即将发表的一篇文章暂定名为“An upcoming post, tentatively titled 中国已做好战争准备” China is Ready for War，描述了国家能力或国家能力的一个例子——该国为战争做好了非凡的准备——并将其与美国几乎完全缺乏效仿它的能力进行了对比。美国从未赢得过一场战争，从朝鲜到乌克兰，其连续不断的、代价日益高昂的失败也表明了国家在这方面的无能。, describes an example of state capacity, or state competence – the country’s extraordinary preparations for war – and contrasts them with America’s almost total lack of capacity to emulate it. America has never won a war, and its unbroken string of increasingly expensive defeats – from Korea to Ukraine – suggests state incapacity in that department, too.
诺维尔·德·阿特金 (Novell B. De Atkine) 对阿拉伯战争失败的研究是国家无能的缩影。当然，他们的损失与美国的损失有不同的根源，但这篇文章揭示了他们的无能是如何持续的，以及为什么在面对屡次失败的情况下，这种情况会持续几代人。There’s no better microcosm of state incapacity than Norvell B. De Atkine’s study of Arab defeats in war. Their losses have different origins than America’s of course, but the essay reveals how incapacity is sustained and why, in the face of repeated failure, it persists for generations.
现代阿拉伯语军队普遍效率低下ARABIC-SPEAKING ARMIES have been generally ineffective in the modern era。20 世纪 60 年代，埃及正规军在对抗也门非正规军方面表现不佳。20 世纪 70 年代中期，叙利亚人只能通过使用压倒性的武器和人数将自己的意志强加于黎巴嫩。伊拉克人在面对20世纪80年代因革命动乱而四分五裂的伊朗军队时表现出了无能，无法赢得针对库尔德人长达三十年的战争。1990年科威特战争双方的阿拉伯军事表现都平平。阿拉伯人在几乎所有与以色列的军事对抗中都表现不佳。为什么这个记录不那么令人印象深刻？有很多因素——经济、意识形态、技术——但也许最重要的是文化和某些社会属性，这些属性阻碍了阿拉伯人建立有效的军事力量。. Egyptian regular forces did poorly against Yemeni irregulars in the 1960s. Syrians could only impose their will in Lebanon during the mid-1970s by the use of overwhelming weaponry and numbers. Iraqis showed ineptness against an Iranian military ripped apart by revolutionary turmoil in the 1980s and could not win a three-decades-long war against the Kurds. The Arab military performance on both sides of the 1990 Kuwait war was mediocre. And the Arabs have done poorly in nearly all the military confrontations with Israel. Why this unimpressive record? There are many factors – economic, ideological, technical – but perhaps the most important has to do with culture and certain societal attributes which inhibit Arabs from producing an effective military force.
错误的开始False starts
将文化纳入战略评估的结果很糟糕，因为它往往是由无知、一厢情愿和神话的丑陋酿造而成的。因此，20世纪30年代的美国陆军评价日本国民性格缺乏原创性，并得出日本将在技术上永远处于劣势的无理结论。希特勒认为美国是一个*****社会，因此低估了美国参战的影响。美国战略家认为，北越人的疼痛阈值与我们的接近，对朝鲜的空中轰炸将使其屈服。三天的空袭被认为是塞尔维亚人所能承受的。事实上，需要七十八天。Including culture in strategic assessments has a poor legacy, for it has often been spun from an ugly brew of ignorance, wishful thinking, and mythology. Thus, the US Army in the 1930s evaluated the Japanese national character as lacking originality and drew the unwarranted conclusion that that country would be permanently disadvantaged in technology. Hitler dismissed the United States as a mongrel society and consequently underestimated the impact of America’s entry into the war. American strategists assumed that the pain threshold of the North Vietnamese approximated our own and that the air bombardment of the North would bring it to its knees. Three days of aerial attacks were thought to be all the Serbs could withstand; in fact, seventy-eight days were needed.
正如这些例子所表明的，As these examples suggest, 当在计算敌对力量的相对优势和劣势时考虑文化时，它往往会导致严重的扭曲，特别是当它涉及到理解为什么没有做好战争准备的国家充满信心地投入战斗时。人们很容易将文化属性归咎于敌国，从而否定其在数量或武器方面的优势。或者相反：通过自己的文化规范的棱镜来看待潜在的敌人when culture is considered in calculating the relative strengths and weaknesses of opposing forces, it tends to lead to wild distortions, especially when it is a matter of understanding why states unprepared for war enter into combat flushed with confidence. The temptation is to impute cultural attributes to the enemy state that negate its superior numbers or weaponry. Or the opposite: to view the potential enemy through the prism of one’s own cultural norms。.
根据过去的表现对战争能力做出肤浅的假设尤其危险，因为社会在发展，军事亚文化也随之发展。法国在1870年普法战争中的惨淡表现，导致德国最高统帅部在第一次世界大战之前做出了过于乐观的评估。而一战中法国士兵的坚韧和勇气，则让从温斯顿·丘吉尔到德国最高统帅部的所有人都大为震惊。高估了法军的战斗能力。基于埃及在 1967 年战争中的糟糕表现，以色列将军们低估了 1973 年的埃及军队。It is particularly dangerous to make facile assumptions about abilities in warfare based on past performance, for societies evolve and so does the military subculture with it. The dismal French performance in the 1870 Franco-Prussian war led the German high command to an overly optimistic assessment prior to World War I. Then tenacity and courage of French soldiers in World War I lead everyone from Winston Churchill to the German high command vastly to overestimate the French army’s fighting abilities. Israeli generals underestimated the Egyptian army of 1973 based on Egypt’s hapless performance in the 1967 war.
文化很难确定。它不是个人种族或民族身份的代名词。战争的历史嘲笑了将严格的文化属性赋予个人的企图——正如奥斯曼帝国和罗马帝国的军事史所表明的那样。在这两种情况下，造成差异的是训练、纪律、精神和活力，而不是士兵的出身。例如，纪律严明、高效的罗马军团是从整个罗马帝国招募来的，而精英奥斯曼禁卫军（奴隶士兵）则是从巴尔干地区强行招募的基督徒男孩。Culture is difficult to pin down. It is not synonymous with an individual’s race nor ethnic identity. The history of warfare makes a mockery of attempts to assign rigid cultural attributes to individuals – as the military histories of the Ottoman and Roman empires illustrate. In both cases it was training, discipline, esprit, and élan which made the difference, not the individual soldiers’ origin. The highly disciplined and effective Roman legions, for example, recruited from throughout the Roman Empire, and the elite Ottoman Janissaries (slave soldiers) were Christians forcibly recruited as boys from the Balkans.
