Gulf War 1991 did not involve NATO. USA could’ve done it on her own. And North Vietnam faced the entire might of the US as well.
not true for most of the vietnam war… against Iraq there was a total and unrestricted war from day 1 with the complete destruction of Iraq’s entire civilian life infrastructure undertaken from day 1… (focus on electricity stations and bridges). Much of north vietnam was off limits for most of the war, and Vietnam was economically and militarily aided throughout the conflict. Once the americans practiced some “unrestricted warfare” against North Vietnam, the vietnamese capitulated pretty quickly too…
Weren’t there always issues with say the Shi’ite Marsh Arabs as well?
not in 1990…
Also in Libya and Syria it did not take long for tribalism/sectarianism to come to the fore.
nor in any other place on earth undergoing upheavals… this is not an “arab” trait at all… can easily happen in european societies (lest we forget the behaviour of citizens during and after WW2)
Also Hussein always gave preferential treatment to his own clan.
This isn’t necessarily a problem. The Soviets certainly didn’t have these sorts of issues in WWII. The educational requirement for tank crews was experience with a tractor!
it was an issue… they nearly lost moscow and suffered disproportionate losses vs germany and her allies.
Troops need to be trained to operate effectively. It’s not about poor overall education. Troops can be educated.
desertion rates from the “old” Iraqi army had to be seen to be believed… (and that is for “peacetime” desertions).
As for conscripts, most countries had it at one stage or another and in many instances they fought well whilst in others they performed poorly.
It’s all about training and proper organisational culture.
you can have training and organisational regime in place, but if the population doesn’t “believe” in your government/war/army it won’t get anywhere…
Did they distribute this knowledge to NCOs and the general soldiers?
nope. because the soldiers were not interested and the NCOs struggled to just make sure the soldiers were not AWOL…
This is quite common in a lot of societies.
There were Israeli reports tahat the Jordanian Army got progressively worse as the decades moved on. Apparently the Arab Legion of 1947 was a far superior fighting force than the Jordanian Army of the 1960s (who were still the best Arab troops engaged against Israel).
Can’t remember where I read it though – it was an online military journal.
I’d take much of what Israel says about arabs with a pinch of salt. they are motivated to dehumanise their enemy and propagation of the “savage arabs” (without looking at actual circumstances and reasons for events) is simply the natural modus operandi since 1948.
but ultimately the entire discussion is moot. It is a false premise to compare a “developed” country (Israel) with a “developing” country (Iraq). The main difference is that whist Iraq has an “educated elite” there is a massive disconnect between them and the “average” person in the street… whereas in Israel the overall education/social development levels are much higher, so whilst there may not be any qualitative difference between the “officers” the real difference is between the quality of the soldiers and their ability to fight modern wars. Iraq in 1990 had a pretty good military by “developing world” standards… but it was still nothing when going up against the concentration of the US+Allies in a very intensive air combat.
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