The Arab Problem

[Libyan]

Egypts airforce

210 f-16 (all upgraded to blk. 32 and late 40s)
<22 Mirage 2000
<30 f-4 (phantom II)
<60 Mirage III/5
> 120 f-7/mig-21
50? Alpha Jet (training and ground attack a/c)
120 k-8e (training and dedicated single seat ground attack)

Egyptian Air defense

Nile Skyguard 23mm and 37mm guns married to aim-7 missiles

Patriot (americas most important abm and ad system)

aim-120 araam On Humvee (sa-8 replacement)

sa-6

sa-2 Chinese and Soviet
(aish al sakr) Improved egyptian variant of sa-2

Sakr eyi (Egyptian improved sa-7 manpad)

14.5mm 23mm 37mm 57mm and 100mm aa guns some mobile some not




Egyptian Army

320,000 (in the Field Armies)

200,000 (in army service elsewhere such as in labor and army buisnesses)

500,000 (1st reserve)


110,000 (National Guard a quasi security force as well as Rep Guard)

unk. (unknown millions serve in a national militia)

670 M1 series Tanks (very unpopular due to their turbine engines)

2,500+ m60 series
(american give away not all working, spanish and italian purchases in 2000)

1,000+ t-55 (supposed to be destroyed, additional chech purchases 1998)

670 t-62 (also supposed to be destroyed may be armed with 105mm l7 gun additional eastern european purchases and upgrades)


40 t-80 (israeli quotes Egypt aquired the t-80 from russia in 2001)





1,000+ m113/ypr-65 (reportedly some built in egypt)

620 bmp.1 (obsolete refitted with french engines 1988)

950 btr-50ot-64 (supposedly scrapped in 1986 additional purchases 1997)

1,000+ btr-60/bmr-800

1000+ al fahd (egyptian built west german 4x4 apc)




The Egyptians will in 2006-7 face an israeli defense force whos least!!! capable fighters the f-15I or f-16I will completely be superior to the most advanced EAF Fighter. f-16 blk 4os or mirage 2000c

 

[Pathfinder-X]

Ok so your point is Egypt will get owned??

 

[blain2]

Egypts airforce
The Egyptians will in 2006-7 face an israeli defense force whos least!!! capable fighters the f-15I or f-16I will completely be superior to the most advanced EAF Fighter. f-16 blk 4os or mirage 2000c

Not true. IDAF's most capable aircraft will be the F-16I and similar F-15 variants. IDAF also has some of the older F-16s that are in the same class as the Egyptian AF's F-16s.

 

[srirangan]

Ok so your point is Egypt will get owned??

It indeed will.

 

[Indus]

Ok so your point is Egypt will get owned??

'owned'... you must play that PC game - Counter-Strike.. love that game..still hooked

 

[adeel]

Just my two cents guys, this is a little long, so please be patient with my rant

A major problem plaguing arab militaries, is not necessarily just the disparity in conventional military weapons capability vis a vis Israel.
Training tactics command and control are also major problems. Israeli military forces are nearly as well trained as NATO forces. ( I say nearly because a majority of Israels military is Part-time ).

There are certain cultural and sociological issues which reduce the effectiveness of arab militaries. Throughout history arab militaries have actually excelled as irregular forces(harrasing the romans,british) As far as I remember the last time arab military with significant conventional capability and success was probably before industrialization.

Your average arab NCO is conscripted, the officers are generally volunteers, but many do not reach positions of command because of merit, but rather
by tribal,familial and political association. (this is not the case for everyone, but is widely occuring). Officers tend to treat their enlisted conscripts like cattle, again this is not due to hatred of their own troops. Rather this is based on the system prevalent in society in a majority of arab nations. The upper class is mostly seperated from the lower and poor masses. Officers come from the upper echelons of society, NCOs are poor conscripts.

Officers do not lead by example, but rather cajoling their troops into action. I do not doubt the bravery of the individual arab soldier, but this motivation is normaly lacking specially when the CO is simply barking orders and not with his troops. Infact when arab officers actually led from the front and trained with western officers, their success in training missions was excellent. Being conscripted and recieving low pay and enduring terrible living conditions also does not exactly inspire motivation to fight.

