Why arabs do better at unconventional war

1. The Arab as an Insurgent
Part I The Historical – Cultural
The historical ineffectiveness of Arab military organizations in conventional wars against
Western opponents was amply covered in the study by Kenneth Pollock, (Arabs at War) and
some of the cultural and societal rationale was illuminated in my study, “Why Arabs Lose Wars”
(http://www.meforum.org/441/why-arabs-lose-wars. However, since that article appeared a
frequent topic has been the “New Arab/MuslimWay of War,” expounding the view that in
irregular or unconventional warfare against Western armies the Arabs do much better. From the
historical record it appears to be true, and it is my thesis that the answer why is found in the
cultural attributes of Arab society.
However, in being touted as a new way of Arab warfare it is somewhat deceiving in that only the
weapons and techniques have changed, not the strategy or tactics. It is in fact a very old form of
Arab warfare. As depicted in the works by John Jandora (The March from Medina, A
Revisionist Study of the Arab Conquests), and others such as John Keegan, Steven Runciman,
and Rueben Levy, early Arab triumphs were not a result of religious zeal as many Arab
historians believe, although it was a factor. More significantly, it was due to superior martial
skills, such as experience gained in constant tribal warfare, excellent leadership, adaptability, and
rapid mobilization techniques. In the era of early conquests, Arabs were able to assimilate
European methods and weapons and retain their own advantages which were the ability to
rapidly mass and disperse, move quickly, and use surprise. They scrupulously avoided the close
direct grinding warfare found so often among the Greeks, fighting it only as a last resort.
Despite the success of the early Arabs in adapting to European warfare, the favored Arab form of
war remained traditional Bedouin methods. Culturally traditional war fighting included a
penchant for secrecy, the ability to pick and choose the time and place of the battles, and an
emphasis on individualism, the latter an attribute not part of the mass tactics of the West. The
Arab way of war was historically one of the use of deception, the avoidance of close-in warfare,
and a preference for standoff weaponry, including the near veneration of archery.
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2. Indirection, evasion, excellent intelligence, subterfuge, and psychological operations are the
features of the Arab way of war. In particular, no aspect in the Arab way of war is more
important than psychological operations. So it has been since the opening pages of history. The
importance of the psychological was eloquently described by T. E. Lawrence in his observations
on the Bedouin strategy of winning wars without battles. In the typical ghazwa (Bedouin raid)
this included the use of bloodcurdling yells and screams in which the attackers sought to frighten
the defenders. If things were not going well on the battlefield, there was no shame in a hasty
retreat. As H. A. R. Dickson has written in his book Arab of the Desert, running away was never
considered shameful but rather smart. Arab historian Ibn Khaldun called it the “attack and
withdraw” strategy.
The early history of Arab warfare against Western empires reveals a people more innovative,
adaptable, and strategic in their thinking than their adversaries. The advanced civilization and
culture of Islamic empires atrophied, however, and along with it, their military competence. The
Muslim community was secure in it’s view that the defeated Europeans of the Crusades were a
barbarous and inferior people. As historian Bernard Lewis has so well documented in his
writings, this view held that little was to be learned from the West, complimenting a feeling of
self-sufficiency and allowing European advances in military doctrine and weapons to overtake
and outclass the Middle Eastern Islamic world.
The renaissance in the Western world rendered the Muslim’s deprecatory view of the West as
fatally flawed. An easy French victory over Ottoman forces in 1798 was shocking to both the
Europeans and the Islamic world. Ottoman Turks realized their inferiority, particularly in
military capability, and began to import Western instructors and technology. A massive
European intrusion into the Islamic world was induced by the weakness of a once powerful
Ottoman Empire.
In the Middle East the Europeans created indigenous military forces to do their bidding, in
particular assisting in maintaining security, while being controlled carefully enough to prevent a
military threat to their rule. In so doing they attempted to inculcate their culture into Middle
Eastern military establishments. In some cases a complete makeover was attempted. In the case
of Egypt, Winston Churchill wrote in his book River Wars, “… the European system was
substituted for the oriental.”
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3. From this point on most Arab armies were trained, equipped, and organized on European
methods, albeit still maintaining their cultural attributes. In short, this has proven to be an
unsuccessful graft, as was the Soviet attempt to impose their doctrine on their client Arab states.
