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Subject: Ranking of the Strongest Militaries in the Middle East
InterArmaEnimSilent    1/20/2006 11:04:01 AM
With all this talk about another War in the Middle East I just would like your opinion on the strength of Middle Eastern Militaries. This will include everything. From Air Forces, modern technology, amount of reserves, armored formations, force projection, naval and aerial power, training, special forces, etc. In my view, 1 - Israel 2 - Turkey 3 - Egypt 4 - Saudi Arabia 5 - Jordan 6 - Oman 7 - Iran 8 - UAE 9 - Syria 10 - Kuwait Thoughts, Comments, Suggestions, Analysis, Welcome
 
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jastayme3       3/14/2007 5:09:48 PM

I think numbers are important and israel's population is very low so it can't support her troops if they move into arabian deserts..

+as a turk i'm very proud of seeing my country on the second place
but
what is the power of Oman and Jordan +is Saudi Arabia that much strong??
wow i learned too many things.

Israel has consistently been able to field more numbers then any might expect by using it's higher military participation ratio. It's problem is that that plays havoc on the economy. Also though Israel can be a warlike nation it cannot be a conquering nation because of ideology. If it is to be both a Jewish state and a Democracy it must make sure Jews are the majority. Therefore if it goes into the Arabian deserts it can only do so for a raid. Finally there are a number of countries between Israel and the Arabian Peninsula.
 
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Jeff_F_F       3/14/2007 6:53:59 PM
I've heard that durring GW1 the Saudi Army discovered that it had an issue. Lots of cool tanks, but no way to feed the army when it was actually in the field. Ooops. So the US ended up donating hundreds of thousands of MREs so they could join the coalition.
A humorous side note, this was back when there were only 4 meal options, and two of them included pork, so the pork meals got sent back and were issued to US units, some of which had nothing but Ham & Cheese Omelete and another meal to eat for some time. For those of you that have not experienced the MRE omelete, it was called an omelete only because it contained eggs cheese and ham, although it more closely resembled rubbery, more or less edible, pink plastic.
 
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ya2       3/14/2007 7:30:38 PM
that's the whole idea.. sell them tanks only for inside saudi.. sell them bombers without bombs.. cool..
 
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vietasianfox45       6/2/2007 3:31:51 AM
Whoever said Turkey should not be considered part of the Middle East is correct. Turkey is not considered part of the Middle East. So, why is it part of this forum??!! One thing most people agree with is that IsraeI is by far the most powerful nation in the Middle East, even without nuclear weapons. What I do not get or understand is why Israel will want nuclear weapons when it knows it can beat any Moslem country or all Moslem countries at the same time in the Middle East.. I feel so out of date now because the following list does not include Iran:
 
1. Israel
2. Egypt
3. Syria
4. All the others.
 
If you include Iran, I would put Iran as #2 or #3:
1. Israel
2. Egypt and Iran
3. Syria
4. Saudi Arabia
6. The rest.
 
We all agree that Egypt is the most powerful Arab nation of all Arab nations. When Egypt and Israel made peace with each other, the Arabs definitely had no chance of beating Israel.
 
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Rasputin       6/2/2007 4:32:05 AM
Quite accurate, accept that Iran should be moved to the number 3 or 4th spot.

One can't tell how well or powerful Syria's military is today. Like North Korea, if you were facing their hardware like they had in the early 80s, they had the advantage, but today both countries seem to be using those vintages, upgrades ??? Even
China that is constantly evolving still counts on many weak and old systems to hold their line. Syria might be moved to number 8 or 9.

Israel's strength is their airforce, which still has superiority, and the army's rate of reaction to a supprise attack. Not giving any ground accept the last resort, and the capability of putting together a ground offensive rapidly.

The arab armies could do it, just that strangely they don't find the cause of killing jews worth dying for and rather give ground and surrender. But when it comes to killing their fellow muslims like persians, hey they don't mind fighting for a few years.

 
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BrittleSteel       6/3/2007 9:22:26 PM
Syria, though aging and under trained, is not to be taken lightly

Their commando forces is very well trained.
Their air force is not real much, but their anti-air element got a huge technological boost thanks to Russia
They posses a huge tank fleet though a good number of them are old t-55 and t-62. They have a bunch of highly upgraded t-72 and i heard they got a few t-80. the quality over all lacks (though they are slowly upgrading the fleet) but they have numbers which does count for something.
Their artillery is a major issue. It is quite large and per cannon vastly outnumbers israel, but israel is mostly self-propelled while syira has the disadvantage of their being mostly towed. But if htey fire first it can do a lot of damage.
The wild card is Syira's anti-tank element they are reasonably well trained, and again thanks to russia are equipped with some of the more advanced anti-tank weapons available on the market. (Mysteriously some of it found its way into the hands of Hizbullah).