文化的作用The role of culture
尽管存在这些问题，但文化确实需要考虑在内。事实上，对先前错误的认识应该能够评估文化因素在战争中的作用。著名战争历史学家约翰·基冈认为，文化是战争性质的主要决定因素。与他所说的“面对面”的欧洲战争通常方式相反，基冈将伊斯兰时代的早期阿拉伯军队描述为逃避、拖延和间接的大师。审视本世纪的阿拉伯战争得出的结论是，阿拉伯人在叛乱战争或政治战争中仍然更加成功——TE劳伦斯称之为“不战而胜”。即使是 1973 年备受赞誉的埃及渡过苏伊士运河，其核心也包含了一个巧妙的欺骗计划。These problems notwithstanding, culture does need to be taken into account. Indeed, awareness of prior mistakes should make it possible to assess the role of cultural factors in warfare. John Keegan, the eminent historian of warfare, argues that culture is a prime determinant of the nature of warfare. In contrast to the usual manner of European warfare, which he terms “face to face,” Keegan depicts the early Arab armies in the Islamic era as masters of evasion, delay, and indirection. Examining Arab warfare in this century leads to the conclusion that the Arabs remain more successful in insurgent, or political, warfare – what T. E. Lawrence termed “winning wars without battles.” Even the much-lauded Egyptian crossing of the Suez in 1973 at its core entailed a masterful deception plan. It may well be that these seemingly permanent attributes result from a culture that engenders subtlety, indirection, and dissimulation in personal relationships.
沿着这些思路，肯尼思·波洛克在总结他对阿拉伯军事效力的详尽研究时指出，“阿拉伯主导文化所培育的某些行为模式是导致 1945 年至 1991 年间阿拉伯陆军和空军军事效力有限的最重要因素。 ” 这些属性包括过度集权、阻碍主动性、缺乏灵活性、操纵信息以及阻碍初级官员的领导力。对塞缪尔·亨廷顿“文明冲突”概念的猛烈批评丝毫没有削弱他提出的重要观点——无论以宗教和文化而非政治或经济划分来划分民族，多少冒犯了那些提出世界定义的学者。无论阶级、种族和性别，这都是现实，Along these lines, Kenneth Pollock concludes his exhaustive study of Arab military effectiveness by noting that “certain patterns of behaviour fostered by the dominant Arab culture were the most important factors contributing to the limited military effectiveness of Arab armies and air forces from 1945 to 1991.” These attributes included over-centralization, discouraging initiative, lack of flexibility, manipulation of information, and the discouragement of leadership at the junior officer level. The barrage of criticism levelled at Samuel Huntington’s notion of a “clash of civilizations” in no way lessens the vital point he made – that however much the grouping of peoples by religion and culture rather than political or economic divisions offends academics who propound a world defined by class, race, and gender, it is a reality, one not diminished by modern communications.
但如何将文化学习融入军事训练呢？目前来看，它几乎没有任何作用。学者、美国三角洲部队前成员保罗·M·贝尔布托夫斯基（Paul M. Belbutowski）简洁地指出了我们自己的军事教育体系的缺陷：“文化由所有模糊和无形的东西组成，通常不会被纳入战略规划，除非最多肤浅的层面。” 然而，正是“所有模糊和无形的东西”定义了低强度冲突。But how does one integrate the study of culture into military training? At present, it has hardly any role. Paul M. Belbutowski, a scholar and former member of the US Delta Force, succinctly stated a deficiency in our own military education system: “Culture, comprised of all that is vague and intangible, is not generally integrated into strategic planning except at the most superficial level.” And yet it is precisely “all that is vague and intangible” that defines low-intensity conflicts.
越南共产党人没有打美国所训练的战争，车臣人和阿富汗人也没有打俄罗斯人准备的战争The Vietnamese communists did not fight the war the United States had trained for, nor did the Chechens and Afghans fight the war the Russians prepared for。这不仅仅需要重新装备武器和重新训练士兵。它需要了解文化神话、历史、对时间的态度等；它需要比官僚组织可能授权的更多的时间和金钱投入。. This entails far more than simply retooling weaponry and retraining soldiers. It requires an understanding of the cultural mythology, history, attitude toward time, etc.; and it demands a more substantial investment in time and money than a bureaucratic organization is likely to authorize.
考虑到要穿越过去错误和当前文化敏感性的雷区，我对文化在阿拉伯语军官军事训练中的作用提出了一些评估。我主要将自己限制在培训上有两个原因：Mindful of walking through a minefield of past errors and present cultural sensibilities, I offer some assessments of the role of culture in the military training of Arabic-speaking officers. I confine myself principally to training for two reasons:
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我观察了很多训练，但只观察了一次战斗行动（1970 年约旦军队对抗巴勒斯坦解放组织）。I observed much training but only one combat campaign (the Jordanian Army against the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1970).
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军队一边训练一边战斗。军队受到和平时期的习惯、政策和程序的制约；他们不会突然变身，将穿着制服的平民变成战士。乔治·巴顿将军喜欢讲述尤利乌斯·凯撒的故事，他“在冬天”。。。他对所有成为士兵的军团进行了如此训练，使他们习惯于正确履行自己的职责，以至于当春天他派遣他们与高卢人作战时，没有必要给他们发号施令，因为他们知道该做什么以及如何去做。”Armies fight as they train. Troops are conditioned by peacetime habits, policies, and procedures; they do not undergo a sudden metamorphosis that transforms civilians in uniform into warriors. General George Patton was fond of relating the story about Julius Caesar, who “in the winter time. . . so trained his legions in all that became soldiers and so habituated them to the proper performance of their duties, that when in the spring he committed them to battle against the Gauls, it was not necessary to give them orders, for they knew what to do and how to do it.”
信息即力量Information as power
在每个社会中，信息都是谋生或行使权力的一种手段，但阿拉伯人珍惜信息，并将其牢牢掌握在手中。多年来，美国培训师经常感到惊讶的是，向关键人员提供的信息并没有比他们更深入。在学会执行一些复杂的程序后，一名阿拉伯技术人员知道，只要他是单位中唯一拥有这些知识的人，他的价值就无可估量。一旦他将知识分发给其他人，他就不再是唯一的知识源泉，他的力量也就消失了。这解释了为什么普遍囤积手册、书籍、培训小册子和其他培训或后勤文献。In every society information is a means of making a living or wielding power, but Arabs husband information and hold it especially tightly. US trainers have often been surprised over the years by the fact that information provided to key personnel does not get much further than them. Having learned to perform some complicated procedure, an Arab technician knows that he is invaluable so long as he is the only one in a unit to have that knowledge; once he dispenses it to others he no longer is the only font of knowledge and his power dissipates. This explains the commonplace hoarding of manuals, books, training pamphlets, and other training or logistics literature.