I have read about officers from western nations who were tasked with training arab militaries. Arab officers for example would do everything possible to out do other officers. For example if the western trainers imparted some new tactic or information to an officer, the officer would ensure no other unit would have access to this information unless he was asked personaly by the other units officers to share the info. This was again due to the fact that a system of meritocracy was not in place and rather patronage was used. (you held this important information to yourself to ensure your importance was noticed)

Arab militaries also suffer from the unfortuante side effect of their governmental system. Most arab nations are controlled by either a military dictator or a monarch, both of which are wary of internal dissent from the masses. Arab militaries are also trained to suppress internal problems. Military units would be deployed and equipped in ways so that no formation would be completely superior to another or at an advantage (this ensures no enterprising general instigated a coup and ended up with a disparate amount of the military in his command)

Deploying the military in order to protect the nation is usually to defend the borders from aggressors, arab militaries are burdened with the secondary mission of ensuring the current regime stays in control.

Regardless of the conventional capability of the arabs, they will not be a match for Israel or any other opponent unless they completely change their methods of training and structure of their military. With regards to command and control, arab militaries have a very large beauracracy. A simple request from a company level officer would have to clear a lot of red tape and eventually the decision would be made at the HQ level. Centralized command and control coupled with a lack of initiave within the officers renders a military ineffective. In a modern fast moving battlefield, slow decision making and lack of initiave force a military to operate slowly and ineffeciently.

Just the way I see things guys, im no expert on the arab military, this is just from the classes I have taken in college and research I have done on my own.

regards
Adeel

 

[srirangan]

Ok so your point is Egypt will get owned??

'owned'... you must play that PC game - Counter-Strike.. love that game..still hooked

Woo Indus I love that game. Wanna multiplayer sometime?

 

[Libyan]

to blain you said Not true. IDAF's most capable aircraft will be the F-16I and similar F-15 variants. IDAF also has some of the older F-16s that are in the same class as the Egyptian AF's F-16s.


IN the time frame I spoke of the IDF's most capable aircraft will be the fa-22 and the jsf. the f-16I and F-15I will be the most obsolete aircraft in IDF colors and still light years ahead of the most advanced egyptian aircraft.

 

[mysterious]

F-22 and JSF have a long way to go before they enter in to service with Israel. Talk about reality my friend and not fantasies! UAE's latest F-16s are argueably much better than the F-16I ones but we would never know as you never know what Israel might've put on board their F-16Is and the fact that none of these new aircraft have seen battle yet.

 

[gf0012-aust]

UAE's latest F-16s are argueably much better than the F-16I ones but we would never know as you never know what Israel might've put on board their F-16Is and the fact that none of these new aircraft have seen battle yet.

IMHO, my money is on the Israeli F-16's. They know whats in the Block 60, and they rejected it. Their platforms are nominally a Block 60 minus the equipment (which they didn't want) and replaced with their own EW and Avionics. The F-16I's are combat weasels.

It's generally accepted that the Israeli versions of the F-16 and F15 are superior to their US counterparts - let alone the US export models - which like all aircraft builders (incl the Russians) are detuned models.

 

[mysterious]

Hence my wording, 'argueably'.

 

[We7det_el_qetal]

Soldiers make armies not equipment, Vietnam and Korea are two good examples, so the arab problem is what Adeel posted, not equipment issues.

Our problem is people not equipment.

 

[Darkwand]

Well Egypt pulled itself together for the 1973 war when they had a clear political goal to reclaim the Sinai, Syria went with the unrealistic goal of destroying Israel and is still begging for the golan heights. Although the result of the war can be described as virtually anything Egypt managed to shake the Israelie's out of their complacency of superiority and accept a political sollution.
That was all history but it provides an example of that the arabs aren't all uneducated camel herders dreaming of past glories. The 2 countries bordering Israel with the best political conditions for effective armed forces would be Jordan and Egypt. As happens both those countries have peace treaties with Israel which shows that any pragmatic leader quickly realise that the US will never allow Israel to be wiped out and take the nessecary steps accordingly.
So as long as there is no overriding cause that all the Arabs can rally behind they will keep arguing amongst themself without bothering others with other then neusances.

 

[We7det_el_qetal]

Actually the US intervention threw Israel out of the window for all arabs, arabs have a lot to worry about now that the US is an active player in the region, Isreal is our least worry now.

