Top Middle East Militaries

[Somalia]

This is my list in terms of economy, natural resources, population, training, domestic arms industry, weapons systems, and number of troops all which are key areas a nation must have if they wish to become military power.

1) Iran/Israel (They have the largest domestic arms industry, Iran has larger economy but Israel also recieve a lot of aid from America, and they have highly educated populations, well trained and highly motivated militaries, Iran has the advantage of natural resources and larger economy so they don't rely on foreign aid like Israel. Their advanced arms industry, large economies, well educated population, high training and technological know-how makes them well above the rest.)
2) Egypt/Turkey (Egypt and Turkey do have modern military but most of their current equipment is American thus makes it heavly reliant on import, they don't have the level of domestic arms industry like Iran and Israel, furthermore what ever weapons they produce like the M1A1 it is done under liscense and the parts come pre-made they are just put together by Egypt and Turkey. They also don't have the economy of Iran and its huge natural resources and though Turkey and Egypt get American aid Israel still get more aid than either one of them. Their lack of high level of arms industry and natural resources makes them 2nd tiers, but their modern militaries, high training and technological competency makes them above the others.)
3) Syria/Saudi Arabia (Syria and Saudi Arabia don't have the level of arms industry like Iran and Israel. Though Saudi Arabia has huge natural resources and modern military they don't have the level of training and skill compared to Iran, Israel, Turkey, and Egypt not even the level of training and skill of Syria. Saudi Arabia is heavly western dependent in its technological know-how thus handicapping it in 3 vital areas arms industry, training, and technological know-how. Though Syria has a higher level of self sufficiency and training, they lack the natural resources and modern military of Saudi Arabia thus having its own short-comings. Which make them 3 tiers/)
4) Algeria/Libya (Algeria and Libya have fairly modern and decent military and both recently started to upgrade and shop on the market for modern arms. The Training and level of skill of their armies are in question, and both lack any meaningful arms industry. This puts them 4 tiers.)

5) The minor Gulf states/ Lebanon, and Morroco (These nations don't have any arms industry, no large population, no well trained militaries, heavily reliant on Western technology and training. Though the Gulf countries have natural resources, and modern military....the size of their militaries, skill, and reliance on Western technicians make them a push-over to the heavy weights like Israel, Iran, Egypt, Turkey, and Syria. Lebanon has educated population but is still recovering from wars, no meaningful military, arms industry, and natural resources. Morroco has no arms industry, natural resources, highly trained military.)

6) Iraq ( You guys know why its last, still in midst of war, heavly dependent of U.S. no meaning full military.)

Name your own lists if you disagree and back up why you have them in that order, I am interested to see what others think and their picks!

 

[MontyB]

I think you have missed Jordan off your list, although they appear under resourced they do have a well trained military. I would definitely rate them at 3 or maybe 2 on your list.

 

[Somalia]

You are right Monty B, Jordan falls under 3 with Syria and Saudi Arabia. They are highly trained and skilled like the syrians but do not possess the arms industry, natural resources, and large population like the such countries as Iran, Israel, Egypt, and Turkey.

 

[Grimmy]

Israel is in a class by itself in the mideast. It has proven the ability to successfully withstand the combined might of all its neighbors, repeatedly.

Part of that is because Israel's military is "western" oriented. Arab militaries tend more toward the old soviet model which minimizes such intangibles as initiative and personal drive/self motivation and maximizes such constraints as promoting party loyalty over ability and requiring inflexible adherence to orders on the micro manage level of detail.

In straight up military terms, no arab nation is able to field anything that could match a western military, regardless of potential numbers disparity favoring the arab nation. The only possible exception would be the Turks. Man for man, the Turk can produce good reliable fighters. The main problem for the Turk military is that it hasn't been tested as a military in large operations against another nation in living memory. That can tend to create areas of fragility in a military structure.

As a standard issue military, what the Iraqi had is about as good as you will see from most of the arab world. The same issues that made it easy to destroy will be common practice in other arab armies.

There is an area where both Iran and Syria have power though and that is in the covert/terror war models. Both Syria and Iran have large, semi independent, well funded and highly organized quazi military organizations already pre deployed to target areas of strategic interest.

No arab nation nor any coalition, alliance or combination of arab nations will be able to produce a standing military able to successfully operate against a western expeditionary force, regardless of population base, economy or technology. This may change in the future, but that's how it is now.