有一次，一支在埃及从事装甲工作的美国机动训练队终于收到了经过费力翻译成阿拉伯文的操作员手册。美国教练员将新制作的手册直接带到坦克公园，分发给坦克乘员。就在他们身后，连长迅速从那些乘员那里收集了手册，这位连长毕业于诺克斯堡装甲学校，并在阿伯丁试验场军械学校接受过专业课程。当被问及为什么这样做时，指挥官说没有必要把它们交给司机，因为士兵不识字。事实上，他并不希望士兵拥有独立的知识来源。On one occasion, an American mobile training team working with armour in Egypt at long last received the operators’ manuals that had laboriously been translated into Arabic. The American trainers took the newly minted manuals straight to the tank park and distributed them to the tank crew. Right behind them, the company commander, a graduate of the armour school at Fort Knox and specialized courses at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds ordnance school, promptly collected the manuals from those crew. Questioned why he did this, the commander said that there was no point in giving them to the drivers because enlisted men could not read. In point of fact, he did not want enlisted men to have an independent source of knowledge. Being the only person who could explain the fire control instrumentation or bore sight artillery weapons brought prestige and attention.
从军事角度来说，这意味着几乎没有完成交叉训练，例如在坦克乘员中，炮手、装填手和驾驶员可能精通自己的工作，但不准备在有人伤亡时填补空缺。不了解彼此的工作也会阻碍团队的顺利运作。在更高的层次上，这意味着技术熟练程度没有深度。In military terms this means that very little cross-training is accomplished and that, for instance in a tank crew, the gunners, loaders and drivers might be proficient in their jobs but are not prepared to fill in should one become a casualty. Not understanding one another’s jobs also inhibits a smoothly functioning crew. At a higher level it means that there is no depth in technical proficiency.
教育问题Education problems
培训往往缺乏想象力、呆板、缺乏挑战性。由于阿拉伯教育体系以死记硬背为基础，官员们具有惊人的记忆大量知识的能力。学习系统往往由高级讲座组成，学生做大量笔记并根据所讲内容进行检查。（这对外国教师也有有趣的影响，例如，如果他必须求助于书本，他的可信度就会降低。） 强调记忆是有代价的，那就是推理或进行基于知识的分析的能力下降。一般原则。不鼓励跳出框框思考；在公共场合这样做可能会损害你的职业生涯。教师不会受到挑战，最终学生也不会受到挑战。Training tends to be unimaginative, cut and dried, and not challenging. Because the Arab educational system is predicated on rote memorization, officers have a phenomenal ability to commit vast amounts of knowledge to memory. The learning system tends to consist of on-high lectures, with students taking voluminous notes and being examined on what they were told. (It also has interesting implications for a foreign instructor, whose credibility, for example, is diminished if he must resort to a book.) The emphasis on memorization has a price, and that is in diminished ability to reason or engage in analysis based upon general principles. Thinking outside the box is not encouraged; doing so in public can damage a career. Instructors are not challenged and neither, in the end, are students.
个人之间的正面竞争通常是被避免的，至少是公开的，因为这意味着有人赢了，有人输了，失败者受到羞辱。当一个阶级包含混合等级时，这个禁忌就特别重要。教育在很大程度上是作为个人声望的问题而寻求的，因此美国军事学校的阿拉伯人煞费苦心地确保排名成员根据军事地位或社会阶层在班级中获得最高分。这通常会导致课堂上“分享答案”——通常是以一种相当公开的方式，或者是下级军官隐瞒比上级更高的分数。Head-to-head competition among individuals is generally avoided, at least openly, for it means that someone wins and someone else loses, with the loser humiliated. This taboo has particular import when a class contains mixed ranks. Education is in good part sought as a matter of personal prestige, so Arabs in US military schools take pains to ensure that the ranking member, according to military position or social class, scores the highest marks in the class. Often this leads to “sharing answers” in class – often in a rather overt manner or in junior officers concealing scores higher than those of their superiors.
与中东学生打交道的美国军事教官学会确保，在课堂上向学生提出任何问题之前，特别是如果他是一名军官，学生确实拥有正确的答案。如果不能保证这一点，警官可能会觉得自己是被故意设计来公开羞辱的。在阿拉伯政治文化的偏执环境中，他可能会成为老师的敌人，而他的同学也会担心自己也会被挑选出来羞辱——学习变得不可能。American military instructors dealing with Middle Eastern students learn to ensure that, before directing any question to a student in a classroom situation, particularly if he is an officer, the student does possess the correct answer. If this is not assured, the officer may feel he has been deliberately set up for public humiliation. In the often-paranoid environment of Arab political culture, he may then become an enemy of the instructor, and his classmates will become apprehensive about their also being singled out for humiliation – and learning becomes impossible.
军官与士兵Officers vs. soldiers
阿拉伯初级军官在武器技术和战术知识方面受过良好训练，但在领导力方面却缺乏训练，这一主题很少受到关注。例如，正如埃及参谋长萨德·阿什-沙兹利将军在对 1973 年战争前他继承的军队的评估中指出的那样，他们没有接受过掌握主动权或自愿提出原创概念或新想法的训练。事实上，领导力可能是阿拉伯培训体系的最大弱点。这个问题主要由两个因素造成：高度强调与种姓制度接壤的阶级制度，以及缺乏士官发展计划。Arab junior officers are well trained on the technical aspects of their weapons and tactical know-how, but not in leadership, a subject given little attention. For example, as General Sa`d ash-Shazli, the Egyptian chief of staff, noted in his assessment of the army he inherited prior to the 1973 war, they were not trained to seize the initiative or volunteer original concepts or new ideas. Indeed, leadership may be the greatest weakness of Arab training systems. This problem results from two main factors: a highly accentuated class system bordering on a caste system, and lack of a non-commissioned-officer development programme.
