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Arabs at War: Military Effectiveness, 1948-1991 (Studies in War, Society, and the Military) Paperback – Illustrated, September 1, 2004

4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 68 ratings

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Kenneth M. Pollack, formerly a Persian Gulf military analyst at the CIA and Director for Persian Gulf Affairs at the National Security Council, describes and analyzes the military history of the six key Arab states—Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Libya, Saudi Arabia, and Syria—during the post–World War II era. He shows in detail how each Arab military grew and learned from its own experiences in response to the specific objectives set for it and within often constrained political, economic, and social circumstances. This first-ever overview of the modern Arab approach to warfare provides a better understanding of the capabilities and limitations of the Arab militaries, some of which are the United States’ most likely adversaries, and some of which are our most important allies.

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Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5 out of 5
68 global ratings

Customers say

Customers find the book tremendously insightful, thorough, and exhaustive. They also say it has the most readable military maps and an objective analysis of the military performance of Arab Armies and Air Forces. Readers describe the book as excellent, well-summarized, and fine analysis.

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15 customers mention "Content"15 positive0 negative

Customers find the book tremendously insightful, thorough, and excellent. They also say it's a comprehensive recount of events and wars with a didactic approach to analysis. Readers also mention that it'll provide a thorough examination of the military performance and development of six major Arab countries. They say it’s well written and clearly explains the military.

"This book is a very thorough examination of the military performance and development of six major Arab countries: Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Libya, Saudi..." Read more

"Its a great read and offers much insight into the inner workings of Arab armies...." Read more

"...There's many excellent parts in this book. Some examples:*..." Read more

"...In any case, fine analysis with comprehensive military history of the era." Read more

6 customers mention "Reading experience"6 positive0 negative

Customers find the book excellent, well-summarized, and a fine analysis of the military history.

"Its a great read and offers much insight into the inner workings of Arab armies...." Read more

"...In any case, fine analysis with comprehensive military history of the era." Read more

"...I wish it was a bit more updated but it is very good up to about 2000." Read more

"A Good read, comprehensive recount of events and wars with a didactic approach to analysis, the kind that a student might need to prepare for a..." Read more

Top reviews from the United States

Reviewed in the United States on December 12, 2018
This book is a very thorough examination of the military performance and development of six major Arab countries: Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Libya, Saudi Arabia, and Syria. This isn't a history of the country or military in question, nor is it an in-depth account of the wars those countries have waged. Rather, it focuses on the performance of these countries' militaries from 1947 (War of Israeli Independence) and 1991 (First Gulf War) in an attempt to answer a very specific question:

Why have modern Arab armed forces consistently performed so poorly?

Time after time, Arab armies have gone to war against foes with less and inferior equipment and/or smaller numbers (Israel '48, Chad '80s, Iran '80s, etc.). They've had advantages of surprise, prepared fortifications, and even foreign support in the form of military advisors, be they Western or Soviet. Yet even when it seems like they can't possibly lose, the Arab militaries almost always do, or they barely eke out a small victory when they should've easily crushed the foe.

Arab military ineptitude continues to confound foreign analysts and military personnel, both ally and enemy, and it's confounded ever attempt at remedy by both Arab leaders and foreign allies. It defies all conventional methods of measuring a country's military strength by focusing on the quality and quantity of its material assets like weapons and population. We've seen it recently as well, with the total rout of the American-trained and equipped Iraqi army from Mosul by a vastly inferior force of fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria being the most stand-out example.

So why are Arab militaries so bad? Pollack attempts to answer that question.

The book is neatly divided into chapters that focus on a single country. Each chapter is broken up into major conflicts the topical country was involved in, making it very easy to keep your place. For each war covered, Mr. Pollack takes evidence from Arab, Israeli, American, and other sources to paint a detailed picture of the nature of the fighting and how the titular country's military performed in it. He analyzes performance on both the strategic level (how the generals and upper echelons of the military performed) and the tactical level (how the soldiers and lower-level officers expected to execute those strategies performed. Pollack also covers how each military changed and developed between its wars. At the end of each chapter, he does a final analysis to pinpoint any strengths, weaknesses, and other patterns the country's military demonstrated consistently in most of its wars.

