 1945.” Yep, I and my fellow expat security contractors have consistently observed piss-poor and unsafe weapons handling amongst the Emiratis and Iraqis alike.

—p. 245: “A common Middle Eastern joke is to explain that the Arabic word for ‘tomorrow,’ bokhra, carries a similar connotation to the Spanish mañana, but without the same sense of urgency.” Ditto for their use of “inshallah.”

“At other times, however, they did a superb job, with the Egyptians in 1973 and the Iraqis in 1987–1991 leading the way. I could easily add the Jordanians in 1948, the Syrians in 1973, **and at least part of the Iraqi security forces in 2015–2017**.” (emphasis added) Yep; the IqAF troops I initially trained & mentored at Balad back in 2015 showed a lot of eagerness and enthusiasm for learning.

—p. 305: “For instance, in 1980, the Libyan garrison at Abeche was provided with piped-in music, sports facilities, air conditioning, an irrigated wheat field, and even a Guernsey cow for the commander’s milk.” And at Balad Airbase from 2015-2018, the base commander(s) had either a private sheep farm or a koi pond!

—p. 363: “I’m certainly not the first person, or the first Westerner, to write about Arab culture. Unfortunately some who went before me treated it in a cavalier fashion that veered off into stereotyping, racism, and other problems. Moreover, in the West, there are many common notions associated with the Arab world that are exaggerated, outdated, or just inaccurate. One of the rules for handling a topic as ineffable and potentially dangerous as culture is to be precise. So let me be precise.....Just as I do not consider the dominant Arab culture to be the traditional Bedouin culture, I also do not consider Arab culture to be identical to the religion of Islam. Although the overwhelming number of Arabs are Muslims, a textual evaluation of the Islamic religion does not provide the key to patterns of culturally regular Arab behavior.” Good on ya, Ken! So many Westerners are so damn ignorant in this regard.

—p. 364: “It is generally the case that a religion is constantly reinterpreted to meet the changing needs of its community—needs that are expressed in its culture. One need only look to the ever-evolving doctrine of the Catholic Church to see this in action.” Dominus Vobiscum!

—p. 369: “For example, a great many authors see a pervasive fatalism among Arabs (something I and other frequent visitors to the Middle East have certainly encountered).” One of my former CBP colleagues, told of a story from his Army Airborne days of training with their Egyptian counterparts: if the Egyptian paratrooper’s main parachutes failed to open, they wouldn’t bother opening their reserve chutes, because “inshallah” that the main didn’t open, and chose to fall to their deaths instead.

—p. 373: “The tendency of the dominant culture to discourage innovation and creativity is among the more striking features noted by many Western observers of the Middle East.” The Al Bayariq Leadership Program in Abu Dhabi that I worked on with a company called Al-Shaheen Adventure LLC from 2011-2012 did try to foster more creativity and innovation, but with only limited success.

—p. 389: “This is how Arab society values technical work and manual labor. There is a consensus within the scholarly literature that Arab culture evinces a disdain for both.” I’ve found this to be especially prevalent in the Gulf states (Kuwait, Qatar, UAE), hence the overwhelming number of expat and Third Country National (TCN) workers; the only Emiratis I knew of who were willing to engage in manual labor were those of partial Western parentage and/or lived in the U.S. for a significant amount of time. Conversely, I’ve found this attitude to be less prevalent amongst Iraqis, Jordanians, and Egyptians.

—p. 415: “It isn’t found in the formal curriculum. You won’t find a class in any Arab school called ‘Conformism 101.’ Instead, you will find it in the teaching method itself: in how students are taught to think, to learn, and to behave.” Going back to my aforementioned Al-Bayariq experience, again, we tried to improve on this, but with only limited success. But then again, their cultural well-mannered rigid obedience of authority was a tad more selective when it came to expat teachers/instructors vs. Arab authority figures.

—p. 424, 426: “In recent decades, there has been some movement toward reforming the educational method in some parts of the Arab world, with the larger reform agendas of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE singling out education as key targets for fundamental transformation. However, such efforts have still been modest so far, and it remains to be seen how far the changes will go and whether they will last.....American instructors in the Middle East had to go to great lengths to design special programs to allow real give-and-take between the students and teachers.” Like I was saying.

