In the last several days, we’ve seen a spate of bomb blasts in and around Baghdad that have killed hundreds. All of a sudden, the security situation seems more uncertain after more than a year of euphoric reporting. There have been dissenting voices, of course: Michael Totten has been quite skeptical of the Iraqis ability to coordinate their own security. Since the Iraqis kicked US forces out of the cities, violence has spiked. The question is, why?
A recent posting on Strategy Pages (from which I borrowed the title to this post), discusses the cultural issues that prevent Iraqi security forces from effectively coordinating IED removal, to name just one chore required for adequate security.
Iraqi troops are somewhat mystified that they are not as successful at dealing with roadside bombs, as they Americans. The Iraqis now have the same equipment, and training, yet the Americans were much more successful at finding bombs and keeping roads clear of them. The Iraqis asked their American mentors for help, and were given some bad news (along with the requested help.)
The bad news was that the Iraqis were the victims of their own bad habits. The first thing the Americans noted was that the Iraqis were not sharing information on what the terrorists were up to. Bomb removal teams from the army or police operated as if the other did not exist, even if they patrolled the same roads. Different intel organizations in the police and military would not share information, or work together. This, and a lot of other bad habits are fairly common throughout the Arab world, even though U.S. advisors have been pointing out the downside of these traits for decades.
But as the post notes, security lapses are rooted in a culture that cultivates servility and suspicion:
# Most Arab countries are a patchwork of different tribes and groups, and Arab leaders survive by playing one group off against another. Loyalty is to one’s group, not the nation. Most countries are dominated by a single group that is usually a minority (Bedouins in Jordan, Alawites in Syria, Sunnis in Iraq, Nejdis in Saudi Arabia). All of which means that officers are assigned not by merit but by loyalty and tribal affiliation. This continues in democratic Iraq, where political parties or powerful politicians strive to control individual police or army units.
# Islamic schools favor rote memorization, especially of scripture. Most Islamic scholars are hostile to the concept of interpreting the Koran (considered the word of God as given to His prophet Mohammed). This has resulted in looking down on Western troops that will look something up that they don’t know. Arabs prefer to fake it, and pretend it’s all in their head. Improvisation and innovation is generally discouraged. Arab armies go by the book, Western armies rewrite the book and thus usually win. Despite years of American advice on this matter, many Iraqi police and military personnel stick with the old, less effective, traditions.
# There is no real NCO corps. Officers and enlisted troops are treated like two different social castes and there is no effort to bridge the gap using career NCOs. Enlisted personnel are treated harshly. Training accidents that would end the careers of US officers are commonplace in Arab armies, and nobody cares. This is slowly changing, with the steady growth of a proper NCO corps and better officer attitudes towards their troops. But the old ways often return, with disastrous effects on troop morale and effectiveness.
# Officers are despised by their troops, and this does not bother the officers much at all. Many Arab officers simply cannot understand how treating the troops decently will make them better soldiers. This is another old tradition that dies hard.
Read it all – it’s a snapshot of the inadequacies bred by a totalitarian environment that discourages initiative:
# Initiative is considered a dangerous trait. So subordinates prefer to fail rather than make an independent decision. Battles are micromanaged by senior generals, who prefer to suffer defeat rather than lose control of their subordinates. Even worse, an Arab officer will not tell a US ally why he cannot make the decision (or even that he cannot make it), leaving US officers angry and frustrated because the Arabs won’t make a decision. The Arab officers simply will not admit that they do not have that authority. The new generation of army commanders and staff officers have been sent to Western staff and command schools, but there’s still not a lot of enthusiasm for initiative (which is seen as a decadent and dangerous Western import.)
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