大多数阿拉伯军队对待士兵就像对待低等人一样。有一天，在一场为来访的美国政要举行的示威活动中，埃及的风从沙漠中吹来刺骨的沙粒，我看到一队士兵走进来，排成一排来保护美国人；换句话说，埃及士兵有时只不过被用作防风林。只有埃及军队中最精锐的部队才会有照顾士兵的想法。在一个典型的周末，驻扎在开罗郊外部队的军官们会开车回家，留下士兵们徒步穿越沙漠到达高速公路，拦下公共汽车或卡车前往开罗，以自谋生路。铁路系统。驻军营地没有为士兵提供的便利设施。同样的情况，在不同程度上，这种情况在阿拉伯语国家的其他地方也存在——在约旦较少，在伊拉克和叙利亚更是如此。埃及军队中的绝大多数年轻应征者讨厌服兵役，他们有充分的理由讨厌服兵役，并且几乎会做任何事，包括自残，来避免服兵役。在叙利亚，富人购买豁免权，如果做不到这一点，则被分配给非战斗组织。正如一位年轻的叙利亚人告诉我的那样，他的音乐技能来自于他被分配到叙利亚军乐队并在那里学习演奏乐器。总的来说，新月沃地的军队通过恐惧来执行纪律。在沙特阿拉伯等部落制度仍然存在的国家，社会与生俱来的平等主义减轻了作为原动力的恐惧，因此普遍缺乏纪律。在伊拉克和叙利亚更是如此。埃及军队中的绝大多数年轻应征者讨厌服兵役，他们有充分的理由讨厌服兵役，并且几乎会做任何事，包括自残，来避免服兵役。在叙利亚，富人购买豁免权，如果做不到这一点，则被分配给非战斗组织。正如一位年轻的叙利亚人告诉我的那样，他的音乐技能来自于他被分配到叙利亚军乐队并在那里学习演奏乐器。总的来说，新月沃地的军队通过恐惧来执行纪律。在沙特阿拉伯等部落制度仍然存在的国家，社会与生俱来的平等主义减轻了作为原动力的恐惧，因此普遍缺乏纪律。在伊拉克和叙利亚更是如此。埃及军队中的绝大多数年轻应征者讨厌服兵役，他们有充分的理由讨厌服兵役，并且几乎会做任何事，包括自残，来避免服兵役。在叙利亚，富人购买豁免权，如果做不到这一点，则被分配给非战斗组织。正如一位年轻的叙利亚人告诉我的那样，他的音乐技能来自于他被分配到叙利亚军乐队并在那里学习演奏乐器。总的来说，新月沃地的军队通过恐惧来执行纪律。在沙特阿拉伯等部落制度仍然存在的国家，社会与生俱来的平等主义减轻了作为原动力的恐惧，因此普遍缺乏纪律。埃及军队中的绝大多数年轻应征者讨厌服兵役，他们有充分的理由讨厌服兵役，并且几乎会做任何事，包括自残，来避免服兵役。在叙利亚，富人购买豁免权，如果做不到这一点，则被分配给非战斗组织。正如一位年轻的叙利亚人告诉我的那样，他的音乐技能来自于他被分配到叙利亚军乐队并在那里学习演奏乐器。总的来说，新月沃地的军队通过恐惧来执行纪律。在沙特阿拉伯等部落制度仍然存在的国家，社会与生俱来的平等主义减轻了作为原动力的恐惧，因此普遍缺乏纪律。埃及军队中的绝大多数年轻应征者讨厌服兵役，他们有充分的理由讨厌服兵役，并且几乎会做任何事，包括自残，来避免服兵役。在叙利亚，富人购买豁免权，如果做不到这一点，则被分配给非战斗组织。正如一位年轻的叙利亚人告诉我的那样，他的音乐技能来自于他被分配到叙利亚军乐队并在那里学习演奏乐器。总的来说，新月沃地的军队通过恐惧来执行纪律。在沙特阿拉伯等部落制度仍然存在的国家，社会与生俱来的平等主义减轻了作为原动力的恐惧，因此普遍缺乏纪律。他的音乐技巧来自于他被分配到叙利亚军乐队并在那里学习演奏乐器。总的来说，新月沃地的军队通过恐惧来执行纪律。在沙特阿拉伯等部落制度仍然存在的国家，社会与生俱来的平等主义减轻了作为原动力的恐惧，因此普遍缺乏纪律。他的音乐技巧来自于他被分配到叙利亚军乐队并在那里学习演奏乐器。总的来说，新月沃地的军队通过恐惧来执行纪律。在沙特阿拉伯等部落制度仍然存在的国家，社会与生俱来的平等主义减轻了作为原动力的恐惧，因此普遍缺乏纪律。Most Arab armies treat enlisted soldiers like sub-humans. When the winds in Egypt one day carried biting sand particles from the desert during a demonstration for visiting US dignitaries, I watched as a contingent of soldiers marched in and formed a single rank to shield the Americans; Egyptian soldiers, in other words, are used on occasion as nothing more than a windbreak. The idea of taking care of one’s men is found only among the most elite units in the Egyptian military. On a typical weekend, officers in units stationed outside Cairo will get in their cars and drive off to their homes, leaving the enlisted men to fend for themselves by trekking across the desert to a highway and flag down buses or trucks to get to the Cairo rail system. Garrison cantonments have no amenities for soldiers. The same situation, in various degrees, exists elsewhere in the Arabic-speaking countries – less so in Jordan, even more so in Iraq and Syria. The young draftees who make up the vast bulk of the Egyptian army hate military service for good reason and will do almost anything, including self-mutilation, to avoid it. In Syria the wealthy buy exemptions or, failing that, are assigned to non-combatant organizations. As a young Syrian told me, his musical skills came from his assignment to a Syrian army band where he learned to play an instrument. In general, the militaries of the Fertile Crescent enforce discipline by fear; in countries where a tribal system still is in force, such as Saudi Arabia, the innate egalitarianism of the society mitigates against fear as the prime mover, so a general lack of discipline pervades.
军官和士兵之间的社会和职业差距在所有军队中都存在，但在美国和其他西方国家的军队中，士官（NCO）军团弥补了这一差距。事实上，一支专业的士官队伍对于美国军队发挥最佳水平至关重要。作为职业军队的主要教官，士官对于训练计划和士兵的部队精神感至关重要。大多数阿拉伯世界要么没有士官军团，要么无法发挥作用，严重削弱了军队的效能。除了一些例外，士官被认为与士兵处于同一低级类别，因此不能充当士兵和军官之间的桥梁。军官们负责指导，但士兵和军官之间巨大的社会差距往往会使学习过程变得敷衍、形式化和低效。培训中的展示和讲述方面经常被忽视，因为官员们拒绝亲力亲为，宁愿忽视其主题的更实际的方面，认为这低于他们的社会地位。海湾战争期间发生了一个戏剧性的例子，当时一场猛烈的风暴吹倒了伊拉克军官战俘的帐篷。三天来，他们在风雨中呆着，而不是被附近营地里的入伍囚犯观察到他们用手干活。The social and professional gap between officers and enlisted men is present in all armies, but in the United States and other Western forces, the non-commissioned officer (NCO) corps bridges it. Indeed, a professional NCO corps has been critical for the American military to work at its best; as the primary trainers in a professional army, NCOs are critical to training programmes and to the enlisted men’s sense of unit esprit. Most of the Arab world either has no NCO corps or it is non-functional, severely handicapping the military’s effectiveness. With some exceptions, NCOs are considered in the same low category as enlisted men and so do not serve as a bridge between enlisted men and officers. Officers instruct but the wide social gap between enlisted man and officer tends to make the learning process perfunctory, formalized, and ineffective. The show-and-tell aspects of training are frequently missing because officers refuse to get their hands dirty and prefer to ignore the more practical aspects of their subject matter, believing this below their social station. A dramatic example of this occurred during the Gulf War when a severe windstorm blew down the tents of Iraqi officer prisoners of war. For three days they stayed in the wind and rain rather than be observed by enlisted prisoners in a nearby camp working with their hands.
