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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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kane    RE:explaination of my rankings   1/20/2006 7:54:44 PM
thanks for the explanation by the way how do you know all these?
 
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InterArmaEnimSilent    RE:Ranking of the Strongest Militaries in the Middle East   1/20/2006 8:03:22 PM
i download and read a lot of defense analysis papers from Jane Magazine, Global Security, Brookings Institute, The Jamestown foundation most of these think tanks are american so they are biased but they do provide a good idea of the current capabilities of world militaries
 
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Zballs       3/1/2007 2:36:36 PM
Your nuts  Here it goes:

1. Israel (with nukes)
2. Turkey
3. Iran
4. (Israel without nukes), Egypt
5. Saudi Arabia
6. Syria
7. Hizballah
8. Jordan
9. Oman
10. UAE
 
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french stratege       3/1/2007 5:28:31 PM
There is no doubt that Israel is the current most powerfull country in middle east followed by Turkey.
Now for the third place we have 3 contenders:
Egypt, Saudia Arabia and Iran.
Saudia Arabia and Egypt have a good set of modern weapons especially on fighters compare to Iran.
But fighters are not everything if you have a limited amount of ammuntions and below average personnel and in the case of Saudis, few number and lack of commitment of a great part of their soldiers who do not train hard and it is the least we can say.
In fact .Saudia Arabia and Egypt and a below average army for proficiency and are completely dependant on western nations.I have numerous first rate exemples for lack of commitment, pure incompetence and bad training and Saudis beat everybody..From french officers who have trained them.
On the contrary Iran have a professional army (for competencies I mean as it is also a draft army), dedication and they have their own equipement.They have numbers and assymetric means to compensate their weaknesses on some high tech equipement.
I would put without a doubt Iran above Egypt and Saudis and they will widen the gap in the coming decade if nothing is done to stop them.
Saudis could hold maximum 2 weeks facing Iranian alone.
 
 
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ProDemocracy    much more realistic   3/1/2007 5:39:33 PM
The list below looks much more realistic than the previous ones.  Remember Iraq had both western (French) and Soviet technology and American advisors and it still took them 8 years to beat Iran (and they barely won and very nearly lost).  France and the USSR gave Iraq massive amounts of weapons.  Also, back then with the USSR's tentative loyalty to Iraq and Iran's obvious issues with the US, Iran wasn't getting weapons from too many sources (Iran-contra weapons weren't enough to supply a whole army). 
 
Now, China and Russia are more than happy to oblige Iran with whatever they want...Russia, for influence, and China, for energy.  And flush with oil revenue, Iran can pay cash!  You take the kind of overwhelming numbers that Iran vs Oman or Jordan would have and it would be even more difficult to keep Iran in check than it was for Iraq.  I agree with zballs list - only change I might make (although not really in a position to really argue it - just more from what I have read in general) would be to put Hizbullah at the very bottom of the list.  I would imagine Jordan, Oman and UAE, with their western weapons, would be able to subdue Hisbullah if necessary. 

Your nuts  Here it goes:

1. Israel (with nukes)

2. Turkey

3. Iran

4. (Israel without nukes), Egypt

5. Saudi Arabia

6. Syria

7. Hizballah

8. Jordan

9. Oman

10. UAE



 
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Herald1234    About Iran.   3/1/2007 5:42:05 PM
I actually agree that Iran is badly underrated. If not for Western forces in the region. Iran would overrun most of the Persian Gulf with ridiculous ease.
 
Herald 
 
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french stratege       3/1/2007 5:43:29 PM
Two exemples:
Egyptian pilots trained by the french and flying previoulsy F16.French instructors noticed that they have difficulties to use inertial and navigation systems, and flying IFR in bad weather while their former plane was equiped with that.They asked to egyptians why they were so badly uncomfortable with it.They reply, oh, you know we don't use them.When we fly we patrol, turn around and follow visually Nile river to come back on the base.
Saudis officer trained for commandos in France: don't wake up in the morning, late on meeting points, reluctant to clean their equipement and so on...The group was mixed with a french team to counter a other french group.As all missions failed due to laziness of Saudis, it ends with a fight with french officers which were more than upset of their sheer incomptences and working for nothing, and beat them silly.Saudis officers are son of wealthy saudis, unaccustumated to hard work and who do officer as it is socially what to do in their position, but without any interest for the job.
And I could name other exemples..
 