The writing style is clear and to-the-point, yet it avoids being dry because of Pollack's writing skill and how interesting the subject matter itself is. Examples and accounts of specific moments during the wars in question are especially enjoyable (in a comedy-of-errors sort of way):

For example, at one point in the First Gulf War the commander of the Iraqi 52nd Armored Brigade received a frantic call from the unit in front of him, the 48th Infantry Division, saying that American tanks were overrunning their positions. "Nevertheless," Pollack says, "because he had not received orders from divisional command, the officer did nothing: he did not execute his primary mission by moving up to support the embattled 48th Division; he did not ready his brigade to move or fight; he did not even contact divisional headquarters to report the message and ask if he should counterattack. As a result, the 48th Infantry Division was overwhelmed by the U.S. 1st Mechanized Division, and the 52nd Brigade was later overrun by the British 1st Armored Division without much of a fight." (Ouch!)

My only real gripe with the book, even though Pollack says in the intro that it's beyond the scope of his study, is that while the book does an excellent job of identifying the problems that are holding Arab militaries back (terrible junior leadership, no initiative, etc.), he doesn't offer any insights as to why those problems exist in the first place and why they have to date defeated all attempts at remedy. The Red Army of 1941 had a lot of the same problems that plague modern Arab armies but they were able to get past them and became REALLY good, perhaps even the best army in the world at the time. The same has never happened to any of the Arab armies, which suggests that their problems run much deeper. I suppose the complexity of the topic is why Pollack doesn't really cover it, but it would've been nice to hear his thoughts on why the Arabs' problems are so acute and seemingly incurable.

This book is full of very interesting insights for the casual reader; it's very informative for any member of an armed forces if only for all the examples it gives of what not to do (plus they'll appreciate the tactical and strategic situations described far better than laypeople); and it's utterly invaluable for anyone who deals with foreign policy or military matters.
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Reviewed in the United States on July 18, 2022
Its a great read and offers much insight into the inner workings of Arab armies. The author offers a birds' view of an impressive array of armies and conflicts. It's well written and obviously relies on extensive research. My one gripe is generalization and characterization: while necessary for the bigger picture, it's more problematic when you zoom in. For instance, when discussing Iraqi performance against Iran, even when discussing specific battles, the author characterizes Iraqi moves rather than describe them. the Iraqi penchant for frontal assaults is stated again and again but, to my understanding, not well demonstrated. The details are missing.
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Reviewed in the United States on June 24, 2009
I read this good book, here in Brazil. This book is about the wars fought by Arabs, since 1948, until 1991. There's some sentences about Arabs' wars since 1991, on the Afterword.
There's many excellent parts in this book. Some examples:
*Page 43:"Another very damaging problem the Egyptians experienced throughout their command structure was a constant distortion and obfuscation of information. Successes were exxaggerated, while bad news generally was not passed up the chain of command at all - or if it was, the reported size of the enemy force was greatly increased to make defeat seem more palatable."
* Page 372:"In a bid to force Dar es Salaam to call off the invasion, Qadhafi ordered an airstrike against the Tanzanian city of Mwanza with the lone Lybian Tu-22 operating out of Kampala. The aircraft managed to miss the entire city, and its bombs killed a large number of antelope when they landed in a nearby game preserve."
* Page 557:"In contrast to the mixed performance of the generals over the years, Arab junior officers performed remarkably and consistently poorly between 1948 and 1991. Arab tatical commanders regularly failed to demonstrate iniciative, flexibility, creativity, independence of thought, an understanding of combined-arms inegration,or an appreciation for the benefits of maneuver in battle. These failings resulted in a dearth of aggressiveness, responsiveness, speed, movement, intelligence gathering, and adaptability in Arab tatical formation that proved crippling in every war they fought."
Even with these and dozens of others examples of great quality, about military affairs, I'll give four, not five stars for this book, because it has some problems:
1-On page 417, there's the "information" that La Belle Discotheque was located in Italy. In fact, it was located in Berlin, Germany.[...] about this fact. Again, on page 582, this book tells that Iraq won its war against Iran. In fact Iran-Iraq War, has as its result, a tie. Both despotisms returned to their borders before their war, without no changes in their borders, in 1990.
2-This book has more than thirty maps. They have darker colors, for more altitude, but there's no indication for real altitude of none. Even worse, no map has a scale with distances.
3-The worsest trouble of this book is it doesn't tells nothing, about Islam. Talking about complete islamic societies, this book has the word "Islam" less than three times. In fact, Islam is above everything,in any islamic society, including all the Arab societies described in this book.Is Islam a source of will to fight or a source of poverty, ignorance, fanatism, useless tactics and military defeat?
Even being a good book, the failures above are a problem. The author chose to forget the main thing in Arab societies:the Islam itself. Why this obvious fact happened,in all this book, I don't know why.
5 people found this helpful
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Stefan Schürger
5.0 out of 5 stars Why did the Arabs fail in war again and again?
Reviewed in Germany on August 14, 2022
This great book sheds quite a bit of lighting on the abysmal military performance of Arab states in various wars. Megalomaniac ambition, combined with ineptitude, unfounded belief in Soviet military technology, a culture that suppresses initive - the list is almost endless. Arab military performance almost reads like results of an inverse brainstorming how to do things wrong, taken literally - all combined with a flat learning curve.
AK
5.0 out of 5 stars A very comprehensive review of the 'how's' of poor Arab military performance after WW2
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 13, 2014
The book is an abridged version of the author's PhD thesis on the reasons for poor Arab military performance in the post WW2 arena, focusing primarily on providing an analysis of factors that explain the relatively substandard military effectiveness rather than on why these factors came about. The book covers the armies of Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Libya, Saudi Arabia and Syria and theatres / operational types as diverse as the relatively conventional wars against Israel / Iran, the 1991 Desert Storm, as well as smaller or more counterinsurgency focused operations (for instance by Egypt in Yemen, by Libya in Chad or Uganda...), so as to give a very broad coverage of military effectiveness against a variety of foes in differing environments.