(See "Armies of Snow and Armies of Sand: the Impact of Soviet Military Doctrine on Arab
Militaries" by Michael Eisenstadt and Kenneth M. Pollack, Middle East Journal, Autumn, 2001)
which deals with the Soviet Union’s military patronage of Egypt, Syria and Iraq. While these
countries readily accepted Soviet hardware, Arab authoritarian political culture (strongly
reinforced by Western imports of advanced coercive tools and systems) tended to encourage
conformity and could not integrate the doctrine upon which the Soviet military system was based
(although to an extent the Soviet system was more acceptable to the recipient Arabs than
Western models). Overall, as I personally observed in Egypt while working with the Egyptian
army, the Soviet military graft failed as well.
Part II The Cultural Attributes of the Arab Insurgent
The greater effectiveness of Arabs fighting in traditional Arab ways of war has a historical basis
and more importantly is deeply rooted in their culture. In my observations of why the Arabs are
more effective in unconventional war I would posit the following reasons:
1. More in Consonance with Qu’ranic Laws of Warfare
In a widely read book, The Quranic Concept of War, Pakistani general, S. K. Malik has written
that “war is the cause of God” and not a calamity to be avoided. There is much in this book that
would promote unconventional war, including the importance of total war concepts, the use of
terror to strike fear into the hearts of the enemy, the use of psychology, using economic tools,
and as he wrote, avoiding “the kid gloves” approach to war. For many pages he details the
strategy promoted in the Qu’ran, mostly based on the early wars of the Prophet and his followers
against the “apostates.” In other passages he extols the early Muslim armies’ ability to fight on
favorable terrain, at a time of their choosing, and using deception and intelligence to gain
advantage over the enemy. Echoing a theme written by T. E. Lawrence, the principal aim in
warfare is to win “bloodless battles” by convincing the enemy of the futility of resistance. He
also details the laws on the spoils of war. All the writers on Bedouin warfare have written about
the importance of loot or spoils in typical desert warfare. As an irregular, a fighter is far more
likely to obtain his share of the spoils of war than as a foot soldier in a regular army unit in
which it is most likely that any spoils of war will be taken by the officers.
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4. 2. The Importance of Blood Lines and Tribal Solidarity
Nothing is more important in the Arab world than tribal or family solidarity. For this reason
Arab rulers often see this solidarity (assibiyah) as a threat to be dealt with. In most Arab
countries there is a conscious effort on the part of rulers to ensure that regular army units are
generally mixed in terms of ethnicity and regional origins to ensure that there is no cohesive unit
attitudes toward the government ruling establishment. As detailed in my study “Why Arabs Lose
Wars,” the land forces of most Arab nations are the greatest existing threat to the regime. Prior
to the 1980’s, Arab history was replete with examples of military coups. All land forces are a
double-edged sword. One edge of the sword points toward the capitol. This threat is
checkmated by forces loyal to the regime for ethnic, religious, or ideological reasons. Examples
of this are the Saudi Arabian National Guard and the defunct Republican Guard of Iraq. This
works against the effectiveness of Arab conventional units. In other words it is a system which
encourages distrust and compartmentalization. Y. Harkabi examined this in his study of the
collapse of Arab conventional forces in the 1967 war (“Basic Factors in Arab Collapse during
the Six Day War,” Orbis, Fall, 1967).
Arab unconventional or insurgent forces on the other hand are almost always composed of clans,
tribes, ethnic groups, or urban sectarian neighborhoods. They know each other, trust each other
and often have blood ties and family connections. This also makes it difficult to penetrate for
intelligence or creating dissention. Blood trumps all in the Arab world, including religion.
Moreover, unlike conventional Arab forces who are often assigned to areas away from their
origins on purpose, these unconventional Arab units are in their home territory, know the terrain,
be it the desert or the urban slums. and the people are their people. They can hide among the
civilians, creating great difficulties for Western armies trained on minimizing collateral damage.
3. Casting Off the Conventional Arab Military Straitjacket
Arab conventional forces, basing their tactics and doctrine on Western models, tend to be very
predictable, with stovepipe leadership, inhibited by a top-down command structure that rewards
political loyalty to the regime and usually exhibits a wide gap between soldiers and their officer
leadership. Usually the officers are drawn from classes above the peasantry or urban poor, and in
a reflection of the Arab society in general, there is very little empathy to create the cohesiveness
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5. a professional army demands. In a Western army the non-commissioned officer is the bridge
between officer and soldier, but the Arab armies in general lack a professional NCO corps.
In Arab insurgent groups, the informal command structures are based more on traditional Arab
leadership qualities and charismatic personalities, and the concept of tribal or family loyalties
produces a far more effective fighting force than that of most Arab conventional units.
