Tag Archives: international relations

Middle East, Politics, Strategy

The Failures of Arab Armies: A Historical Review

“The central conservative truth is that it is culture, not politics, that determines the success of a society. The central liberal truth is that politics can change a culture and save it from itself.”

– Daniel Patrick Moynihan, U.S. Senator

Syrian Army in Saudi Arabia
Troops from Syria and other Allied nations assemble for review by King Fahd of Saudi Arabia as they take part in a coalition of forces against Saddam Hussein during Operation DESERT STORM.

The Middle East since 1948 remains a hotbed for conflict involving Arab armies. With a few rare exceptions and some exceptional non-state actors, Arab armed forces generally returned a dismal record despite in most instances possessing superior numbers and equipment. In the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, the Arab coalition threatening Israel had every material advantage. The combined Arab force would deploy roughly twice as many troops, tanks, armored personnel carriers, and artillery pieces as the Israel Defense Force (IDF). Yet, despite the significant Arab advantage, Israeli forces defeated the Arab coalition in only six days, inflicting heavy casualties in terms of both men and equipment. Saddam Hussein’s 1980 invasion of Iran demonstrates another example. In that instance, the Iraqi leader sought to take advantage of the political turmoil in Iran following the Islamic Revolution. Instead of a quick victory, Hussein’s materially superior army remained in a quagmire for nearly a decade before settling for a return to status quo ante. 

Exposing Arab Philosophy

Kenneth Pollack’s Armies of Sand is a historical analysis of the reasons that frame the persistent failures of the various Arab armies across the decades. By Pollack’s reckoning, four theories explain the bleak performance of the Arab armies from past to present: employment of Soviet doctrine; politicization i.e., skewed or inverted civil-military relations; socio-economic underdevelopment; and Arabic cultural patterns and predilections. In the first instance, Pollack makes a convincing argument that Soviet Doctrine was not the problem. Robert Leonhard echoes this in his book, The Art of Maneuver. They argue this negative stereotype arose from specific failures of Soviet-backed forces in various parts of the world. The lackluster performances of Soviet clients, and later by the withdrawal of the Red Army itself from Afghanistan, splintered the credibility of the Soviet way of war. Both authors contend however, that the Red Army’s operational doctrine, typically portrayed as being highly rigid and dependent on massing of firepower, is maneuver-based at an operational level despite its command-push orientation. Pollack and Leonard see it differently. Pollack cites the performance of the Cubans against South Africa in the Angolan Civil War and the initial success of North Korean forces against the United Nations in South Korea. Pollack also points out it was the Red Army juggernaut that steamrolled the Wehrmacht in the Second World War, the forge in which Soviet doctrine was battle-tested and refined. Seeking further explanation, Pollack and Leonhard argue the inflexible and extreme application of Soviet philosophy is to blame for these failures rather than the doctrine itself. Interpreted in this manner, such application went against what the Soviets themselves promoted. One of the more egregious examples cited by Pollack is the Soviet doctrine of emphasizing ground-controlled interception in air operations: In the 1982 Lebanon War, bereft of ground radar and communications, Syrian pilots flying MiGs flew into combat mindlessly, making little or no effort to maneuver in dogfights with the Israelis. Eighty-six of those MiGs failed to return home with zero losses for the Israelis.

Inherent Imbalance

Professional, western-style militaries are expensive and, in theory, must be relatively free of politics in order to provide and implement the best military advice to their civilian leaders. Although both politicization and socio-economic underdevelopment have long been a bugbear for many non-western and less-industrialized countries, Pollack argues neither factor fully explains the inability of Arab armies to field a professional armed force capable of sustained operations against an external foe. Consider again North Korea in 1950, which possessed a highly-politicized army and was underdeveloped at its point of engagement. The initial successes of North Korea’s Soviet-equipped and trained army in the early stages of the Korean War present an exception disproving this theory. So do the Cubans, who finally forced the retreat of the South African Defense Forces across the border during the Angolan Civil War. This persuasive counter-argument illustrates that politicization and underdevelopment may not fully explain the poor performance of Arab armies which are arguably politicized and economically disadvantaged.

