Military History & Comparisons to the Ukraine War

Hello everybody!

Certain ‘reader’s commentary‘ made me ‘quite displeased’. The issue on hand was the statement in style of, ‘it is a great mistake to compare Ukrainian people in general, and Ukrainian soldiers in particular, with the Middle Eastern soldiers’….

To make sure: I’ve got no problem with any kind of critique - whether that of historical personalities, branches of military services, their commanders, entire nations - and my work, or whatever else. But, I do prefer (substantiated) critique to any kind of unsubstantiated criticism based on prejudice, predilections, and hear-say.

….and sorry, but: in the case of certain affairs, I do happen to know much more than anybody I’ve encountered so far. That’s at least my experience.

Plus, I’ve already been asked – dozens of times – to compare different earlier wars with this one in Ukraine. I’m not ashamed to admit: it took me nearly 16 months to ‘crystalise’ and ‘specify’ my thoughts in this regards. Thus, here ‘few examples’…

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The ‘classic example’ for ‘Arab military incompetence’ is the June 1967 Arab-Israeli War. ‘Better known’ as the ‘Six Days War’ – because the mass of people either prefers to simply buy the official Israeli- and Western legends about this conflict, or is too lazy to realise that the Arab-Israeli War is raging since 1947 (at least).

….and definitely because there is a massive dearth of research with help of official Arab documentation about these wars: instead, even some of highest-acclaimed historians have strong predilection for falling for all sorts of fantasies, especially those about sources supposedly ‘based on Israeli military intelligence’…which, in reality, was rarely used even by Israeli historians until a few years ago, and even then, ‘only in selected cases’….

Unsurprisingly, the usual story about this conflict is ‘well-known’. Or so you think….

Correspondingly, in May 1967, Soviets, aiming to ‘destroy Israel’, lied to Nasser, prompting ‘that aggressive Arab leader’ to deploy ‘his’ armies on Israel’s ‘borders’ (all were cease-fire lines of the 1947-1949 War), poise to ‘destroy little Israel’, ‘drive Jews into the sea’… And, as usually, it was a show-down between ‘blood-thirsty Arab hordes vs Israeli David’: Arabs had 300, 400, 500, 600, 1000 Soviet MiGs, and 500, 1000, 2000 tanks, and millions of troops and whatever else… they were easily outnumbering and outmatching Israel and whatever other science fiction… bottom line: ‘pooh, lil’ Israel had no option but to launch a pre-emptive’ and all the other blah-blah…

Actually, except for Israel grabbing all of the Palestine in 1947-1949, and then driving its Arab population out; except for Israeli ‘hawks’ then spoiling secret negotiations with Egypt of 1954 (see something called ‘Lavon Affair’); except for Israel taking part in the tripartite aggression (Israeli and Anglo-French) on Egypt of 1956 and then trying to grab Sinai (until President Eisenhower forced it out, in 1957); and except for Israel stealing the water of the River Jordan…the background of the June 1967 War was something that happened in 1960.

At one point in that year Israel was exercising military pressure upon Syria (which at the time was a part of the United Arab Republic/UAR, and as such considered ‘Eastern Province’ by Egyptians). Nasser silently mobilised the UAR Army and deployed it on the Sinai. Israeli intel was late into discovering the mobilisation, and the government slow to react…long story short: eventually, the latter realised what’s going on, and lessened the pressure upon Syria.

At least in Cairo, this resulted in impression that, for once, Israel ‘gave in to the Arabs’: Nasser – who considered himself ‘playing the political game of chess’ – felt victorious, withdrew the army from the Sinai, and thought he has learned an important lesson from this affair… which was then ‘skilfully forgotten’ both by the Israelis and the West….

Based on that experience, when – in May 1967 – the Soviets (mis)informed him that the Israelis are ‘preparing aggression on Syria’, Nasser decided to repeat the exercise: he mobilised the army and sent it to the Sinai again. Arguably, his own military intel told him Israel is not preparing any kind of invasion of Syria, but, he trusted the Soviets more. Foremost, he was playing his game of political chess: aiming not to start a war, but to extract political concessions from Israel.

Nasser’s worst sins in this situation were many-fold:

A)      contrary to 1960, this time he did so publicly. And Israeli generals were not keen about being publicly humiliated.

B)      On the contrary: Israeli generals were ready to stage a coup against the government of Prime Minister Eshkol, if he wouldn’t order them to go to war. And they openly (though not publicly) threatened him they would do so.

C)      Israeli generals were as keen to have a war because they knew, there was no doubt about Israeli military superiority – vis-à-vis all the Arab armies, combined, united or not (and they were anything else than united). This was confirmed ‘even’ by all the US and British military intelligence assessments from all the times since 1948, and so also from early 1967.

