Armies of Sand
by Kenneth M. Pollack · first published 2019
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Armies of Sand asks, 'why have Arab militaries fought so poorly in the modern era?' It examines the performance of over two-dozen Arab militaries from 1948 to 2017, and compares them to a half-dozen non-Arab militaries, to conclude that politics, economics, and culture all contributed to the past weakness of Arab armies.
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Armies of Sand: The Past, Present, and Future of Arab Military Effectiveness by Kenneth M. Pollack It's not a perfect book, but it illustrates a lot of military failures that haven't really been encountered much in…
on “Houthis 'take control' of key island in global shipping route” ↗This article seems derivative of Kenneth M. Pollack's dissertation, published as Arabs at War: Military Effectiveness, 1948-1991 (2004). His second book, Armies of Sand: The Past, Present, and Future of Arab Military Effectiveness (2019) doesn't add much to his basic argument.
on “Why Arabs Lose Wars (2000)” ↗…based on the dissertation work of Kenneth M. Pollack. If you are into military history, his Arabs at War (2002) contains the historical part of the dissertation and is very informative. His second book, Armies of Sand (2019), contains the theoretical part and I didn't feel that it added much understanding.
on “Why Arabs Lose Wars (1999)” ↗One researcher the author relies on, Kenneth Pollack, published his dissertation work in two books Arabs at War (2004) and Armies of Sand (2019). The first gives very good overviews of Arab combat performance over the 20th century. The second tries to place it all in a theoretical framework. While the 2019 book adds some recent history,…
on “Why Arabs Lose Wars (1999)” ↗