Reduced to the remaining claim of Arabic culture as the linchpin of Arab militaries, Pollack devotes approximately forty percent of his book to examining the impact of culture on Arab society. Despite this, Pollack is understandably careful when asserting cultural reasons for noted shortcomings. If interpreted incorrectly, this type of assertion can lead to stereotyping, which could in turn result in blind ethnocentrism. He writes: 

“It is critical to bear in mind that culture is least useful in understanding the behavior of an individual, and appears most readily in the behavior of large groups over time…Conversely, the collective actions of smaller groups, let alone individuals, are more likely to be shaped by idiosyncratic factors.”

Fundamental Reform?

Seeking objectivity, Pollack employs the “Delphi” method; a process used to arrive at a group opinion by surveying a panel of experts. This method circumvents his own experiences in order to arrive at an “objective” consensus of what he terms the “dominant Arabic culture” that spans the Middle East and North Africa. He further describes that culture’s dominant traits within Arab family life, their impact on the method of education and management of civilian organizations, and on the general state of Arab military training and practices. One of those traits is the manipulation of information to avert shame. Pollack argues this sort of face-saving behavior is practiced in Arab societies out of fear of dishonor, to preserve group loyalty, and to gently “correct” behavior. While face-saving may play an important role in family life, it is problematic in military contexts as the Egyptian high command discovered in the aftermath of the 1967 Six-Day War. In that instance, Egyptian commanders facing adverse outcomes or total collapse passed censored, redacted, or fabricated battlefield reports up the chain of command with catastrophic results. Pollack, however, does not believe this behavior is or was rooted in Islam. Instead, he frames it as part of the dominant Arabic culture, noting that “religions are essentially products of a culture.” The historian Robert Hoyland agrees. He notes in his book, Arabia and the Arabs, that certain pre-Islamic tribal practices – stoning of thieves for example – later became part of the juridical and cultural fabric of some Arab countries and were later accepted or declared “Islamic.”

In conclusion, based on empirical comparison to other non-Arab countries and armies, Pollack’s counter-arguments for non-cultural explanations present a strong footing; thus giving greater credence to cultural theories as reasonable grounds for consideration. He convincingly conveys that the inflexible and unthinking practice of Soviet doctrine, regular politicization of the Arab armed forces, and socio-economic underdevelopment did indeed hinder many Arab armies in the field. Yet even in combination, those reasons could not possibly explain the underwhelming performance of Arab armies over time. Regarding the dominant Arabic culture, brilliant set-piece offensive operations – like Egypt’s in the 1973 October War – display its strengths; as do tenacious, courageous static defenses like the Iraqi Republican Guards in the 1991 Gulf War. Arab rulers and generals can field a relatively small number of so-called “elite” troops but are judged by Pollack as constrained by the dominant Arab culture from fielding a more significant number of the same quality from the general population. By the Darwinian process of incessant warfare, Arab leaders have learned to emphasize the strengths of their armies rather than demand blood from stone as in the past.

Teoh Jit Khiam works in private practice. He writes on topics concerning Asian politics and history. He has written several pieces for The Affiliate Network including The Malay Annals: History Describes the Present.

Asia, China, Foreign Policy, Media

Social Media’s Chinese Boogeyman

China has become a sensation in Western discourse, representing fears of economic displacement, military rivalry, and social upheaval. In many English language social media discussions about China, commentary can quickly escalate to the point that it is alarmist, ignorant, condescending, or racist. China is a vast country, with the largest population in the world, and they have experienced as much social, demographic, and environmental change in just the last generation as the West has in the last 100 years.