—p. 439: “While it is possible that powerful socializing institutions such as the armed forces can teach their members to think and act differently from the wider society, it is not the norm. Throughout history, most militaries have trained their troops in ways that tended to mirror that of their wider society. When that happens, military training reinforces the behavioral patterns inculcated by civilian education, formal and informal. In the case of the Arab states since the Second World War, their military training overwhelmingly mimicked the family childrearing and school-teaching practices of their wider society. In this way, military training in the Arab armed forces reinforced the behavioral patterns emphasized by the dominant societal culture.”

“As a side note before diving in, every one of the aspects of Arab military training I describe below, often backed up by various historical examples, is something that I have had repeatedly confirmed to me by American or Western trainers (and often experienced myself) in Iraq, Jordan, Egypt, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia during my 30 years of experience with Arab militaries.”

—p. 440: “For the most part, operations in Arab militaries are conducted “by the book.” Arab armed forces teach their soldiers and officers there is only one right answer to any military problem, and only one right way of handling a situation. This right answer is then practiced constantly until it can be performed unthinking from memory. This approach is employed in battle regardless of other factors such as terrain, mission, the forces available, or the enemy’s strength and disposition.”

“Arab military personnel are typically taught that the “school solution” is not one they are expected to figure out on their own on the spot. Instead, the correct approach will be told them by higher authority. Arab soldiers and junior officers are generally taught not to act on their own, but to wait for orders from their superiors.”

—p. 441: “Arab soldiers and officers almost universally have been taught only a small range of specific skills narrowly related to their mission. Just as Arab schoolchildren are taught to consider different subjects discrete and unrelated, so too Arab military personnel have been taught to consider the different elements of modern armed forces to be discrete and unrelated.”

“Arab armed forces generally suffer from having too little practical field exercises to hone their skills. Like Arab schoolchildren, Arab military units are taught skills but haven’t always been allowed to practice them. Instead, skills and operations are typically demonstrated to them by instructors, and the trainees are made to practice only the simple sub-elements that would have to be combined into more involved procedures in battle. Field exercises tend to be insufficient or nonexistent among most Arab armies, while Arab pilots regularly log far fewer flying hours than their Israeli or NATO counterparts.”

—p. 442: “At every level, Arab drills and maneuvers are heavily scripted....Even worse, Arab soldiers and officers are frequently graded on how they perform their specific task and not whether they accomplished the overall goals of the exercise.”

—p. 443: “In general, Arab training has rarely, if ever, attempted to simulate the real problems of battle by unexpectedly changing familiar activities, introducing novel forces or situations, or otherwise surprising the participants. Instead, training drills remain absolutely unchanged from one iteration to the next, and training maneuvers followed the same scripts time and again with little variation. 17 Indeed, American trainers in Iraq in 2003–2011 and 2014–2017 complained endlessly about these problems and their frustration in trying to get the Iraqis to change their ways.”

—p. 444: “In virtually all of the Arab militaries, training manuals are typically Arabic translations of British, Russian, and (increasingly) American manuals that are rarely read or taught, let alone put into practice.” Case in point: the Emiratis misinterpretation of the British Army drill manuals via the silly concepts of “Salute to the Left/Right.”

—p. 450: “of military training could condition them to act differently from the manner encouraged by the society at large, Arab military training does not do so. Instead, Arab military programs, modeled as they are on the educational methods of the larger society, reinforce these patterns of behavior. The result are soldiers and officers conditioned to act and think in certain ways—ways that reflect the values and priorities of the dominant culture.”

—p. 491: “An important difference between Shi’a and Sunni Islam is the concept of ijtihad, meaning independent reasoning or interpretation. Most schools of Sunni Islam argue against ijtihad, insisting that the Quran should be taken literally.....Israelis, for that matter) claim that this instills a greater willingness among Shi’a to think for themselves, rather than simply waiting for an authority figure to tell them how to act.” Say, a bit like Catholicism vs. Protestant Fundamentalism.

—p. 514: “When a man (or less often, woman) comes to power of any kind in the Arab world, it is expected that he will bring his relatives, clansmen, tribesmen, and coreligionists/ co-ethnicists in with him and give them plum positions within the hierarchy he controls.” As the one saying goes, “Birds of a feather flock together,” or as Dr. Steve Lamy at the USC School of International Relations likes to say, “People seek cognitive consistency and avoid cognitive dissonance.”