 
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desdenova    here is my thought   9/4/2008 5:40:57 AM
well first off all, turkey is not in the middle east, and turkey has the 2nd strongest army in NATO ( thats what wikipedia says), so it makes turkey has the 2nd strongest army in the world, well they have 1,4 millions active soldiers, and also turkey has 4th strongest air foce, and 5th strongest naval force... so lets talk about middle east
there is just isreal as a power, the others are all useless
well u count saudi arabi as they have army ? what a bullshit, they dont even know to use a pistol, well they may use sword then lol
and other countries such as egypt, iran and others, they just have soo fuckin old weapons, they are like made in 1900s
well in here u can see those weapons in museum
 
regards
 
see yah

 
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kane    wow the ancient thread   9/4/2008 8:22:35 AM
ok 2 years passed lets see if my opinion changed.
I will consider Turkey in ME because we started to be like them more even though I'm not happy with that.
The obvious power would be Israel. Their military is very advanced, experinced, well-trained and well supported. Their problems are
1)Small population(they can't take lands because they'd stretch thin. The lands they would have to control would be filled with Israel-hating Arabs vs vs vs)
2)Weak navy
Awesome airforce, effective tanks force well supported by infantry and a big APC power. They're ok with logistics all the way.
And well they have nukes. The miltiary is not small either even though they have small population.
 
After that there are these 3 powers(not in order)
Turkey
Iran
Egypt
I believe it's hard to make an order.. The populations are close so all three has large forces
Turkey(my country): Has modern equipment. experienced troops, NATO standarts and stuff.
Advantages:
Strategic location
Large, well trained air force with oldies but goldies(F-16s, still pretty aircraft)
Not so bad navy
Large amount of troops(but due to conscript style most of the pople who do their military service either do cleaning or stand guard in front of a toilet-and I don't want to do my service like that :) )
There are also very experinced hard trained commandos which are msotly in firefights with PKK....these would be like the offensive force of Turkey. I doN't know their amount but some thousands I guess. The rest of the military, I do'Nt know that much but I do know some guys don't even take a rifle in their hands.
A good tank force
Mostly M60A3s and Sabras, Leo1s, Leo2a4s. Then tank force is large and not sooo bad.
 
 Disadvantages:
Not the latest equipment
Out of 1 m soldiers some are useless...maybe in case of emergancy things would change but we just doN't need to spend money for this.
 The dependancy on American and European patented stuff. Turkey is able to produce only 30-40% of it's own eqipment. These are mostly electronics, uniforms and stuff like that.
We also have our own APCs. G3a7 assault rifles produces here with patent. Tanks bought from outside but upgraded here(with the support of Israel). F-16 produces here but mostly putting parts together again with patents.
 
So Turkey looks like a force wtih large land forces which could be well supported by aircraft(which is what matters most in todays warfare)
(BTW they weresome moves to convert to professional army)
 
 
Iran
 Large population, they build their own stuff. They have a independant miltiary industry. In fact most of their industy is independant but their economy is mostly taking power from oil and gas.
They do build their own stuff but these are mostly copies of old Soviet stuff. COPIES of OLD SOVIET stuff. 2 negatives doesn't make one positive in this case.
They do have their unique stuff too though and well, it's a start. Maybe in future they'll get much better.
I doN't remember their full euqipment but I know their air force is a little too weak..They use very old MIGs
 
 Their main strength would be-
*large military
- the regulars around 1m
-the revolutionary guards who are more like professional soldiers around 300 000
-the Basij force(10 million? )
Iranian army is ready for a guerilla warfare. On conventional they do'Nt stand a chance against the USA and looks like they know it. Millions of people are armed and trained. Much more orgainised than the insurgents in Iraq and these people are very nationalist and religious. So this would be 2384725 times tougher than Iraq(got what I mean Americans? )
*Their missiles and well if they get their hands on nukes..............
*Their infleunce on rest of ME and anti-American organisations
*the oil and gas
 
 
 
Egypt
I really doN't know much about them. I nkow that they have a lot of M1a1s and F-16s(with the help of Turkey) and an ok navy.
Very large population but the miltiary is even more dependant on Americans. And they u
 
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Marine Rifleman       9/4/2008 9:38:00 AM

 

Equipment is nice but you must look at leadership and for that I would move Jordan up much higher on the list; perhaps number two behind Israel. Without the training and leadership all that fancy equipment is just expensive junk. Jordan may not have the best equipment but the y have good equipment and I think better troops and a more solid officer Corps than many f the other countries listed.

 
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jgisme       9/9/2008 1:49:02 PM
 
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