Despite what you may read in social media, analysis of China does not easily boil down to 140 characters or less. The “Middle Kingdom” is a vast land of contradictions, and much of what is said about the People’s Republic contain various levels of truth. An example of China’s extreme contrasts: although there is extreme poverty in many rural areas, Beijing just surpassed New York City in number of billionaires. Too often, commentators on social media try to dilute the facts into neat clichés and virtual soundbites rather than accept the complexities of the subject.

In an ever more globalized and interconnected world, words matter. Words and ideas compete  for consideration and propagation on the internet. Opinions are shared, mimicked, and replicated quickly, often reaching unintended audiences, which is why so much commentary about China on social media is alarming. An opinion (educated or not) that is true to some extent in limited context can then be extrapolated and applied to other unrelated situations. The explosion of memes as acceptable political discourse on topics from the U.S. presidential primaries to  the Refugee Crisis is a visible example of the problem of relying on social media for political information.

Where English language opinions are more informed, they are often limited in scope and origin to the expat enclaves of Beijing, Shanghai, and the Pearl River Delta, where Westerners can experience China without the polarizing filter of the media. Popular opinion is therefore a reflection of the shallow observations often repeated by our major media organizations, whose footprints in China are, at best, a field office in Beijing or Shanghai, and at worst, simply echo the opinions of the major papers.

The problem is, the Chinese people are listening very closely. Many Chinese leaders and thinkers view America as an example of a successful great power, and they seek to imitate that success while still preserving their socialist system. The U.S. is observed by many with near obsession, curiosity, and often with some degree of apprehension. Clearly unaware of the impact of their statements in social media, the last thing Westerners, and Americans in particular, should be doing is disparaging or dismissing arguably rational Chinese actions in the media.

Imagine two brothers, where the younger brother imitates the behavior of the elder. If the elder brother rejects and mocks him, how will the younger brother then act in the future? If the Chinese political and economic leadership do not feel like Americans respect them, they may change course and find another less palatable model for future development. The Sino-American geopolitical relationship is the most important one in the 21st Century, and the U.S. should not neglect its leadership role in the region through ignorance and careless internal public dialogue.

china-provinces-map-855
Provinces of the People’s Republic of China. Photo Credit : http://www.nationsproject.org

The Loud Voices in the Room

Here are some examples from social media to demonstrate the problems with careless internal dialogue:

Opinion 1: The Chinese cheat (at business).

cheating?
Commentary below a January 1st People’s Daily post about China’s new aircraft carrier. Photo Credit: www.facebook.com

This type of message invokes a value of fairness, and claims that China is not playing fair: in business, military technology, etc… Allegations of cheating aside, consider that China has leapfrogged the industrial revolution right into the information revolution. While some would argue the fairness of China’s approach to modernization, it is nothing new. The idea of appropriating methods and technologies from more advanced nations has occurred over and over again throughout history as many now-developed nations  also stood on the shoulders of the trailblazers who went before.

Sharing of intellectual property in jointly owned enterprises has been a condition of investment in China since Deng Xiaoping’s open door policy of 1980. Western companies have willingly entered into such agreements, making significant profits while American consumers benefited by being able to buy cheaper goods. Furthermore, a large number of Chinese businesses do not cheat and steal, so their reaction to such insults on social media is predictably and understandably defensive. Dismissive and disrespectful behavior on social media has serious potential to have a negative effect on the economic relationship between the U.S and China.

Opinion 2: Chinese products are terrible quality.

There is a lot of evidence to support the fact that some Chinese goods are low quality. There have been instances of fake milk powder tainted with hazardous chemicals, contractors reducing the quality of construction in schools, and “gutter oil” used for cooking, issues that have instigated mass social movements in China in response.

made in china
Additional commentary following the January 1st People’s Daily post deriding the quality of China’s new domestically produced aircraft carrier. Photo credit: www.facebook.com

However, China as a nation is also capable of producing at high quality. The passenger rail system is not without flaws, but it has come an impressively long way. Most notably, the P.R.C. maintains a  manned space program and in September 2013 sent an unmanned rover to the moon, which set the record in October 2015 as the longest operational lunar rover. When Westerners apply this opinion categorically, it becomes insulting and arrogant, asserting that the Chinese cannot do anything of quality, and the reaction is naturally negative with potential repercussions both in diplomacy and in business.

