"Arabs at War", 1948-1991

[Sgt Joch]

Slightly off topic, but since CMSF is closer to release, I wanted to plug "Arabs at War, military effectiveness 1948-1991", by Kenneth Pollack.

Arabs at War

It has been mentioned before and I finally picked it up a few weeks ago. It is a great overall primer on the military history of the region since 1945. It covers the major Arab powers: Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Lybia. It discusses in detail the military capabilities, strength and weaknesses and tactics of the vaious armies.

It covers all the major wars with Israel and Gulf War #1, but also covers lesser known wars such as the Iran-Irak war, the war in Yemen, the Kurdish uprising.

But the big plus for me is the fact that it is a very easy read, for a military history. The author writes in a very clear straightforward style. A lot of authors get tripped up on their own words and reading them is more homework than pleasure (cough...David Glantz ...cough)

So this is a great book to read to get ready for CMSF.

[Battlefront.com]

It is a great book for sure. The section on the Syrians was extremely instructive and is one of the major inspirations for how I see the Syrians conducting themselves in CM:SF's setting.

Steve

[John Kettler]

Since we're on that topic, then perhaps I should mention Dupuy's tome ELUSIVE VICTORY, which covers the Arab-Israeli Wars from 1947-1974. Wonder if he ever published an updated edition. Mine was published in 1978. Cordesman and Wagner did a trilogy, LESSONS OF MODERN WARS, of which volume one covers Arab-Israeli conflicts from 1973-1989.

Am astonished to report there's no Amazon.com review for this important book.

And he recently did this one, ARAB-ISRAELI MILITARY FORCES IN AN ERA OF ASYMMETRIC WARS, which is not only recent but has one of the biggest and most thorough unclassified analyses of Syrian force structure and military capabilities ever done. Haven't read it, having just learned about it, but am quite familiar with the brilliance of his prior work.

http://tinyurl.com/2cnz3e

I believe THE LESSONS AND NON-LESSONS OF THE KOSOVO AIR AND MISSILE CAMPAIGN will go a long way toward gaining a realistic perspective on the limitations of airpower. One of the bitter truths to emerge is that airpower was nowhere nearly as effective as had been thought, that in fact, most of the "kills" were against decoys. This has direct value to CM:SF in that the Serbs were very carefully tutored by the Iraqis based on their own painful experiences and paid careful attention.

They not only managed to not get creamed by NATO airpower but inflicted some telling blows, such as downing an F-117 in its first ever combat loss.

A lowly SA-3 did the deed. I had a chat with the editor of THE JOURNAL OF ELECTRONIC DEFENSE back before that happened and tried to pitch him on an article regarding the "lessons" of the Gulf War, Maskirovka and its impact on airpower, only to be pooh-poohed. Later, this official magazine of the Association of Old Crows and the bible of electronic warfare published several articles which proved me right in spades. Rather than being a walkover, the Serbs turned out to be cagey and possessed of sharp teeth. I've seen some analyses which indicate that the full extent of NATO air losses was carefully kept from the public.

http://tinyurl.com/2td9f4

Regards,

John Kettler

[Battlefront.com]

Yup, tactically speaking the air war against Serbia wasn't nearly as effective as was thought at the time of it. That's a long established fact. However, it was never-the-less strategically a success. Air power, in conjunction with economic and political pressure, caused the Serbs to withdraw from a provice they absolutely did not want to give up. Therefore, criticism of that particular operation should be kept in the context of it acheiving its ultimate war aims.

Steve

[John Kettler]

Steve,

What concerns me, though, is not strategic results, but rather, aggregate combat effectiveness per airstrike delivered. Have you/the staff read the books I listed? If so, what was your take on them?

Regards,

John Kettler

[Battlefront.com]

Nope, haven't read them as it is not relevant to what we are doing. We instead have looked at the effectiveness of airstrikes delivered in Iraq and Afghanistan. Very different setting than Kosovo and Serbia. Primary difference being eyes on the ground, less cover, and better weather conditions (on average).

Steve

[John Kettler]

Steve,

While I take your points on the airpower side, I fail to see how the new Cordesman book on Arab-Israeli conflict in an era of asymmetric warfare, especially given the major Syria study therein, wouldn't be relevant to what you're doing. Or, am I missing something?

Regards,

John Kettler

[Sgt Joch]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

It is a great book for sure. The section on the Syrians was extremely instructive and is one of the major inspirations for how I see the Syrians conducting themselves in CM:SF's setting.

Steve

I had not realized this was one of the source books for CMSF, although it is a logical choice.

I will have to read the Syrian chapter very carefully to see if I can pick up any gameplay hints.

[Battlefront.com]

John,

While I take your points on the airpower side, I fail to see how the new Cordesman book on Arab-Israeli conflict in an era of asymmetric warfare, especially given the major Syria study therein, wouldn't be relevant to what you're doing. Or, am I missing something?

To understand where a country is today you have to undertand where it was yesterday. A country fights in large part based on its cultural heritage, which is something that doesn't change much over short periods of time. Therefore, to understand how Syrian soldiers may fight in 200x it is instructive to see how they fought in earlier conflicts. As I said in the other thread, they have scant combat experience since the 1970s, so that is where I started my research.

The main strength of a good historian is to be able to extrapolate historical record to predict near future trends. I do consider myself a good historian (I predicted we'd screw up Iraq based on the same thing ) so I do feel that looking at how they responded in previous wars is helpful.

Unlike some of the other Arab nations fighting against Israel, Syria showed some backbone. It was poorly used in almost all cases, and absent in others, but overall the Syrians apparently have what it takes to obey military commands. Other Arab states had far less of this than the Syrians in 1973. The Israelis pointed this fact out themselves, which is an important consideration.

In short... it was a quick read for me and gave me only a very small piece of information to compile in with others. It was useful in that regard to read this book. As a historian, it was simply interesting to read period

Steve

[John Kettler]

Steve,

I'm confused! Are you talking about the new Cordesman book from last year or the book that started the thread? Maybe I'm wrong, but I would've thought that a major study, published last year, of which a big chunk is devoted to in-depth assessment of the Syrian military (the Cordesman asymmetric warfare study) would be of enormous interest and potentially great value to you. I agree that past is significant prologue when assessing how a nation's forces are likely to fight, which is why I brought up Dupuy's study for a somewhat dated multidecade perspective, then went hunting for more recent material to bring the picture up to date, hence the LESSONS OF MODERN WAR, Volume 1 and Cordesman's more recent books.

Regards,

John Kettler