 

[gf0012-aust]

Actually the US intervention threw Israel out of the window for all arabs, arabs have a lot to worry about now that the US is an active player in the region, Isreal is our least worry now.

Amazing, you worry about the US and yet you don't recognise that even within the Arab League nation states barely tolerate each other. Some of those tribes hate each other as much as they hate the Jews. In fact you appear to have an incredibly short memory about how the Jordanians and the Syrians treated the Palestinians right up until 1990.

You're right, Israel is the least of your worries, it's more of an issue of how some of the League will tolerate each other without having a common demon.

You are aware that the Arab League is virtually divided into 3 (and possibly 4 now) separate camps because they absolutely mistrust each other?? What better way to avoid solutions by demonising an external party - strangely enough the very thing that some members accuse the US of doing. The pot really does call the kettle black sometimes.

 

[Revival_786]

I totally agree with you Adeel.

Its only when the Arabs unite and impose FTA will the Arabs would become much more recoginized in the world economically, socially and militarily. If they keep fighting within themselves, how do they expect to solve their external problems?

 

[We7det_el_qetal]

to Mr. gf0012-aust

1-Actually any dealing with the US and Israel won't be in arab hands for at least 15 years, the real threat to US and Israely plans is Iran.

2-Arabs don't view jews as the enemy, they are another religion which has every right to exist, arabs oppose zionism which is a political belief rather than a religeous one since there are many US citizens who follow that belief although they may have other faithes than being jew.

3-Division on the arab side is only superficial and only natural since all arab governments are only dectatorships ruled by swindlers which is a polite expression for what they really are, so that division among rival gangs is very natural and doesn't convy a true representation of the arab populace.

4-Proof of unity is that the US can't name a single arab country responsible for resistance movments in Iraq, and calls the organized resistance ( as opposed to the popular haphazard resistance ) foreign terrorists, gurilla groups can't exist in any place if they don't enjoy peoples support, so the image of the Iraqi people as oppressed by foreign terrorists makes me laugh to tears.

5-Well the pot calling the kettle or the other way around is hardly a political view, what really matters is how the US tends to handle it's current predicament in Iraq, and no amount of sayings could solve that , the US needs concrete measures, the real interesting question is this, will it take these measures although they will strengthen the political position of the resistance or will it chose to adopt other means.

6-China is an emerging force both economically and politically, so the Taiwan issue has to be setteled as well, so the US needs to commit reserves in two separate hot zones across the globe, so what plans does the Us hold in store for this situation, specially if Taiwan falls South Korea will be cornered between the north and China and that would be an even more interesting situation.

 

[gf0012-aust]

Umair, I know I've made some comments which are broad based and you will probably correct me for some innaccuracies - but I was trying to establish a vessel of broad debate. (eg, Islam and Judaism etc...)

Apols in advance for being lazy in my posts...

 

[tatra]

4-Proof of unity is that the US can't name a single arab country responsible for resistance movments in Iraq, and calls the organized resistance ( as opposed to the popular haphazard resistance ) foreign terrorists, gurilla groups can't exist in any place if they don't enjoy peoples support, so the image of the Iraqi people as oppressed by foreign terrorists makes me laugh to tears.

Without getting too much into your discussion, just wanted to point out that just because no single arab country is responsible for any resistance movements in Iraq, that doesn't mean none are involved with resistance in Iraq: you can support what sprung up by itself and cause it to grow. Also, it is quite likely that foreigners (i.e. non-iraqis) are involved in the organized resistance. That doesn't mean that that resistance consists solely of foreigners. While it is true that guerilla groups can't exist without a degree of popular support, you forget that there was a sizeable portion of the Iraqi's who substantially benefitted from the old regime and these may very well support foreign terrorists. Popular support does not equate to support by all of the people, it just means a sufficient basis of support among the populace to continue to exist. Such a sufficient basis not even has to be large or a majority of the populace ... The world ain't that simple.

 

[We7det_el_qetal]

Nope actually a majority has to exist, coz any body who doesn't approve of the resistance could simply report their movments and they will be toast, so for them to move freely they have to be moving through a majority of friendly supporters, and I didn't say that no arab country isn't involved in Iraq, i said that they are all involved so the US can't name any single country responsible for the resistance.