 

[Rabs]

I agree Israel is in a class by itself capability wise.

Saudi Arabia should be higher, other than that seems ok to me.

 

[KJ]

Grimmy summed it up pretty good IMO.

Israel is the only military force in the mideast that is to me reckoned with in open warfare.
The others are possibly on par with the Iraqi insurgency.
Saudi Arabia and Jordan and a few other nations depend too heavily on western equipment.
Although good enough in THAT AOR the western nations never sells their top notch gear to these nations.
It might be simplistic but an expeditionary force from the western world would make a clean sweep in the region in conventional warfare.

 

[Grimmy]

Unfortunately, the paradigm of power is shifting from conventional standing armies to exactly the kind of covert terror organizations that both Syria and Iran have produced.

 

[bulldogg]

^^^ More accurate than an Excalibur round.

 

[KJ]

Unfortunately, the paradigm of power is shifting from conventional standing armies to exactly the kind of covert terror organizations that both Syria and Iran have produced.

Agreed, so what is the sulution in your opinion?
As we need to keep the initiative , what´s your thoughts?
How do we obtain and retain the initiative and how do we get enough troops trained in the tactics requiered?

Damn, don´t look now but we are actually nearing an interesting discussion here.:angel:

//KJ.

 

[Grimmy]

I assume that most here will consider my opinions on such issues to be well within the lunatic fringe but I'll put it out here anyway.

Fear.

Those who wont play nice out of a basic sense of decency must be made to behave by knowing fear.

If they want to side step traditional standing militaries and go to covert terror organizations that purposely target civilians then their civilians must be made to pay an even greater cost in blood.

They hit us with a terror attack, we vaporize one of their cities.
They vaporize one of our cities with a smuggled bomb, they cease to exist as a people everywhere on this planet.

This is a hard world with hard people playing hard ball. The warmfuzzies and carebears need to sit down and shut up and let hard men make the hard decisions to keep the hard wolves at bey, or the warmfuzzies and carebears need to be eliminated so that the rest of the culture has a fighting chance at long term survival.

 

[bulldogg]

Nothing lunatic in that brother.

 

[KJ]

I assume that most here will consider my opinions on such issues to be well within the lunatic fringe but I'll put it out here anyway.

Fear.

Those who wont play nice out of a basic sense of decency must be made to behave by knowing fear.

If they want to side step traditional standing militaries and go to covert terror organizations that purposely target civilians then their civilians must be made to pay an even greater cost in blood.

They hit us with a terror attack, we vaporize one of their cities.
They vaporize one of our cities with a smuggled bomb, they cease to exist as a people everywhere on this planet.

This is a hard world with hard people playing hard ball. The warmfuzzies and carebears need to sit down and shut up and let hard men make the hard decisions to keep the hard wolves at bey, or the warmfuzzies and carebears need to be eliminated so that the rest of the culture has a fighting chance at long term survival.

Ok..
Although aceptable at first glance you couldn´t do that..Nor would I want to be a part of that for a few (as I see them) obvious reasons.

1. Not everyone in the country share the opinions of the insurgents/unlawful combattants or whatever you decide to call them.
There are good people living in these places that will not have ANY part of the insurgency, terrorism.

2. In all cases where a guerilla war/insurgency have been beaten back the "hearts and minds" campaign have been equally important.
Read up on the British involvement in Dafur and/or Malaysia for example.
It would be rather hard to get a hearts and minds campaign to work under the threat of iniolate cities don´t you think?
Another one on the plus side for these engagements was they were very cost effective.
A few SAS sabre squadrons deployed.
On the minus side. It takes time to get results.

3. If you are going to defeat you enemies in this kind of war what you need in my opinion is to isolate the insurgents.
Deny them their support/make them unable to threaten civilians to comply with them.
How?
By offering something else, something better.
How about security for one?

4. Imagine the strain your tactics would put on your own forces.
Sitting on a website discussing "Evaporating cities" might be jim dandy, but who will do the actual deeds?
No one and I mean no one wants to be the one having to execute such an order.

More thoughts?
Critique on mine?

//KJ.

 

[Grimmy]

Your examples of Darfor and Malaysia are non starters.

1 Darfor was then and still is a **it hole of never ending misery and grief. The "hearts and minds" effort there won nothing what so ever except for a temporary reprieve.
2. Malaysia had the benefit of a huge indigenous middle class that was totally dependent on British success and assisted massively to support that success.