Opinion 3: China is a global threat.

The following comments came from a Facebook page on the People’s Daily discussing the ongoing fielding of the Liaoning, China’s new Ukrainian-made aircraft carrier:

Asians and Aircraft Carriers
Commentary below a December 31st China Daily post about the refurbished aircraft carrier that China recently purchased from Russia, the Liaoning. Photo Credit: www.facebook.com

This is an extreme instance of this opinion, where the commenter uses the anxiety around China’s rise to compare the P.R.C. to the Imperial Japanese, a comparison sure to promote defensiveness and hostility from Chinese readers. The memory of the brutal Japanese occupation is immortalized in film, monuments, and memorials throughout China, just as the communist resistance to the Japanese is celebrated as a legitimacy narrative. Tensions continue to run high between the two countries as was evidenced by the response to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s visit to the Yasukuni Shrine in 2014.  Arguable racist undertones aside, the commentary on China’s rise seems to swing to both extremes: Either China is a terrifying dragon, or China is a bumbling panda bear.

Rival or Partner?

If China is really a threat, then it could be a very serious one. When analyzing potential threats, analysis should be broken down into two components: capability of doing harm, and intent to do harm in the pursuit of a specific goal. Despite a large military, China has limited capability to threaten others in its immediate vicinity; the benefits of aggressive action are low and international connectivity makes the costs are still too high to make such policies palatable to the Chinese leadership.

The second component of threat analysis is often lacking in most Western discourse about China. Namely, do they even want to cause us harm? If/when they have the capability, would they want to use it? What would they achieve by doing so? Hostile and anxious comments about China shape and promote the kind of defensive hostility in China that the West does not desire. We should expect fear-mongering about China in the West to be mirrored, leading to further aggressive posturing and the increasing possibility of confrontation, perhaps leading to a fostering of the intent to do harm which does not currently exist. 

China Skyscraper
China is quickly modernizing. Will it integrate further into the world’s political and economic systems? Or will the world’s largest economy and most populous nation be turned away by hostility from the system it so desperately wants to become a part of?  Original Photo, Pudong, Shanghai

An Avoidable Collision

Fear-mongering can be counteracted through education. The more accurate information is spread about China, the more we Westerners will realize the limitations of our knowledge. The Chinese people are awakening to the outside world thanks to the influence of the internet, but they remain rooted in their customs, history, and have their own unique challenges. Other countries need not consent to China’s strategic positions or praise their business practices. Understanding the Chinese in  context, and cooperating or challenging as appropriate is the key. The current hostile and dismissive discourse is one avoidable factor unnecessarily escalating tensions between two civilizations which are leading towards an aggressive rivalry, rather than a rewarding partnership.

MAJ Mike Kendall is a U.S. Army Engineer Officer with combat experience and extensive training in forcible entry and humanitarian relief operations.  He graduated from Zhejiang University in Hangzhou China, and is currently attending the German Armed Forces General Staff College and Helmut Schmidt University in Hamburg, Germany. He holds a B.S. in International Relations, an M.S. in Engineering Management, and an MPA in Non-Traditional Security Management.  The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the U.S. Army, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.

Foreign Policy

Bad News: Cyber Norms Probably Won’t Constrain Cyber Conflict

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The U.S. government has put the promotion of its cyber norms at the forefront of its cyber diplomacy with the hopes that it will constrain pervasive cyberattacks. Past experience with norm promotion efforts provide insight on whether the United States is likely to be successful. Unfortunately, the future is bleak.

