Arab armies then: >conquered huge swaths of land easily Arab

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We figured out that we could go around them.

>>1620653
Today's Arab armies are useless because they're designed to be useless - competent military leaders get sacked lest they become too popular and stage a coup, each section of the military works in opposition to each other section, again as an anti-coup measure, and each country has 5+ intelligence services which devote their time to spying on one another rather than on external enemies. Also, most have top-down command structures which don't reward initiative, e.g. in the 1973 war Sadat basically running everything from Cairo and not allowing commanders any leeway to make their own decisions and react to changing situations. There're other reasons but I reckon these are the main ones. Contrast this with how the IDF works, or indeed how Hezbollah, the sole competent Arab army, works.

>>1622368
Oh yeah and I forgot, morale/motivation is an issue in a lot of cases - a bunch of terrified poorly trained conscripts with no guiding ideology aren't gonna stand up to a determined force, e.g. the Iraqi 'army' vs. ISIS and previously the US, or any of them vs. Israel.

>>1620653
Everyone and their mother were supplying/supporting/reinforcing the Israelis in the Arab Wars. Also, Israel preemptively took out Egypt's air force and they weren't ready to do anything after that to fight Israel.

>>1622375
this. Arabs don't want to fight artificially created states that don't reflect what they truly care about:
their faith and their tribe.

http://www.meforum.org/441/why-arabs-lose-wars

>>1622368
>>1620653
http://www.meforum.org/441/why-arabs-lose-wars

Great article on it. Huge cultural problems and elite usurpation of knowledge is a big problem.

>>1622569
fuck too late

>>1622487
Doesn't know what he is talking about
>>1622664
Does know what he is talking about

>Arab armies then:

had resources and money

>Arab armies now:

don't, except Saudi Arabia and Iran-Iraq conflict Iraq oh boy did they have lots of money and support

the Middle East stopped being relevant globally when the Ottomans fell anyway

>>1622741
>had resources and money

What resources did the 7th century Arab's have during the first generations of conquest? Genuinely curious.

>>1622710
He's a colonel in the Army i'd say that gives him more credibility than a random post on 4chan who refutes literally none of his points but please enlighten us

>>1620653
The Arab tribes of the conquest era are not the same as those in modern Syria or Egypt. The modern Syrians and Egyptians are the descendants of those that were conquered by the Arabs and most everyone else to ever swing by the Middle East in the past 2000 years.

>>1622710
Retard

>>1622760
Mecca was probably fairly wealthy considering that it was a trade hub, and Muhammad would have used this to spearhead his initial conquests.

>>1622664
Generally I agree with this but for the Egyptian, Syrian, and Iraqi armies at least I'd put it down more to the political culture engendered by living in a police state than to specifically 'Arab' culture, you can see basically the same problems, albeit less egregious, in accounts of the Russian wars in Afghanistan and Chechnya. Interesting read though thanks mate.

>>1623842
If anyone's really interested I recommend soldiers, spies, and statesmen by Hazem Kandil, coup d'etat a practical handbook by Edward Luttwak, and Hezbollah a short history by Augustus Richard Norton as a good starter set on why modern Arab armies are so appalling.