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[BuffaloJack]

http://www.meforum.org/article/441/

Why Arabs Lose Wars
by Norvell B. De Atkine
Norvell De Atkine, a U.S. Army retired colonel with eight years residence in Lebanon, Jordan, and Egypt, and a graduate degree in Arab studies from the American University of Beirut, is currently instructing U.S. Army personnel assigned to Middle Eastern areas. The opinions expressed here are strictly his own.
Arabic-speaking armies have been generally ineffective in the modern era. Egyptian regular forces did poorly against Yemeni irregulars in the 1960s.1 Syrians could only impose their will in Lebanon during the mid-1970s by the use of overwhelming weaponry and numbers.2 Iraqis showed ineptness against an Iranian military ripped apart by revolutionary turmoil in the 1980s and could not win a three-decades-long war against the Kurds.3 The Arab military performance on both sides of the 1990 Kuwait war was mediocre.4 And the Arabs have done poorly in nearly all the military confrontations with Israel. Why this unimpressive record? There are many factors—economic, ideological, technical—but perhaps the most important has to do with culture and certain societal attributes which inhibit Arabs from producing an effective military force.
It is a truism of military life that an army fights as it trains, and so I draw on my many years of firsthand observation of Arabs in training to draw conclusions about the ways in which they go into combat. The following impressions derive from personal experience with Arab military establishments in the capacity of U.S. military attaché and security assistance officer, observer officer with the British-officer Trucial Oman Scouts (the security force in the emirates prior to the establishment of the United Arab Emirates), as well as some thirty year's study of the Middle East.
The article continues at the link below
It’s a somewhat long article but a good read.

http://www.meforum.org/article/441/
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Swift Boats - Qui Nhon (12/69-4/70), Cat Lo (4/70-5/70), Vung Tau (5/70-12/71)

[homesteader]

Great read. Thanks for posting.

It was deja vu all over again. I spent a great part of my career in "the arena". This article, though totally true, barely scratches the surface.

I once gave a new routine technical manual (printed in the US) to an officer I advised. I later wanted to reference that manual. I asked him for it and he told me I could not see it because it had been classified by his higher HQ.