Why Arab armies don't win wars

Kenneth Pollack’s Armies of Sand argues that chronic military failures across many Arab states stem less from hardware or doctrine than from social and cultural patterns that inhibit initiative and adaptability. Pollack marshals historical examples - Egypt’s catastrophic losses in the Six-Day War after commanders lied about aerial successes and then abandoned troops; Syrian forces pausing after an initial breakthrough in 1973; Libya’s defeats in Chad and Saddam Hussein’s inept offensive against Iran - to show that larger numbers and Soviet-style training did not translate into battlefield victory. He rejects simplistic explanations such as mere reliance on Soviet doctrine or political purges, noting that other Soviet-trained forces performed competently and that depoliticization did not magically fix Egyptian performance.

The core explanation locates the problem in deference to authority, intense in‑group loyalty, fear of shame, and pedagogical traditions that favor rote learning over problem solving. Pollack traces these traits to family structures, Quranic-school legacies, and mass schooling methods that reward obedience, creating militaries and bureaucracies where officers stick to preplanned maneuvers and bosses discourage risk. He cites an American trainer’s account of rigid F-16 exercises and a study where 90 percent of senior officials called subordinates unfit to innovate. Exceptions like Hezbollah’s hardened cadres and ISIS’s use of foreign commanders support the thesis that selective pressures, not equipment, produce effective fighting forces, and that cultural and institutional reform is central to improving performance.