As a general rule, states develop norms to promote their interests and a norm will only spread if other states perceive it to be in their interest to abide by it. Historical examples of this are plentiful. In the late 19th century, Russia pursued constraining norms against the possession and use of chemical and biological weapons as well as strategic bombing at the First Hague Conference. Russia had failed to master these new weapons and wanted to constrain potential adversaries. Britain, on the other hand, opposed a norm restricting strategic bombing because it saw bombing as a tool to offset the relatively small size of its ground forces. As a result, the conference agreed to prohibit the “discharge of projectiles and explosives from balloons or by other new analogous methods” for a temporary period of five years while prohibiting chemical and biological weapons indefinitely. These bans lasted until the powers of the day determined it was not in their self-interest to maintain them. Britain and Germany both used chemical weapons in World War I and strategic bombing was used throughout World War II by all parties.

1200px-Vickers_machine_gun_crew_with_gas_masks
British Vickers machine gun crew wearing PH-type anti-gas helmets near Ovillers, France during the Battle of the Somme, July 1916. (Courtesy John Warwick Brooke).

The requirement that states perceive a norm to be in their self-interest means that norms containing offensive cyber activity are unlikely to work. Unlike other forms of weaponry, cyber weapons are stealthy, making it difficult for planners to determine whether cyber weapons will be useful in the future. Furthermore, some states rely more on cyberspace than others, making states that are less dependent on the Internet less vulnerable to an attack. These relatively immune states will struggle to determine if constraining norms are in their interest as many states did with strategic bombing and will want to keep their options open.

Chinese, Russian, and U.S. cyber activities appear to indicate that these states believe they have more to gain from embracing cyberattack capabilities than constraining norms:

  • China has been unconstrained in its cyber espionage, as demonstrated by the recent OPM breach, but it is also preparing to use cyber weapons to cause economic harm, damage critical infrastructure, and influence armed conflict. The U.S. Department of Defense has pointed out that China is “looking at ways to use cyber for offensive operations” and Beijing appears to be developing and fielding advanced capabilities in cyberspace with strategic objectives in mind.
  • Russia’s early cyberattacks on Estonia, Georgia, and Ukraine indicate that it is largely unconstrained by restrictive cyber norms. Although Russia has diplomatically advocated for a ban on cyber weapons and an International Code of Conduct for Information Security, its efforts are analogous to the Soviet Union’s early advocacy for a prohibition on nuclear weapons while simultaneously pursuing such weapons or its support for a ban on biological weapons while simultaneously developing them in secret. Russian military doctrine proclaims that any future war will involve the “early implementation of measures of information warfare to achieve political objectives.”
  • The United States is significantly expanding its cyberattack capabilities at U.S. Cyber Command and engages in offensive cyber operations. However, unlike Russian attacks, the United States appears to avoid targeting nonmilitary assets yet this restraint is likely negated by its perceived general “militarization” of cyberspace by adversaries such as China. The United States has articulated few limits on cyberattacks. For example, the International Strategy for Cyberspace states that the United States reserves “the right to use all necessary means” consistent with the application of international law to defend itself and its allies and partners.

There are other reasons beyond self-interest that make containing cyber norms less likely to emerge. For example, unlike when the United States was briefly the only nuclear power after World War II and was able to establish a precedent of restraint in post-World War conflicts, it is too late to have a state establish a precedent through restraint or establish a prohibition on cyberattacks.

While policymakers are fixated on the development of constraining rules of the road for cyberspace, history shows that U.S. efforts to promote norms to constrain offensive cyber activities are unlikely to succeed.

About the Author: Dr. Brian M. Mazanec is an adjunct professor at George Mason University. His book, The Evolution of Cyber War: International Norms for Emerging-Technology Weapons, was recently published by Potomac Books.

Note: This article is cross-posted at the Council on Foreign Relations Net Politics blog.

Featured Image Source: Bill Smith