—p. 520: “Indeed, globalization has had a profound impact on the Arab world already. It made the Arab Spring possible, and it is now reshaping Arab culture. Thus economic change bred political change that is now evolving into cultural change. There is a growing willingness of people to speak their minds. The younger generation is less willing to blindly follow authority figures. More are willing to take action to change their circumstances (a trait that Hizballah, Da’ish, and other new model Arab armies have doubtlessly benefited from). Experts on the Arab world note that childrearing practices are changing in response. ‘The available data consistently show . . . fewer parents viewing obedience as their primary goal, and more saying they encourage independence and use praise and reasoning to shape their children’s behavior,’ according to Gregg. Other anthropologists have found that better-educated parents are becoming more concerned with the success of their children in school rather than just instilling loyalty to the extended family. In other words, the politics, economics, and even the culture of the Arab world is changing, and changing in some remarkable ways. Thus, the fact that these three features of the Arab states conspired to cripple Arab armed forces in the past should not be taken as a sign that they will continue to do so in the future. At some point, they may no longer produce the same patterns of behavior that were so deleterious to Arab military effectiveness in the prior era. It will likely take several decades, but if the trend lines for change in the Arab world bear out, someday they may even benefit Arab armies in combat.” Going back to my stint in the UAE and Iraq, I saw some tentative hopeful signs of this as well.....or as the Arabs themselves might say, "Inshallah."

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Michael Griswold

The Puzzle of Arab Military Effectiveness

Reviewed in the United States on May 4, 2021

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No one will ever accuse Kenneth M. Pollack of not being thorough. In Armies of Sand, Pollack attempts to figure out “Why Arab Militaries have performed so poorly in Wars since WW2”? This is a head-scratching question because virtually every Arab military was allied with one of the two great powers (the United States and the Soviet Union) so it shouldn’t be a matter of bad firepower and they would seem to have plenty of willing conscripts…so why do they so often lose wars they should win and look embarrassingly bad while doing it?

Pollack tests out several theories including reliance on Soviet doctrine, politization, underdevelopment, and Arab culture that subsequently shaped the behavior of the armed forces. Fair warning, these are not brief case studies as he really dives into these various cases which cover every major Arab military battle from post WW2 to the Hezbollah/Hamas era.

You will be spending a great majority of Armies of Sand engaging with the case studies, but they do help anchor his argument quite well. He even closes with a discussion of how his conclusion about Arab culture and the military could be upset in a world with ISIS, Al Qaeda, and increasing calls for political freedom.

I thought he gave competing explanations a fair hearing and ultimately illustrated why his argument was a better fit without discounting other explanations. This is important because when seeking to explain such complex phenomena, the one smoking gun of an answer is rare. Pollack in Armies of Sand shows what one can do with solid case study research in a quantitative world.

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Eddie

This Book Is The Real Deal

Reviewed in the United States on June 23, 2019

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This book is no joke. It’s a masterpiece of research and provides for perhaps the best understanding of Arab military effectiveness (or ineffectiveness) to date. Not only does it explain historical battlefield events with tremendous clarity, but it does so in a way that makes the book difficult to put down. I read 250 pages in the first two days, this book was practically glued to my hand. Additionally, it is a repository of knowledge on a variety of military and political factors that effect battlefield outcomes across an equally broad range of cases. For instance, I had known nothing of Cuban military operations in Africa prior to picking up this book, something I was pleased to find within its pages. This should be required reading for military personnel and especially the politicians that exert influence on governmental military structures and organizations.

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LivingWithRoommates

Insightful book, loved the non-Arab military comparisions.

Reviewed in the United States on February 4, 2020

Skip the chapter on education, it was too long. Besides that, interesting read.

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Orion

Decoding Arab Military Power: A Critical Analysis

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 17, 2024

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Armies of Sand: The Past, Present, and Future of Arab Military Effectiveness" is a thought-provoking analysis of the Arab world's military history and capabilities. The book offers an in-depth examination of the factors influencing Arab military performance over time. It navigates through historical events and modern scenarios, providing a comprehensive look into the strengths and weaknesses of Arab military forces. The author's insights into future prospects for these armies are particularly enlightening. This book is valuable for those interested in military strategy and Middle Eastern geopolitics.

Z. K. Parker

Fascinating read

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 25, 2022

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A scholarly look at areas of military history that I had not previously considered.
An accessible read for a non-historian

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