D)      ….and for the same Israeli generals, any kind of excuse was just good enough for launching that war and thus grabbing yet more land: this time that of Israel’s/Palestine’s neighbours…

On the contrary, especially Egyptian armed forces were ill-prepared for a war. Sure, they bought plenty of Soviet arms during the 1960s, but the mass of its air force’s equipment was defensive by nature, while one can write books about the poor quality of Soviet ground warfare weaponry, or poor quality of tactical training…

However, eventually, this didn’t even matter. It didn’t matter because of the way Egypt was organised at the time. Nasser simply didn’t control his armed forces: he was a former military officer, sure, but he considered himself a politician and fully focused on the politics. Foremost, he was scared of his nominal ‘vice’ - the Vice-President, Minister of War, Commander-in-Chief of the Egyptian armed forces…. and whatever other titles Field Marshal Abdel Hakim Amer used to wear by the time – and feared that, in the case of any kind of a disagreement between them, Amer might stage a coup against him. Thus, contrary to 1956, Nasser completely ceased meddling into military affairs.  

Problem: Amer might have been a reasonably good low-ranking officer during the Palestine War/Israeli Independence War of 1948-1949; he might have proven a reasonably good tactical-level officer early during the Yemen Civil War of 1962-1970 (that is: early during the Egyptian intervention there, in 1963-1964); and he was highly popular between ‘his’ officers (even if nowhere near as popular as Nasser in the Egyptian and Arab public). But, when it came to fighting wars with Israel, he was scared of Nasser: so scared, it can be said he was ‘critically short on nerves’.

Amer was as scared for the following reason: during the tripartite aggression on Egypt, in October-November 1956, Amer refused to follow Nasser’s strategic-level orders. When Nasser ordered him to withdraw the Egyptian army from the Sinai (two times), he didn’t. The army remained in positions and continued fighting the Israelis (and then with success). When Nasser ordered him to stop fighting the Israeli air force over the Sinai, he refused to do so: on the contrary, by 1 November, the Egyptian air force was flying there in ever larger formations and was on the verge of establishing at least aerial dominance over the Israelis….

…when Nasser found out about this, he was furious and ‘did the only logical thing’: he fired Amer, and fired the commander of the air force (Sidki Mahmoud); remaining short of assuming the (direct) control of armed forces, he has ordered the army’s withdrawal, and the air force to stop resisting the tripartite aggression. Certainly enough, two-three hours later, Nasser cooled down and re-instated both Amer and Sidki Mahmoud back into their positions. But, henceforth neither dared challenging his orders. As a consequence, the Egyptian Army suffered severe losses while withdrawing from the Sinai, and the air force suffered severe losses to the British and French attacks on its air bases.

….all of which ‘didn’t matter’, because Nasser emerged as ‘victorious’ from that war – at least on the political plan. ‘Worst of all’, this was then ‘confirmed’ by Nasser’s (muted) victory of 1960, too: at least within circles of his top generals, Nasser established himself as ‘strategic genius’…

On the contrary: over the following years, Amer – and most of the top ranks of the Egyptian military – did nothing to improve their military education and thus comprehend the latest developments in fire-power and manoeuvre. And at least as little in regards of improving the training of their troops…. While Nasser didn’t meddle, because the armed forces didn’t challenge his position. Finally, during the Egyptian military build-up of late May 1967, Amer did everything possible to completely ruin all the careful pre-war planning, and skillfully converted the Egyptian armed forces into a mess…

When the Israelis attacked on 5 June 1967, the ferocity of their onslaught quickly convinced Amer into a conclusion that Egypt is exposed to another tripartite aggression. This time by Israel in collusion with the USA and Great Britain. And then, and while Nasser didn’t meddle at all into military affairs, Amer started ‘reading Nasser’s mind, in advance’ – and concluded it would be better for him to ‘repeat the exercise’ and follow Nasser’s orders from 1956. By then, the air force was destroyed (this time ‘really’): thus, it was on the army to follow Amer’s order to withdraw from the Sinai – in the course of which it was completely destroyed, too…

With other words: like Putin created the System Putin in Russia since the 1990s, so Nasser created the ‘System Nasser’ in Egypt of the 1950s and 1960s. One where incompetents are running the armed forces on the basis of their (mis)comprehension of ‘great leader’s thoughts’…

Against that backdrop, it doesn’t matter how well- or poor-trained are the troops and the airmen. It doesn’t matter how courageously they fight. They are defeated by default, because such ‘systems’ simply can’t work at war. And, often enough, such systems are self-defeating: troops are losing on orders from their top commanders.

Another excellent example for all of this would be the Iran-Iraq War. See Saddam Hussein at-Tikriti. Yet another underestimated military- and strategic genius….