这样做的军事代价是非常巨大的。如果没有士官提供的凝聚力，部队往往会在战斗压力下瓦解。这主要是因为入伍士兵根本不信任他们的军官。一旦军官离开训练区，训练就开始崩溃，士兵们开始迷失方向。一位埃及军官曾向我解释说，1967年埃及军队的灾难性失败是由于部队内部缺乏凝聚力造成的。他说，这种情况在 1973 年才略有改善。1991 年，伊拉克囚犯对军官表现出明显的恐惧和敌意。The military price for this is very great. Without the cohesion supplied by NCOs, units tend to disintegrate in the stress of combat. This is primarily a function of the fact that the enlisted soldiers simply do not have trust in their officers. Once officers depart the training areas, training begins to fall apart as soldiers begin drifting off. An Egyptian officer once explained to me that the Egyptian army’s catastrophic defeat in 1967 resulted from a lack of cohesion within units. The situation, he said, had only marginally improved in 1973. Iraqi prisoners in 1991 showed a remarkable fear of and enmity toward their officers.
决策和责任Decision-making and responsibility
决策是高度集中的，是在很高的级别上做出的，很少被授权Decisions are highly centralized, made at a very high level and rarely delegated。军官很少自己做出重大决定；相反，他更喜欢被认为是勤劳、聪明、忠诚和顺从的安全路线。将注意力集中在创新者或容易做出单方面决定的人身上会带来麻烦。. Rarely does an officer make a critical decision on his own; instead, he prefers the safe course of being identified as industrious, intelligent, loyal – and compliant. Bringing attention to oneself as an innovator or someone prone to making unilateral decisions is a recipe for trouble. 就像在平民生活中一样，遵守是压倒性的社会规范。立起来的钉子会被钉下来。决策是由高层制定和传达的，横向沟通很少。订单和信息自上而下流动；不得以任何方式重新解释、修改或修改它们As in civilian life, conforming is the overwhelming societal norm; the nail that stands up gets hammered down. Decisions are made and delivered from on high, with very little lateral communication. Orders and information flow from top to bottom; they are not to be reinterpreted, amended, or modified in any way。.
美国教官在从对方那里做出决定时常常会感到沮丧，却没有意识到阿拉伯官员缺乏做出决定的权力——阿拉伯人不愿意承认自己缺乏这种权力，这是可以理解的，这加剧了这种挫败感。笔者曾多次看到本可以在营级做出的有关班级会议时间和地点等问题的决定提交国防部批准。所有这些都导致美国训练人员制定了一条经验法则：美国陆军的一级军士与阿拉伯军队的上校拥有同等的权力。US trainers often experience frustration obtaining a decision from a counterpart, not realizing that the Arab officer lacks the authority to make the decision – a frustration amplified by the Arab’s understandable reluctance to admit that he lacks that authority. This author has several times seen decisions that could have been made at the battalion level concerning such matters as class meeting times and locations referred for approval to the ministry of defence. All of which has led American trainers to develop a rule of thumb: a sergeant first class in the US Army has as much authority as a colonel in an Arab army.
教学方法和主题由上级当局规定。部队指挥官对这些事情几乎没有什么可说的。阿拉伯军队的政治化性质意味着政治因素占据重要地位，并且常常凌驾于军事考虑之上。具有主动性和偏爱单方面行动的官员对政权构成威胁。这不仅体现在国家战略层面，也体现在军事行动和训练的各个方面。如果阿拉伯军队在准备 1973 年与以色列的战争时变得更少政治化、更专业化，那么一旦战斗结束，旧习惯就会卷土重来。现在，日益官僚化的军事机构也发挥了作用。Methods of instruction and subject matter are dictated by higher authorities. Unit commanders have very little to say about these affairs. The politicized nature of the Arab militaries means that political factors weigh heavily and frequently override military considerations. Officers with initiative and a predilection for unilateral action pose a threat to the regime. This can be seen not just at the level of national strategy but in every aspect of military operations and training. If Arab militaries became less politicized and more professional in preparation for the 1973 war with Israel, once the fighting ended, old habits returned. Now, an increasingly bureaucratized military establishment weighs in as well. A veteran of the Pentagon turf wars will feel like a kindergartner when he encounters the rivalries that exist in the Arab military headquarters.
对政策、运营、状态或培训计划负责的情况很少发生。Taking responsibility for a policy, operation, status, or training programme rarely occurs.当美国教官一再遇到阿拉伯军官将不成功的行动或计划归咎于美国设备或其他外部来源时，他们会感到非常沮丧。美国装备无法投入使用的比例很高，被归咎于“缺乏备件”——这将矛头指向美国供应系统反应迟钝，尽管美国培训人员可以记录充足的供应品抵达该国并在停滞的供应系统中消失。（应该补充一点，而且这样做很重要，这种批评从来都不是尖刻的或针对个人的，而且往往是如此间接和礼貌地表达，以至于直到会议结束后，间接引用才被理解。）这种命令甚至在最崇高的水平。科威特战争期间，沙特人撤离后，伊拉克军队占领了沙特阿拉伯东北部的海夫吉镇。沙特地面部队指挥官哈立德·本·苏丹将军要求诺曼·施瓦茨科普夫将军写一封信，称是美国将军下令从沙特城镇撤离。在对海夫吉战役的描述中，本·苏丹将军不出所料地将伊拉克占领该镇的责任归咎于美国人。事实上，问题在于该地区的沙特轻装部队离开了战场。事实上，逼近海夫吉的伊拉克部队在火力和数量上都超过了沙特人，但沙特人的自尊心要求外国人受到指责。称是美国将军下令从沙特城镇撤离。在对海夫吉战役的描述中，本·苏丹将军不出所料地将伊拉克占领该镇的责任归咎于美国人。事实上，问题在于该地区的沙特轻装部队离开了战场。事实上，逼近海夫吉的伊拉克部队在火力和数量上都超过了沙特人，但沙特人的自尊心要求外国人受到指责。称是美国将军下令从沙特城镇撤离。在对海夫吉战役的描述中，本·苏丹将军不出所料地将伊拉克占领该镇的责任归咎于美国人。事实上，问题在于该地区的沙特轻装部队离开了战场。事实上，逼近海夫吉的伊拉克部队在火力和数量上都超过了沙特人，但沙特人的自尊心要求外国人受到指责。 US trainers can find it very frustrating when they repeatedly encounter Arab officers placing blame for unsuccessful operations or programmes on the US equipment or some other outside source. A high rate of non-operational US equipment is blamed on a “lack of spare parts” – pointing a finger at an unresponsive US supply system despite the fact that American trainers can document ample supplies arriving in country and disappearing in a moribund supply system. (It should be added, and is important to do so, that this criticism was never caustic or personal and was often so indirect and politely delivered that it wasn’t until after a meeting that oblique references were understood.) This imperative works even at the most exalted levels. During the Kuwait war, Iraqi forces took over the town of Khafji in northeast Saudi Arabia after the Saudis had evacuated the place. General Khalid bin Sultan, the Saudi ground forces commander, requested a letter from General Norman Schwarzkopf, stating it was the US general who ordered an evacuation from the Saudi town. And in his account of the Khafji battle, General Bin Sultan predictably blames the Americans for the Iraqi occupation of the town. In reality the problem was that the light Saudi forces in the area left the battlefield. The Saudis were in fact outgunned and outnumbered by the Iraqi unit approaching Khafji but Saudi pride required that foreigners be blamed.