4. The Leadership
More pointedly, in conventional Arab militaries promotion and assignments are based more on
loyalty, political linkages to the regime or family connections. Prevalent in Arab conventional
forces, there is a distinct attribute that the “nail that stands up gets hammered down.” Officers
tend to avoid personal responsibility, seek consensus, and wait for orders from above. This is
much less the case in Arab unconventional forces. Leaders are responsible to their tribe or
families for the successes of their missions and lives of their unit’s members. Very often they are
considered only the first among equals and are subject to removal for incompetence or wasting
lives.
5. Weaponry and Uses
Almost every American advisor will lament the perennial problem of the lack of a systemic
logistics and maintenance capability among Arab armies. It was particularly true of the
Egyptian, Syrian and Iraqi armies. The capability to keep sophisticated weapons systems
operational has always been a complaint of US advisors. It is not a symptom of lacking the
intelligence or will; it is more an aspect of Arab culture in which team work and daily
application of effort is missing. To a lesser but important degree it is also a reflection of the
nomadic influence which views menial “dirty hands” work as the responsibility of low caste
people. Officers shun it and rarely get involved in it.
On the contrary, noted Arabists, Wilfred Thesiger and Alois Musil noted the care and knowledge
with which the Bedouin handled their personal weapons. This is the advantage of the Arab
irregular. He has no heavy weaponry to maintain, only small arms and small stand-off weapons
such as rocket propelled genades (RPG) and mortars. And as Thesinger observed and I did as
well, the Arabs have a talent for jerry-rigging weapons and equipment that can be quite amazing.
With few tools or sophisticated workshops this is a prerequisite for insurgent operations. As a
corollary to this, less sophisticated education is required to handle and maintain these weapons.
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6. 6. Individualism
Ibn Khaldun, in his book The Muqaddimah, laments the nature of the Bedouin as barbaric, but
also emphasizes the individualistic nature of the Arab, the desire among them to vie for
leadership, and each one feel qualified to assume a leadership role. This trait is one of many
which has been absorbed by Arab society in general. Anyone who has spent some time in the
Arab world can relate this to a scene of an accident wherein dozens will gather, all shouting
orders to others, and no one is listening. At the American University in Beirut my sociology
professor asked the class to observe a basketball game and relate their observations. The Arab
students saw nothing of particular note but many American students noted that there was very
little passing or teamwork. A player would get the ball, dribble the length of the court and make
a shot. This overwhelming trait of individualism is a difficult obstacle in developing a smooth
functioning conventional unit. My own observation over the years has been that Arab units are
not lacking in the individual skills required for war-fighting; they are hardy, used to privation,
and tough. The basic problem on the modern battlefield is the lack of functioning combined
arms.
For the unconventional fighter these are not particular problems. In fact the Arab in a guerilla
unit is able to exhibit his imagination and initiative in a way never allowed in the conventional
unit. Conformity of the Arab military system is a result of draconian discipline imposed to get
obedience. It is not a natural Arab attribute. In opposition to the conventional military system,
the insurgent success depends on individual initiative.
7. Glory and Self-Promotion
The seemingly inbred thespian impulse found in Arabs is a remarkable and often observed trait.
General Glubb Pasha, commander of the Jordanian Army, and who worked with Arabs for
almost 50 years commented on their spirit of romance, need for the dramatic gesture, and quest
for personal glory. Eric Hoffer wrote of this trait in describing terrorists of the left-wing
ideological type in the 60’s. His descriptions of this motivation fit perfectly with the Twin-
Tower terrorists. Hoffer wrote in his book The True Believer, “Dying and killing seem easy
when they are part of a ritual, ceremonial, dramatic performance or game.” “Glory is largely a
theatrical concept. There is no striving for glory without a vivid awareness of an audience - the
knowledge that our mighty deeds will come to the ears of our contemporaries….” Obtaining
this personal glory as a foot soldier in an infantry unit is by no means impossible but hardly as
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7. likely as the Arab insurgent with face mask. kaffiya, individualized battle dress picking the time
and place for his personalized heroic act.
Conclusion
In surfacing the reasons for Arab effectiveness as an unconventional warrior I have drawn on
my own experiences as well as the observations of those who have worked with Arabs over the
past two centuries. Much of the materiel relates to the nomadic Arab. Yet today probably less
than 5% of the Arab population can be considered nomadic. The Arab world is a mostly urban
society. However this in no way diminishes the validity of the traits depicted above. As the
great Iraqi historian Ali Al Wardi has written a half century ago, nomadic traits are part of the
ethos of the Iraqi and Arab character. This has more recently been reinforced by the study of
Philip Salzman in his book, Culture and Conflict in the Middle East. Just the fact that Ibn
Khaldun’s observations can be applied today is proof of the resistance of Arab culture to
change.
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