Saddam took over (officially) in 1979, at the time the Iraqi Army was about to adapt the Israeli training system. Of course, under Saddam - who had absolutely no military education, even if fascinated with such ‘toys’ like the (US-made) Grumman F-14 Tomcat to the point of being a ‘big fan’ - there was no way the army would do such obscenities: it cost too much, and was making commanders too independent from his decision-making. The latter was a crucial issue because, and just like Putin, Saddam appreciated favouritism, corruption and nepotism more than any kind of professionalism and meritocracy. All on behalf of securing the loyalty of the armed forces to his regime. This went so far that Saddam began issuing military ranks to top officials of the Ba’ath Party, so he could appoint them in positions of military control: just like Putin appointed Shoygu – a civilian – the minister of defence, and the latter then started wearing military uniforms to please the GenStab and secure his ‘authoritativeness’…

Then, for the first six years of the war with Iran, Saddam excelled in what Putin was doing during the first few months of his special military operation: micromanaging the battle through making direct telephone calls to brigade-, even to regiment- and battalion-level commanders. The sole difference to the War in Ukraine: contrary to the Ukrainian, the Iranian armed forces of 1980-1981 were in such a state of chaos, that they lacked the firepower to smash the Iraqis in the way the ZSU smashed the regular Russian armed forces, already during the first months of war. They did recover some of that, and thus smashed few Iraqi divisions during the operation to liberate the (completely ruined) city of Khorramshahr, in spring 1982, though…

Thus ‘confirmed’ (because ‘nobody is following his orders’), Saddam continued micromanaging – and doing stupid things. In late 1982, he left his representatives sign an order for additional Dassault Mirage F.1 fighter-bombers from France. Now, Saddam was always mistrusting everybody. So also the French. Correspondingly, he insisted on the related contract to include a clause along which the French were to pay him (literally him: to his bank account) US$50 million for every Mirage shot down by the Iranians. He thought this would make sure the French would deliver their ‘best’ in regards of high-technology equipment for the jets.

Now, Iraq under Saddam was a dictatorship, and a police state, and thus ‘everything was secret’, no doubt. But, ‘even’ such things became known within the top ranks of the Iraqi armed forces, and – worst of all – under the prevailing circumstances, where nobody trusted anybody: they were easily misunderstood. As mistrustful as their political master as he was of them, top Iraqi generals thought Saddam was enriching himself from Iraq losing the war. They threatened to stage a military coup….

Consequence? Saddam ordered the Iraqi air force to do its utmost to avoid any kind of losses. Correspondingly, from 1983 until 1986, the Iraqi air force was ‘flying a lot but doing very little’…

Was that a fault of the Iraqi airmen… at least that of Iraqi generals?

….and: you think nothing similar is possible in the System Putin in Russia of our days? I do not know any comparable examples, but wouldn’t exclude such a possibility.

Finally… a ‘see there’: in February 1986, the Iranians really brought the Iraqi armed forces to the verge of defeat. The situation was so dire that Saddam, finally, let his armed forces operate professionally. With no, or next-to-no of his meddling. Sure, they didn’t promptly change their strategy and tactics: it took them time to re-learn different lessons. But, in a matter of two years they did, and then they defeated Iran, forcing even that sadistic idiot in charge in Tehran into a conclusion his country cannot go on. He agreed to a UN-sponsored ceasefire…

….and so on….I could go on with dozens of additional examples – all of them pointing out the failures based on one factor: dictatorship and the resulting lack of transparency.

Obviously, there are similarities between Arab-Israeli wars and the Iran-Iraq War – and this war between Russia and Ukraine. The principal between them can be summarised with ‘availability of lots of at least well-trained’, and ‘extremely courageous’ combatants, ‘trigger pullers’, troops, airmen, gunners – though all led by idiotic and incompetent political masters.  

…and, at least as often: incompetent officers, installed into their positions by idiotic dictators.

My point is: jumping to conclusions like ‘Middle Easterners are military incompetents by default’, and/or ‘the combatants there are incomparable to this war (in Ukraine)’ – is dead wrong, though typical for either the racist-, or the way of thinking of people who never studied named conflicts in the Middle East to the necessary depth.

If nothing else, and to mention just one example: it’s entirely unfair to such visionaries like Major-General Abd el-Moneim Riyadh who - BTW, and just like such Russian Generals like Zusko, Popov, or (to name the latest example), Selivestrov - ended ‘in de-facto exile’…

….if for no other reason then because you’ve certainly never heard of Riyadh, not to talk about his military education, and even less so about what was he recommending, nor to whom, or at what point in time.

Abdel Moneim Riyadh seen while wearing the rank of Lieutenant-General, with President Nasser (background), in the early 1960s. Certainly enough, Nasser did learn his lesson and - after sacking Amer and his cronies - appointed Riyadh the Chief-of-Staff of the Egyptian Army after the fiasco of 1967. However, Riyadh was then hampered by having to re-built the army from the ruins while all the time facing limitations imposed by incompetent Ministers of War and the Soviet refusal to deliver the necessary equipment… eventually, he was killed in action on the Suez Canal Front of 1969.