For the rest of your reasoning. Please name me one war where everyone on either side was 100% involved? You cant. It has never happened. Not all the Germans were Nazis. Not all the Japanese were imperialists. It didnt matter one little bit. Not at all. Not even somewhat.

Now, for the excuse that we cant retaliate appropriately because some nice folk might get hurt, too damn bad. If the nice folk dont want to get hurt, then it is up to them to make damn sure that the **itheads that are coming out from among them are caught and took care of before they become our problem. It is their responsibility, not ours.

Our only responsibility is to protect our own. That is it. That is all. That is the only. If they cant clean up their mess without making it our problem then we have every single right to end their existence.

This idea, this concept, this idiocy that has been produced by constant leftist propagandizing that the West in general and the US in particular have to be some silly Shiney Knight on a Noble Steed of Absolute Spotlessness in order to be acceptable is complete bull**it.

Our existance is threatened. We have every right to eliminate that threat by whatever means we deem effecient and to whatever lengths we deem appropriate. No one else has the right to decide that for us. No one.

 

[Grimmy]

As to executing that order? Me, now right this minute today without hesitation.

The threat is real. I see zero need to actually wait for the death of a million or so of my fellow citizens to prove it to the sheeple that refuse to pay attention to anything other than what pleases their sense of virtue.

 

[Grimmy]

Anyway, I do apologize to you, KJ, for my coming out as hostile in rebuttal.

I am frightened and I am angry.

I am frightened because it is a given that we here in the US will eventually sustain either a smuggled nuke hit or a large scale bio attack and many of my fellow citizens will die.

I am angry because it is preventable but the defeatists and weak sucks have gained so much power over public opinion that it will not be prevented.

The end results will be the same. The islamic world will be flash fried, but many of my own people will have to die first.

 

[KJ]

Your examples of Darfor and Malaysia are non starters.

1 Darfor was then and still is a **it hole of never ending misery and grief. The "hearts and minds" effort there won nothing what so ever except for a temporary reprieve.
2. Malaysia had the benefit of a huge indigenous middle class that was totally dependent on British success and assisted massively to support that success.

For the rest of your reasoning. Please name me one war where everyone on either side was 100% involved? You cant. It has never happened. Not all the Germans were Nazis. Not all the Japanese were imperialists. It didnt matter one little bit. Not at all. Not even somewhat.

Now, for the excuse that we cant retaliate appropriately because some nice folk might get hurt, too damn bad. If the nice folk dont want to get hurt, then it is up to them to make damn sure that the **itheads that are coming out from among them are caught and took care of before they become our problem. It is their responsibility, not ours.

Our only responsibility is to protect our own. That is it. That is all. That is the only. If they cant clean up their mess without making it our problem then we have every single right to end their existence.

This idea, this concept, this idiocy that has been produced by constant leftist propagandizing that the West in general and the US in particular have to be some silly Shiney Knight on a Noble Steed of Absolute Spotlessness in order to be acceptable is complete bull**it.

Our existance is threatened. We have every right to eliminate that threat by whatever means we deem effecient and to whatever lengths we deem appropriate. No one else has the right to decide that for us. No one.

Heh, take it easy my young padawan. I was mearly offering you some food for thought.
I see a few flaws in your argument.
The vast majoroty of Iraqi,s are on the coalition side.
Just as in Malaysia most would benefit greatly from the allies winning the struggle.
IF you decided to make a city go BOOM you have lost that support forever.
You have then created exactly the situation I believe is unneccesary.
You will have to think about the consequences a tad too.
Erasing an intire city in Iraq would inevitably send the terrorist reqruiting numbers all over the middle east over the ****ing moon.

Furthermore, this conflict can´t be fought and won with WWII tactics.
As you decided to say yourself this is a hidden war, a terror war.
You can´t fight terror with conventional tactics.
But you can´t fight terror with terror either.

These hostiles aren´t afraid to die, how can you make them afraid to loose a city of civilians?

The Israelis have some fine tactics in this area but then again they haven´t won their war yet have they?
They have been at it going on 50+years.

I can see alot of useful mirror images in the Malaysia campaign, maybe they are being looked at, maybe not.

