You're not trying to draw parallels between training the ROK army and the IA are you? Let's be honest. Not all foreign armies are equally trainable. Training Arab forces presents some very significant cultural obstacles that simply do not exist in Korea. I think that we are doing a decent job trainingthe IA/IP given what we have to work with (and around).
That's for sure.
On top of that little problem, all countries and their amenability to building a security environment also differ. Not least of the problems in that sphere is acceptability of western norms...
Training Arab Armies
Great point Uboat. I've never been stationed in Korea, but friends have told me the ROK was pretty squared away. Then again, they've been at it longer than the new IA. When I trained the IA, I had to remind myself daily what T.E. Lawrence said...Originally Posted by Uboat509
"Better the Arabs do it tolerably than that you do it perfectly. It is their war, and you are to help them, not to win it for them. Actually, also, under the very odd conditions of Arabia, your practical work will not be as good as, perhaps, you think it is."
Sir, what the hell are we doing?
I hear what you say and I partly of me agree with you. What I agree with is the "culture problem." What I have difficulty with is the idea that the "culture" is the problem.
It seems to me that bad or incapable militaries suffer from common and usually crippling belief sets. Arabs serving in the Israeli Army (Druzim, Bedouin etc) have generally all been through the Israeli School system and generally have belief sets that do not hinder their understanding or execution of military skills - but they are still live well within an "Arab Culture," with all the wailing music, bad Egyptian movies and goat recipes that entails. Generally they are excellent and even unusually aggressive soldiers.
As far as I can see the "crippling" beliefs are generally those associated with two areas. The first is self esteem, and social standing. The second is acceptance of empirical evidence and logic. Once you address those two issues in a way that says,
A.) "You are no better than anyone else. You are judged and advanced by words and deeds alone."
B.) "There is no other law than logic. G*d has no place in this."
...i think most of other problems go away, bezrat ha shem !
Infinity Journal "I don't care if this works in practice. I want to see it work in theory!"
- The job of the British Army out here is to kill or capture Communist Terrorists in Malaya.
- If we can double the ratio of kills per contact, we will soon put an end to the shooting in Malaya.
Sir Gerald Templer, foreword to the "Conduct of Anti-Terrorist Operations in Malaya," 1958 Edition
What about the fact that
The way those who oppose you view God, may very well have a lot to do with their logic?
Any man can destroy that which is around him, The rare man is he who can find beauty even in the darkest hours
Cogitationis poenam nemo patitur
While I agree with these two things being significant problems, both of which I have personally experienced, I would not say that they are the only crippling problems. But let's say for the sake of argument that these are the only two crippling problems in Iraq. How do you go about fixing them? I don't pretend to know anything about Israeli Arabs but I can make certain assumptions. One is that they do not live in an Arab culture, they live in an Arab sub-culture with in the greater Israel culture. That's an important distinction. That means that although they may be devout Muslims, and they may have tribal loyalties, that's all local. Once they leave their local communities to get jobs, go to school, join the Army etc. they have to leave that all behind and learn to live and function in Israeli culture. I don't know if Israeli Arabs have tribal sheiks but I do know that even if they do they do not hold anywhere near the power of tribal sheiks in an Arab country. Dealing with A.) should be pretty easy in the Israeli army because it is true. There are no tribes in Israeli culture and familial ties rarely get you anywhere. I would imagine that Arabs living in Israel learn this because they have to. The overriding culture in Israel is secular and egalitarian and anyone living in that society must, of needs, learn how to assimilate there. That isn't the case in Iraq. It's quite the opposite in fact. The overriding culture in Iraq is tribal and religion dominated. Tribal standing and familial relations get you everywhere in Iraq. Religion dominates nearly every aspect of life (more so in Shia than Sunni areas but it is there either way). We can create areas where A.) is true, a platoon here, a company there but ultimately any entities that we create will be subsumed by the greater Iraqi culture where tribal standing and familial relationships get you further than hard work. Getting rid of that attitude will require changing the entire society from the top down and the that isn't going to happen anytime soon.
That's huge. If we could create and implement a western style education system in Iraq we could probably fix a lot of our problems (though certainly not all of them).Arabs serving in the Israeli Army (Druzim, Bedouin etc) have generally all been through the Israeli School system and generally have belief sets that do not hinder their understanding or execution of military skills
SFC W
Education as an intergal part of COIN? Sounds like a new thread.
Who would best run oversite of the new education system instead of just pooring money into int?
Reed
Pooring
the humor of bad spelling. that would be pouring money into it btw.
Reed
Ain't my department ..
but the following may be of interest to some here
http://wiredispatch.com/news/?id=302938US military trainers say Georgian troops weren't ready for war with more powerful Russia
MATTI FRIEDMAN
AP News
Aug 18, 2008 14:28 EST
U.S. military trainers — the only American boots on the ground — say the Georgian soldiers they knew who were sent to battle the Russians had fighting spirit but were not ready for war. .......
Thanks for the article..
But I do have to wonder if it was completly frank and honest or if a degree of CYA was involved.
Reed
I'm just curious how you go about addressing B), where religious beliefs and traditions are ordered out of the discussion through an appeal to some system of logic. That might be a little easier said or assumed, than done.
Heck, there are still lots of people around here that want no part of the teaching of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution in public schools, logic and scientific evidence be damned, because of their own religious beliefs.
Now I don't know that local religious beliefs are necessarily the barrier in training foreign armies. It may just make us seem that much more alien and foreign to them, hindering cooperation. But if THAT is a significant problem, I doubt that any appeal to logic, reason, or expediency by a U.S. serviceman will make it go away. I have nothing to back that up other than a lifetime of hearing people discuss and defend their own religious beliefs and why they believe them.
They may not have a particularly good reason to believe what they do (at least in the eyes of somebody who is not a coreligionist), but that doesn't mean they are likely to change their religious beliefs.
No signature required, my handshake is good enough.
For sure! Don't even get me started on trying apply secular science and logic to people with deep seated irrational religious beliefs.
What I was originally referring to was what I call "crippling beliefs." If religious soldier thinks the response to an weapons stoppage is prayer alone, then you have a problem.
Many very good soldiers are deeply religious. Their religion tends to be an enabler, not a crutch or substitute for training.
Infinity Journal "I don't care if this works in practice. I want to see it work in theory!"
- The job of the British Army out here is to kill or capture Communist Terrorists in Malaya.
- If we can double the ratio of kills per contact, we will soon put an end to the shooting in Malaya.
Sir Gerald Templer, foreword to the "Conduct of Anti-Terrorist Operations in Malaya," 1958 Edition
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