至于设备，美国和阿拉伯的维护和物流系统之间存在巨大的文化差距。阿拉伯人对美国设备的困难并不像有时简单地认为的那样，是“阿拉伯人不进行维护”的问题，而是巨大的文化差距。美国的武器系统概念并不容易传达。武器系统带来了具体的维护和后勤程序、政策，甚至一种理念，所有这些都基于美国文化，包括对一定教育水平的期望、小单位责任感、工具分配和条令。美国的装备及其维护是基于最低级维修的概念，因此需要授权。分配给美国营（约 600-800 名人员的部队）的工具很可能在阿拉伯军队的更高级别（可能高两到三个梯队）中找到。专业知识、主动性，以及最重要的是，将责任下放给下级所表现出的信任都是罕见的。由于缺乏维持设备运行所需的工具、备件或专业知识，并且不愿向上级报告坏消息，部队指挥官不得不寻找替罪羊。As for equipment, a vast cultural gap exists between the US and Arab maintenance and logistics systems. The Arab difficulties with US equipment is not, as sometimes simplistically believed, a matter of “Arabs don’t do maintenance,” but a vast cultural gap. The American concept of a weapons system does not convey easily. A weapons system brings with it specific maintenance and logistics procedures, policies, and even a philosophy, all of them based on US culture, with its expectations of a certain educational level, sense of small unit responsibility, tool allocation, and doctrine. The US equipment and its maintenance are predicated on a concept of repair at the lowest level and therefore require delegation of authority. Tools that would be allocated to a US battalion (a unit of some 600-800 personnel) would most likely be found at a much higher level – probably two or three echelons higher – in an Arab army. The expertise, initiative and, most importantly, the trust indicated by delegation of responsibility to a lower level are rare. Without the needed tools, spare parts, or expertise available to keep equipment running, and loathe to report bad news to his superiors, the unit commander looks for scapegoats.
这就是为什么我在埃及多次听到美国武器“太脆弱”的说法。我观察过许多美国国内调查小组：东道主总是会提出购买最现代化的军事硬件的理由，并尽一切努力避免维护、后勤和培训问题。他们的混淆和误导达到了如此程度，以至于美国团队无论其使命感多么认真，都发现几乎不可能提供帮助。更普遍的是，阿拉伯国家不愿坦白培训缺陷，这使得外国顾问很难适当地支持指导或评估培训需求。All this explains why I many times heard in Egypt that US weaponry is “too delicate”. I have observed many in-country US survey teams: invariably, hosts make the case for acquiring the most modern of military hardware and do everything to avoid issues of maintenance, logistics, and training. They obfuscate and mislead to such an extent that US teams, no matter how earnest their sense of mission, find it nearly impossible to help. More generally, Arab reluctance to be candid about training deficiencies makes it extremely difficult for foreign advisors properly to support instruction or assess training needs.
联合兵种作战Combined arms operations
缺乏合作最明显的表现是所有阿拉伯军队未能在联合武装行动中取得成功。例如，约旦陆军正规步兵连的人对战能力与以色列的同类连一样好；然而，在营一级，联合武器行动所需的炮兵、空中和后勤支援根本不存在。确实，梯队越高，差距就越大。这是由于不频繁的联合兵种训练造成的；当它真的举行时，它的目的是给游客留下深刻的印象（它确实如此——狗和小马的表演通常是带着不寻常的热情和戏剧天赋完成的），而不是提供真正的培训。A lack of cooperation is most apparent in the failure of all Arab armies to succeed at combined arms operations. A regular Jordanian army infantry company, for example is man-for-man as good as a comparable Israeli company; at battalion level, however, the coordination required for combined arms operations, with artillery, air, and logistics support, is simply absent. Indeed, the higher the echelon, the greater the disparity. This results from infrequent combined arms training; when it does take place, it is intended to impress visitors (which it does – the dog-and-pony show is usually done with uncommon gusto and theatrical talent) rather than provide real training.
三个根本因素进一步阻碍了联合行动所需的协调。Three underlying factors further impede coordination necessary for combined operations.
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众所周知，阿拉伯人对自己家庭以外的任何人都缺乏信任，这对进攻行动产生了不利影响。在人类努力的几乎每个领域（包括商业和社会关系）都以家庭结构为基础的文化中，这种对他人的基本不信任在战争压力下代价尤其高昂。基地的进攻行动包括火力和机动。机动部队必须确信支援部队或兵种正在提供掩护火力。如果对这种支持缺乏信任，那么只有军官站出来领导，才能让部队向前推进，对抗坚守的防御者，而这并不是阿拉伯领导层的特点。（这种模式的例外仅限于精英部队，The well-known lack of trust among Arabs in anyone outside their own families adversely affects offensive operations. In a culture in which almost every sphere of human endeavor, including business and social relationships, is based on a family structure, this basic mistrust of others is particularly costly in the stress of battle. Offensive action, at base, consists of fire and manoeuvre. The manoeuvre element must be confident that supporting units or arms are providing covering fire. If there is a lack of trust in that support, getting troops moving forward against dug-in defenders is possible only by officers getting out front and leading, something that has not been a characteristic of Arab leadership. (Exceptions to this pattern are limited to elite units, which throughout the Arab world have the same duty – to protect the regime rather than the country.)