The book is certainly not for those with a very fleeting interest, being around 700 pages long but can also cover a lot of ground and be reasonably comprehensive as a result. It is organized around the countries covered, and within those each major operation is discussed, with a description of the background and political aims for it, the preparations, balance of forces and then the success (or lack thereof) in the execution, as well as a discussion on the military effectiveness at various levels (strategic, tactical...) demonstrated in the specific war or campaign.

An interesting common pattern emerges across the countries, irrespective of the political backer of the time (Soviet Union, France, the UK or the US), which will give readers a good understanding on what is to be expected but not necessarily always why this is the case. And while the 'Why' aspect is also fully covered in the original PhD thesis, it is sadly only briefly mentioned in the closing paragraphs of the book here - a chapter on it would definitely have improved the book significantly, in my opinion.

The author gives a balanced account in the sense that he manages to dispel many widely held myths on the Arab armed forces and to show areas, where they performed admirably well, even if they were often not given credit for it at the times. Most of them were supremely competent in the logistical arena and more often than not the strategic direction was - if not superb - at least way above average. Cowardice and lacking unit cohesion also cannot be blamed for the often poor showing, as in both areas the forces overall performed very well.

In spite of the book's undoubted usefulness for readers interested in military matters and broader - many lessons learned are equally applicable in a business setting - there are some issues. The prose style is at times ponderous and the final conclusion meanders quite a bit (especially since it uses way too many examples to restate the points one read several times throughout the book already). The author also bases his work almost exclusively on Western and Israeli sources, with relatively little information taken from either Arab or Soviet secondary sources. This is not a problem per se but also means that several gaps in understanding remain (for instance what happened in the countries between the wars or after the last studied and publicized ones). Naval operations (with the exception of the failed Libyan Nanutchka attack on USS Ticonderoga) are completely absent from the book, while for air operations I find 
Iranian F-14 Tomcat Units in Combat (Combat Aircraft)  and  Iranian F-4 Phantom II Units in Combat (Osprey Combat Aircraft)  often more insightful in terms of air force strengths and weaknesses (even if limited to only the Iran / Iraq (and partially Saudi Arabia) as combatants. Finally, there are some consistent misspellings of French aircraft names, some factual errors as to the capabilities of various pieces of equipment... which may irk but should not detract from the overall sound quality of the work.