As your countries military your first responsibility is to protect your citizens, yes.
You are supposed to do as ordered, yes.
Are you supposed to do that at all cost?
I dunno, I didn´t convene the nurnberg trials.

Those did state that the individual have a responsibility for his actions weather ordered to do it or not.
Thus: If someone ordered me to "take out a city" I´d be atleast giving it a second thought before I did it..

//KJ.

 

[KJ]

Anyway, I do apologize to you, KJ, for my coming out as hostile in rebuttal.

I am frightened and I am angry.

I am frightened because it is a given that we here in the US will eventually sustain either a smuggled nuke hit or a large scale bio attack and many of my fellow citizens will die.

I am angry because it is preventable but the defeatists and weak sucks have gained so much power over public opinion that it will not be prevented.

The end results will be the same. The islamic world will be flash fried, but many of my own people will have to die first.

No need to apologize mate.
I find this discussion very uplifting.
I just share my wievs with you and youwith me as it should be.
I don´t have all the answers, if I did I would have employed those tactics already.

Simple, this is a serious discussion, tempers will flare.
Hopefully we´ll still be able to speak to eachother when the smoke clears.:salute:

 

[Grimmy]

I'll try harder at keeping this civil on my end.

I see a few flaws in your argument.
The vast majoroty of Iraqi,s are on the coalition side.
Just as in Malaysia most would benefit greatly from the allies winning the struggle.
IF you decided to make a city go BOOM you have lost that support forever.
You have then created exactly the situation I believe is unneccesary.
You will have to think about the consequences a tad too.
Erasing an intire city in Iraq would inevitably send the terrorist reqruiting numbers all over the middle east over the ****ing moon.

I'm expressly not talking about the situation in Iraq. That's a fight already in progress and will have to be seen through as is. It's also outside the boundaries of what I was speaking on earlier.
We went into Iraq. Iraq did not attack us citizens directly but did have the potential to either do so or offer direct aid to those that would, so in we went as is proper.
It is a hard fight in Iraq but it can and will be won. It, most likely, wont be won until both Syria and Iran are dealt with separately though.
Both Syria and Iran have committed numerous and obvious acts of war against the US and Coalition nations and Iraq itself. War will have to be waged against Syria and Iran, eventually. Otherwise Iraq will eventually be lost due to the constant interference of forces from both Syria and Iran.
Now, once the issue becomes unavoidable with Iran and Syria, we will start to take hard hits here on our home soil. Our citizens will be targeted directly by covert para military "terror" cells placed here by both Syria and Iran. That's a given.
We will, most likely, keep to our current "hearts and minds" dogma in both Syria and Iran and both fronts will recieve the same sort of interference from arabist forces originating from nation/states bordering on either of those two. And so on and so forth, until in a decade or so, we are in a long, drawn out, constant, never ending slow burn insurrection from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean.

That is how I see this playing out unless or until the islamist/arabists manage to hit us hard enough, hurt us bad enough to wake up the more atavistic side of our nature, at which time, they...all of them, the good, bad and indifferent, will be made to disappear in blooms of earth bound sunspots. I also see that as an eventual given.
I see it as an eventual given because I have been watching this problem grow since my brother Marines got hit in Beruit in '83. I've watched the islamists/arabists refuse to step away or pass over anything that can be used to cause harm, regardless of consequences. I've watched them, time and again, demonstrate an absolute inability to think outside their own propaganda.
They will eventually acquire the goods and when they do they will use them and when they do they will set events in motion that will cause their total elimination from this planet.

Furthermore, this conflict can´t be fought and won with WWII tactics.
As you decided to say yourself this is a hidden war, a terror war.
You can´t fight terror with conventional tactics.
But you can´t fight terror with terror either.

You can fight a terror war with WW2 tactics but you have to want to. You must have a population that isn't lost to the idiocies of postmodernism, communism, defeatism, juvenile rebellionism, trendy treasons and all other possible forms of enemy sympathizing during a time of war.

Right now, much of our public is given over to weakness and stupidity but that will change once it starts to get really painful. There are those of our citizenry that are as much an enemy of the US as are the jihadi themselves.
Eventually, the situation will become harsh enough that this can no longer be ignored and the problem will be corrected.

Until then, we will continue with this concept of "the military is at war, the US is at the mall" idea that war is someone else's problem and not something Joe Schmoe on the street has to worry about.