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由于中东的统治者利用宗派和部落的忠诚来维持权力，复杂的民族格局给训练带来了额外的问题。阿拉维少数派控制叙利亚，东岸银行家控制约旦，逊尼派控制伊拉克，内吉迪派控制沙特阿拉伯。这对军队有直接影响，因为派别考虑会影响任命和晋升。一些少数民族（例如约旦的切尔克斯人或叙利亚的德鲁兹人）将自己的福祉与统治精英联系在一起，并发挥着重要的保护作用；其他人（例如伊拉克的什叶派）则被排除在军官队伍之外。无论如何，基于宗派考虑而谨慎地指派官员不利于基于功绩的指派。同样缺乏信任也发生在国家间层面，阿拉伯军队彼此间缺乏信任，这是有充分理由的。1967 年 6 月，贾迈勒·阿卜杜勒·纳赛尔 (Gamal Abdel Nasser) 对侯赛因国王撒了一个公然的谎言，让他加入针对以色列的战争——埃及空军已经到达特拉维夫上空（当时绝大多数飞机已被摧毁）——这是欺骗的典型例子。1973 年 10 月，萨达特对叙利亚人采取不诚实的做法，诱使他们参战，这是另一个例子（他告诉他们，埃及人正在计划全面战争，这是一种欺骗，其中包括使用专门针对叙利亚人的第二套作战计划）。有了这样的历史，阿拉伯军队之间很少有交叉或联合训练，也很少有指挥演习也就不足为奇了。例如，在 1967 年战争期间，没有一名约旦联络官驻扎在埃及，The complex mosaic of peoples creates additional problems for training, as rulers in the Middle East make use of the sectarian and tribal loyalties to maintain power. The `Alawi minority controls Syria, east bankers control Jordan, Sunnis control Iraq, and Nejdis control Saudi Arabia. This has direct implications for the military, where sectarian considerations affect assignments and promotions. Some minorities (such as the Circassians in Jordan or the Druze in Syria) tie their well-being to the ruling elite and perform critical protection roles; others (such as the Shi`a of Iraq) are excluded from the officer corps. In any case, the careful assignment of officers based on sectarian considerations works against assignments based on merit. The same lack of trust operates at the inter-state level, where Arab armies exhibit very little trust of each other, and with good reason. The blatant lie Gamal Abdel Nasser told King Husayn in June 1967 to get him into the war against Israel – that the Egyptian air force was over Tel Aviv (when the vast majority of planes had been destroyed) – was a classic example of deceit. Sadat’s disingenuous approach to the Syrians to entice them to enter the war in October 1973 was another (he told them that the Egyptians were planning total war, a deception that included using a second set of operational plans intended only for Syrian eyes). With this sort of history, it is no wonder that there is very little cross or joint training among Arab armies and very few command exercises. During the 1967 war, for example, not a single Jordanian liaison officer was stationed in Egypt, nor were the Jordanians forthcoming with the Egyptian command.
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中东统治者通常依靠均势手段来维持自己的权威。他们根据统治者的一时兴起使用竞争性组织、重复机构和强制结构。这使得建立任何形式的个人权力基础变得困难（如果不是不可能的话），并使领导层感到忧虑和失衡，永远无法确保其职业或社会地位。这同样适用于军队内部；参谋长联席会议主席的权力是不可想象的。联合命令是纸质结构，几乎没有实际功能。领导人非常谨慎地看待联合指挥、联合演习、联合兵种和一体化参谋人员，因为所有阿拉伯军队都是双刃剑。一棱指向外敌，一棱指向京师。陆军既是政权维护力量，也是对同一政权的威胁。这种情况在沙特阿拉伯最为明显，陆军和空军由国防部长苏丹亲王领导，而国民警卫队则由副总理兼王储阿卜杜拉亲王领导。在埃及，中央安全部队平衡军队。在伊拉克和叙利亚，共和国卫队负责平衡。Middle Eastern rulers routinely rely on balance-of-power techniques to maintain their authority. They use competing organizations, duplicate agencies, and coercive structures dependent upon the ruler’s whim. This makes building any form of personal power base difficult, if not impossible, and keeps the leadership apprehensive and off-balance, never secure in its careers or social position. The same applies within the military; a powerful chairman of the joint chiefs is inconceivable. Joint commands are paper constructs that have little actual function. Leaders look at joint commands, joint exercises, combined arms, and integrated staffs very cautiously for all Arab armies are double-edged swords. One edge points toward the external enemy and the other toward the capital. Land forces are at once a regime-maintenance force and threat to the same regime. This situation is most clearly seen in Saudi Arabia, where the land forces and aviation are under the minister of defence, Prince Sultan, while the National Guard is under Prince Abdullah, the deputy prime minister and crown prince. In Egypt, the Central Security Forces balance the army. In Iraq and Syria, the Republican Guard does the balancing.
没有一个阿拉伯统治者会允许联合行动或训练成为例行公事，因为这些可以创造熟悉感，缓和竞争，消除猜疑，并消除使统治者能够相互竞争的分散的竞争性组织。No Arab ruler will allow combined operations or training to become routine, for these create familiarity, soften rivalries, erase suspicions, and eliminate the fragmented, competing organizations that enable rulers to play off rivals against one another. 政治家实际上为维持分裂制造了障碍。Politicians actually create obstacles to maintain fragmentation.例如，从空军获取飞机用于陆军空降训练，无论是联合演习还是简单的支持训练的行政请求，一般都必须由国防部各军种负责人协调；如果涉及大量飞机，这可能需要总统批准。军事政变目前可能已经过时，但人们对军事政变的恐惧依然强烈。地面部队的任何大规模演习始终是政府关注的问题并受到密切观察，特别是在使用实弹的情况下。在沙特阿拉伯，地区军事指挥官和省长需要复杂的审批系统，他们都有不同的指挥渠道来获得道路车队许可、获取弹药和进行演习，这意味着政变的成功需要大量忠诚的阴谋者。该系统已被证明具有防政变能力，并且没有理由相信它在未来不会发挥良好作用。 For example, obtaining aircraft from the air force for army airborne training, whether it is a joint exercise or a simple administrative request for support of training, must generally be coordinated by the heads of services at the ministry of defence; if a large number of aircraft are involved, this probably requires presidential approval. Military coups may have gone out of style for now, but the fear of them remains strong. Any large-scale exercise of land forces is always a matter of concern to the government and is closely observed, particularly if live ammunition is being used. In Saudi Arabia a complex system of clearances required from area military commanders and provincial governors, all of whom have differing command channels to secure road convoy permission, obtaining ammunition, and conducting exercises, means that in order for a coup to work it would require a massive amount of loyal conspirators. The system has proven to be coup-proof, and there is no reason to believe it will not work well into the future.
安全与偏执Security and paranoia
阿拉伯政权几乎将所有事物都模糊地归类为军事。美国军方定期发布的信息（有关晋升、调动、部队指挥官姓名和部队名称）在阿拉伯语国家属于最高机密。诚然，这确实使敌人更难构建准确的战斗序列，但也助长了军队的分裂和分割性质。对安全的痴迷可能会达到荒谬的程度。1973 年战争之前，萨达特惊讶地发现，在他下令武装部队做好战争准备之日起两周内，他的战争部长穆罕默德·萨迪克将军却未能将此命令通知他的直属幕僚。萨达特想知道，战争是否应该对那些预计参战的人保密？Arab regimes classify virtually everything vaguely military. Information the US military routinely publishes (about promotions, transfers, names of unit commanders, and unit designations) is top secret in Arabic-speaking countries. To be sure, this does make it more difficult for the enemy to construct an accurate order of battle, but it also feeds the divisive and compartmentalized nature of the military forces. The obsession with security can reach ludicrous lengths. Prior to the 1973 war, Sadat was surprised to find that within two weeks of the date he had ordered the armed forces be ready for war, his minister of war, General Muhammad Sadiq, had failed to inform his immediate staff of the order. Should a war, Sadat wondered, be kept secret from the very people expected to fight it?