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french stratege       3/1/2007 5:55:55 PM
how many euro fighters are the saudis buying? and isnt that a danger to israel that if some coup occurs in saudi arabia that all those euro fighters could be used against israel
 
Don't worry , they are incompetent, they do not train seriously, their forces are maintained by mercenaries and their equipement is full of software lock and they could not use it without western approval or it would be easily jammed by Israelis if US provide a little help.
After Israel, Turkey and Iran, I would put in the same group UAE, Jordan, Syria (more competent than Egyptians and Saudis and dedicated) , Egypt (because of numbers), then Saudis.Saudi army which is a paper tiger in all the meaning of this expression.
 
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mithradates       3/1/2007 9:06:00 PM
1. Israel
2. Turkey/Iran tie
3. The rest are fairly useless.

The PLA has been training and wargaming with the Iranian army via bilateral/SCO annual exersizes for the last 6 years.  And the Iranian special forces and some of their regular forces have so far earned a very good reputation.  The PLA officers and NCOs who trained with them spoke highly of Iranian army discipline and Infantry drill(especially in anti-armour and urban room-clearing roles) .

It is worth mentioning that from the early 90s onwards, the Iranian army made a concerted effort to improve the quality of their military and I don't mean just hardware/weapons quality.  They instituted several institutional changes that makes their army dramatically superior to the other Arab armies of the Middle East

1.  From the early 90s onwards, the Iranian army began pushing out the officers who were promoted into their posts due to political/religious loyalty or family ties to the Mullahs.  Simultaneously they instituted a promotion system that rewarded their troops based on performance in wargames, regular drills, and education.  Those officers who were pushed out formed the core of the Internal security portion of the Iranian revolutionary guard.  A similar change happend in the early 80s for the PLA, where political officers were shipped out en masse into the PAP, which resulted in a VAST improvement in the discipline and morale of the PLA.

It is also worth noting that the PLA and PLAAF technicians/advisors who worked with the Iraqi, Saudi, and Egyptian militaries  in the 90s commented upon the fact that their officer classes seems to be composed almost entirely of political officers(Iraq, Egypt) and direct family appointed posts( Saudi Arabia, Egypt ).  Actual war experience has shown that this kind of leadership would significantly degrade an otherwise competant army.


2.  Since the late 90s, the Iranian army implemented infantry training that is similar to standard PLA and Soviet infantry training.  Basically it involves a combination of mentality breaking down/indoctrinating a new soldier and a set of repetative drills that involves shooting/marching/maneuvering.  After enough of such drilling, discipline and good performance under combat conditions becomes a reflexive behavior for the solider.

No arab army in the middle east under goes infantry training of this kind of intensity and applied to such large numbers of troops.. 


2.  From the late 90s onwards, the Iranian army began emphasizing training/wargames that introduced more independent action to company and brigade level commanders.  Specifically these kinds of excersizes simulated breakdowns in the centralized command/communications structure where small groups of troops has act on their own initiative.

In the case of Iraq, commanders with no real leadership skills and who were not respected by the men they led were cut off from communications, the only things that could've been expected was rout, mass desertion, or surrender.

It is thus worth noting that the Iranians trained the Hezbollah.  And in the war last summer, the Hezbollah was prevented from coherent centralized communications by overwhelming Israeli airpower and numerical superiority.  That didn't prevent the localized Hezbollah commanders with such training from continueing to fight independently in a very disciplined and skillful fashion.



Thus, before Iran, DESPITE it's technological inferiority, is actually one of the strongest militaries in the middle east.  If that nation acquires nuclear weapons, it would be #2 after Israel.







 
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Herald1234    So the PLA thinks highly of Iran?   3/2/2007 3:25:45 AM
Sent observers to see how a COMPETENT military functions?
 
ROTFLMFAOIS!
 
Herald
 
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