The Malaysia campaign is a favorite of the Brits to put up in our "ignorant American" face but it has no application here. No relevance and no real similarity. The Brits had been in Malaysia for generations prior to the insurgency and had deeply entrenched roots to draw upon. Those do not exist for us in Iraq nor elsewhere where we are liable to be countering islamist/arabist war.

As your countries military your first responsibility is to protect your citizens, yes.
You are supposed to do as ordered, yes.
Are you supposed to do that at all cost?
I dunno, I didn´t convene the nurnberg trials.

Yes, I see your point. Anyone does anything harsh, they are automatically Nazis. Yeah, right.

The Nazis were military expansionists and genocidal racial purists. Their offenses had nothing whatsoever to do with self defense. They were pure, naked aggression.

We, on the other hand, are up against an enemy that demands our destruction and will use any means to accomplish that end.

When faced with an armed psychopath that demands your death, you either destroy him or die. It is that simple.

For Israel's not managing to live peacefully all these years? You actually made my point for me.

It is either us or them. They will have it no other way. There is Zero potential for peaceful coexistence. The islamist/arabists prove that every single day in an amazing plethora of ways.

 

[Grimmy]

The original issue of discussion was how to counter a culture that can bypass traditional military methods and take war straight to a target nation's citizens on their home soil at will with no real hope of the target nation's security forces being able to provide its citizenry any real comprehensive protection.

The answer to that is that any culture able to do so must be made to understand that doing so will ensure their total and complete and immediate destruction. Otherwise there is no real counter due to the originating terror nation being able to draw the conflict out for as long as desired until it's goals are met, even if it takes generations of bloodshed.

 

[Somalia]

You are right I agree with you, the Arab armies have been always heavily centralized and the junior officers showed no initiative taking on the battle field when the opportunity presented itself, and the Israeli military brilliantly exploited this weakness. But we must remember that isn't the only thing that contributed to Arab faliure on the battle field, the Israelis got the best equipment America and the West has to offer, they were basically using the same weapons the American Marines, Army and Air force uses. The Arabs on the other hand have had to rely on second rate Soviet weaponary because the Soviets never gave the Arabs the same jets the Soviet Air Force had for example, they were given second rate and stripped down export versions, this tremendously handicapped the Arab militaries. The Israelis were also being given real battle time satillite imageries of Arab army positions and and the U.S. navy their AWACS to help Israeli jets, before the Israelis got some of their own.

My points is Though the Israelis are a tough nut to crack that is predominitly due to heavy America support. As you could see after Egypt kicked out the Soviet instructors and Soviet technicians they did much better in the 1973 war due to more initiative taking excellent military planning and execution.

Yes the Arab world was heavily handicapped by heavy centralization but after the 1973 war that has changed. The Arab armies today are more American oriented and except for Syria, Libya, Algeria. The Arab officers today are given much more discretion and much more training. A lot of Arab countries build their own arms industry also so they can solve the problem of being sold stripped export versions by the West or East.

And to clarify another point Turkey and Iran are not Arabs. And I hate to burst your bubbles but in today's Arab armies Israel would not defeat their combined forces without heavy American and European support. The Arab armies today are not centralized they make a lot of their own weapons, and have recieved high training and learned from previous Arab-Israeli conflicts,the Iraq war, and the recent Hezbollah-Israeli war. See how good they fought in 1973 in comparison to previous wars well it has only gotten better since.

And for Iran and Turkey they can easily match Israel in a war if their wasn't a heavy American support for Israel. The Iranians produce a lot of their weapons, from fighter jets, submarines, surface naval vessels, missiles, tanks and many other equipment. They have a population thats 10 times that of Israel, 7 million compared to 70 million and Iran populations is mostly young generation post revolution. Both Israel and Iran have highly educated civilan base. Iran has larger economy and a lot of natural resources; therefore, in a war between Iran and Israel , in all fairness and looking at the disparities it would be hard for Israel to win without heavy American support especially in terms for resupplying.

And also never underestimate anyone or overestimate yourself. Their is no way a western expeditionary force can do a clean sweep of the Middle East and destroy all the Armies of Egypt, Syria, Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Algeria, Morroco, Muaratania, Lebanon, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Yemen, Sudan, and Iraq. In all fairness and speaking logically and reasonably their is no way conventionally a Western expeditionary force can eliminate all the nations i mentioned combined totally. Lets not overestimate the west and underestimate others here.