人们可以预料，一位阿拉伯同行或主要联系人会在没有任何警告的情况下发生变化，也不会解释他的突然缺席。这很可能只是几扇门外的一次转移，但这一切的模糊性让外国人想象可怕的场景——这可能是真的。而且最好不要询问太多；看起来过于好奇的顾问或培训师可能会发现他们对东道国军事信息或设施的访问受到限制。假定的美国与以色列之间的密切关系被认为在各个层面上都发挥着作用，这加剧了这种保密倾向并使之复杂化。阿拉伯人认为，有关他们的最平凡的细节以某种方式通过秘密热线传送给摩萨德。这解释了为什么美国阿拉伯军队顾问可能会很早就被问到他对“巴勒斯坦问题、One can expect to have an Arab counterpart or key contact changed without warning and with no explanation as to his sudden absence. This might well be simply a transfer a few doors away, but the vagueness of it all leaves foreigners imagining dire scenarios – that could be true. And it is best not to inquire too much; advisors or trainers who seem overly inquisitive may find their access to host military information or facilities limited. The presumed close US-Israel relationship, thought to be operative at all levels, aggravates and complicates this penchant for secrecy. Arabs believe that the most mundane details about them are somehow transmitted to the Mossad via a secret hotline. This explains why US advisor with Arab forces is likely to be asked early and often about his opinion on the “Palestine problem,” then subjected to monologues on the assumed Jewish domination of the United States.
对安全漠不关心Indifference to safety
安全措施普遍松懈，对训练事故显得粗心和漠不关心，其中许多事故本来可以通过最低限度的安全预防措施来避免。对于（也许过于）具有安全意识的美国人来说，阿拉伯社会似乎对伤亡和安全培训的重要性漠不关心。对此有多种解释。有些人会指出伊斯兰教内部固有的宿命论，当然，任何在阿拉伯出租车上呆过很长时间的人都会相信这一理论；但也许原因与其说与宗教有关，不如说与政治文化有关。任何退伍军人都知道，一个部队的精神是由最高层制定的；或者说，老话说，单位把老板关心的事做好。当最高政治领导层完全不关心士兵的福利时，这种态度就会渗透到整个队伍中。证据A是1967年在戈兰高地与以色列交战的叙利亚军队的背叛：在撤回精锐部队后，叙利亚政府故意散播谎言，称以色列军队已占领库奈特拉镇，这将使他们落后于以义务兵为主的叙利亚军队。仍在岗位上。领导层采取这一步骤是为了向大国施压，要求停战，但这导致了叙利亚军队的恐慌和戈兰高地的丧失。叙利亚政府故意散布谎言，称以色列军队已占领库奈特拉镇，这将使他们落后于仍驻扎在阵地的、大部分是义务兵的叙利亚军队。领导层采取这一举措是为了向大国施压，要求停战，但这导致了叙利亚军队的恐慌和戈兰高地的丧失。叙利亚政府故意散播谎言，称以色列军队已占领库奈特拉镇，这将使他们落后于仍驻守阵地的、以义务兵为主的叙利亚军队。领导层采取这一步骤是为了向大国施压，要求停战，但这导致了叙利亚军队的恐慌和戈兰高地的丧失。There is a general laxness with respect to safety measures and a seeming carelessness and indifference to training accidents, many of which could have been prevented by minimal safety precautions. To the (perhaps overly) safety-conscious Americans, Arab societies appear indifferent to casualties and to the importance of training safety. There are a number of explanations for this. Some would point to the inherent fatalism within Islam, and certainly anyone who has spent considerable time in Arab taxis would lend credence to that theory; but perhaps the reason has less to do with religion than with political culture. As any military veteran knows, the ethos of a unit is set at the top; or, as the old saying has it, units do those things well that the boss cares about. When the top political leadership displays a complete lack of concern for the welfare of its soldiers, such attitudes percolate down through the ranks. Exhibit A was the betrayal of Syrian troops fighting Israel in the Golan in 1967: having withdrawn its elite units, the Syrian government knowingly broadcast the falsehood that Israeli troops had captured the town of Kuneitra, which would have put them behind the largely conscript Syrian army still in position. The leadership took this step to pressure the great powers to impose a truce, though it led to a panic by the Syrian troops and the loss of the Golan Heights.
结论Conclusion
美国和阿拉伯军事文化之间的文化鸿沟怎么夸大都不为过。在每一个重要领域，美国军事顾问都会发现学生热情地学习课程，但却坚决不应用它们。他们回归的文化——他们自己国家军队的文化——It would be difficult to exaggerate the cultural gulf separating American and Arab military cultures. In every significant area, American military advisors find students who enthusiastically take in their lessons and then resolutely fail to apply them. The culture they return to – the culture of their own armies in their own countries –
违背了他们告别美国教官的初衷。阿拉伯军官并不关心他们手下的福利和安全。阿拉伯军事思想不鼓励下级军官或任何军官在这方面采取主动行动。责任是被逃避和转移的，而不是寻求和承担的。政治偏执和行动封闭主义，而不是开放和团队努力，是阿拉伯军事机构进步（和生存）的规则。当然，这些不是遗传学问题，而是历史和政治文化问题。defeats the intentions with which they took leave of their American instructors. Arab officers are not concerned about the welfare and safety of their men. The Arab military mind does not encourage initiative on the part of junior officers, or any officers for that matter. Responsibility is avoided and deflected, not sought and assumed. Political paranoia and operational hermeticism, rather than openness and team effort, are the rules of advancement (and survival) in the Arab military establishments. These are not issues of genetics, of course, but matters of historical and political culture.
尽管其他社会（包括我们自己的社会）的经验表明，军队可以对更大的政治文化产生民主化的影响，因为只有在更大的阿拉伯政治文化中发生变化才可能发生，因为军官首先会带来他们的训练经验教训进入他们的职业环境，然后进入更大的社会。然而，当周围的政治文化不仅公开宣称是民主的（如苏联），而且在功能上也是如此时，这显然会产生很大的不同。Change is unlikely to come until it occurs in the larger Arab political culture, although the experience of other societies (including our own) suggests that the military can have a democratizing influence on the larger political culture, as officers bring the lessons of their training first into their professional environment, then into the larger society. It obviously makes a big difference, however, when the surrounding political culture is not only avowedly democratic (as was the Soviet Union’s), but functionally so.
在阿拉伯政治开始从根本上发生变化之前，阿拉伯军队，无论个别官兵的勇气或熟练程度如何，都不太可能获得现代战斗部队在战场上取得成功所需的一系列素质。因为这些品质取决于在各级武装部队成员中灌输尊重、信任和开放性，而这是现代战争的进行曲，阿拉伯军队无论多么效仿相应的步骤，都不想这样做。听到。Until Arab politics begin to change at fundamental levels, Arab armies, whatever the courage or proficiency of individual officers and men, are unlikely to acquire the range of qualities which modern fighting forces require for success on the battlefield. For these qualities depend on inculcating respect, trust, and openness among the members of the armed forces at all levels, and this is the marching music of modern warfare that Arab armies, no matter how much they emulate the corresponding steps, do not want to hear. 美国外交。American Diplomacy.