Overall I find the positives still so overwhelming, and the book such a useful source that it would be wrong to give it less than the full five stars. If at some point the author decides to publish the full PhD (at 1400 pages certainly nothing for the faint hearted), though, I feel that many readers would benefit from getting to understand the 'why's' even more than just having a good grasp of the 'what's'.
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S.M.
3.0 out of 5 stars Pas d'explication pour une approche culturelle du problème...
Reviewed in France on December 12, 2010
Pourquoi les armées du mon arabe ont-elle abouti à de si piètres résultats dans les différents conflits, menés en particulier contre Israël, entre 1948 et 1991 ? C'est la question que se pose Kenneth Pollack (ancien analyste de la CIA, spécialiste du Moyen Orient, ayant fait parti du Conseil National de Sécurité) et pour tenter d'y répondre, il détaille les performances au combat des principales nations arabes -dans l'ordre alphabétique : Egypte, Irak, Jordanie, Lybie, Arabie Saoudite et Syrie, jusqu'à la première guerre du Golfe incluse. Car ces différentes armées ont affronté la plupart du temps des adversaires moins nombreux et moins bien équipés.

Pollack se concentre néanmoins exclusivement sur les conflits interétatiques, et ne parle quasiment pas des opérations de guérilla ou de contre-insurrection (exceptés l'engagement égyptien au Yémen -voir mon article sur le sujet- et l'opération Paix En Galilée au Liban en 1982 entre Israël et la Syrie). L'inclusion de cet aspect aurait pourtant été intéressant car de nombreuses guérillas et autres milices ont tenu en échec les Israëliens et les Américains, même, entre ces deux dates. Il évoque cependant des opérations militaires qui ne sont que rarement abordées : guerres lybiennes au Tchad, le Septembre Noir en Jordanie ou l'intervention égyptienne au Yémen, justement, mais aussi la guerre Iran/Irak ou les opérations de ce dernier pays contre les Kurdes.

L'auteur rejette globalement la faute des désastres arabes sur les officiers subalternes, qui seraient bien plus incompétents en moyenne que les généraux. Or ces officiers subalternes font souvent le lien entre armée et société, justement. Les armées arabes ne sont capables de bien se battre, d'après lui, que lorsqu'elles tiennent des positions défensives préparées, lors d'attaques frontales soigneusement planifiées, ou en retraitant sans qu'un ennemi les talonne de trop près. En outre, l'auteur analyse les performances des armées arabes selon un mode de pensée occidental, alors que le mode de pensée de l'univers arabe ne valorise pas les mêmes choses, et ne peut donc pas produire un modèle de guerre occidental qui sert ici de référence implicite. Le livre se concentre sur les guerres conventionnelles tout en négligeant les pratiques du terrorisme et de la guérilla, qui sont pourtant désormais privilégiées dans le monde arabe, comme l'auteur le reconnaît lui-même dans une Postface ajoutée dans cette édition, qui date de 2004.

L'indifférence de Pollack aux sphères sociales et politiques pose donc problème au sein d'un ouvrage qui se place en termes culturels pour donner une réponse à la question posée au départ. Or Pollack ne s'attarde pas sur le problème culturel souligné, et pour cause : sa bibliographie est anglo-saxonne et ne comprend aucun ouvrage arabe. Il fournit des explications d'ordre militaire qui, à force, sur les six pays concernés, en deviennent répétitives. Une explication plus aboutie nécessiterait d'autres outils.
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Phil
5.0 out of 5 stars A very different kind of soldier.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 20, 2011
Probably the most useful book on the contemporary military scene I have bought for several years. Briefly, his thesis (amply illustrated with battle accounts as good or better than any I have found before)is that the Arab soldier is as brave as any, good at set-piece battles if well planned and rehearsed in advance and that their higher command is (somewhat to my surprise) good at logistics and strategy. Unfortunately,their officers treat information as an asset to be hoarded rather than distributed and find it impossible to admit lack of success, leaving the high command (who amazingly believe their subordinates reports) with a totally erroneous picture of the situation on the ground that produces disaster after disaster.

I was especially intrigued by accounts of Gadaffi's failed invasions of Egypt, Uganda!, and (4 times) of Chad, campaigns I had never heard of.

Phil Barker
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Tinchley21
5.0 out of 5 stars An interesting and unique argument
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 2, 2013
This book argues that the woes of Arab military proficiency emanate from the appalling tactic leadership of Arabian junior officers and their inability to initiate combined-arms warfare at the tactical and operational levels of war. Such deficiencies supposedly span from the Arabian culture which prevents their ability to rectify them.

The book looks at the military histories of:

Egypt
Syria
Iraq
Jordan
Saudi Arabia
and Libya

in order to reinforce this argument. This book is based upon a very rare topic and should not be missed by someone interested in the proficiency of Arabian militaries.
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