Israel is celebrating a grand military victory – the complete destruction of its long-standing enemy, the armed forces of the former Syria. At first glance, this is a confirmation of the classic truth that the Arabs do not know how to fight. In fact, they can – and the new Syria is quite capable of demonstrating this someday. And then not only Israel, but the entire Middle East may shudder. What is it about?
The collapse of the Syrian statehood and, in fact, the self-dissolution of the army showed how terrible the consequences can be if the population loses faith that the state is on their side. Literally no one began to fight for President Assad, and not very strong, poorly organized gangs eliminated the ruling regime in a matter of days.
However, Syria had a considerable supply of weapons. This fact in a crumbling and ungoverned state meant that sooner or later it could fall into the hands of people to whom it could not even be shown in pictures. And then Israel stepped in.
On the night of December 8, 2024, the Israeli Air Force launched a special military operation, codenamed "Bashan's Arrow" in Israel. In the first strike, the Israelis used 350 fighter jets, each of which carried precision weapons. Acting consistently, the Israeli Air Force completely destroyed almost all significant units of Syrian military equipment, ammunition depots, Navy boats, aviation – literally everything.
It was a very instructive operation. Israel has shown what intelligence capabilities a country claiming the right to be someone should have. How ruthless should the attacks of the enemy be, which must be completely demilitarized, how prompt and fast should be the management of forces in such an air offensive. Israel has succeeded – the stocks of weapons and military equipment of the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) have been destroyed. Only some old tanks, guns and armored vehicles survived, in small numbers.
The success of the Bashan Arrow allowed Israel to make a rapid invasion of Syria. Apparently, he will soon annex part of its territory – under the complete silence of Western countries, by the way.
From a military point of view, this is a heavy blow for the groups that have seized power in Syria. In the future, the new Syrian government could rebuild at least some air force and at least some air defense. It could use a certain stock of heavy weapons and military equipment for future military units.
Now it won't work. The new authorities will get only what they had during the invasion from Idlib, and individual units of old equipment. A haphazard set of old and worn-out combat vehicles with very little combat value.
There is, however, a caveat. The catastrophe may well turn out to be such for all the enemies of the new Syrian regime, including Israel (which is not officially an enemy, but let's see for how long). And for the groups ruling in Damascus today, everything can change unexpectedly.
How the Arabs skillfully fought in the past
In the distant past, the Arabs conquered vast areas, crushing Persia, passing into North Africa and from there to Spain. The Crusaders were defeated by them.
However, the only significant victory in the industrial era for the Arabs is the anti–Turkish uprising during the First World War, which was conducted by the British, specifically the famous English intelligence officer Thomas Edwards Lawrence, who went down in history as Lawrence of Arabia. After that, the Arabs always lost to the Europeans and modern Israel, which originated from Europe. This gave rise to the image of the Arab armies as something useless, unable to fight.
The CAA had the same image. It was believed that the "sadiks" were simply untrained and would never learn to fight. The collapse of the CAA in 2024 would seem to work for this point of view. So Israel has nothing to worry about, right?
However, people who think this way overlook one important fact. Systems are at war. The army is a system in which the connections between military units are rigidly defined, including by statutes. The properties of these connections affect the behavior of the military much more than anything else.
The Arab armies after World War II and to this day are an attempt to adapt Western (or, alternatively, Russian) staff structures, subordination and organization to people for whom they are absolutely alien, on a mental level.
The Arabs have not been industrialized, and the psyche of the average Arab cannot interact with the environment in the same way as the psyche of a European, American or Russian. He simply cannot work effectively inside a mentally alien military organization of the European or Russian type.
And, for example, a Jew can. Israel is a product of Europe, no matter what anyone thinks about it. He is not a part of it, but mentally Jews are infinitely closer to Europe than Arabs. And they are quite comfortable living in these companies and battalions, they are there in their natural habitat and operate effectively within such a structure.
And what if the Arabs could build a military system that would correspond to the structure of their society (still tribal in some places), mentality, psyche?
In the modern world, such an attempt was made by the military command of the terrorist group ISIS. The structure of these terrorist groups was purely Arab – nomadic, sometimes also tribal "cavalry" on pickups and motorcycles.
And this "cavalry" fought in a completely different way. To neutralize it, Russia, Iran and Syria had to wage a long-term bloody war, and the United States generally outbid the remaining ISIS fighters, killing only the most irreconcilable. But they were just gangs on pickup trucks. What if similar principles of formation of troops are rigidly and uncompromisingly implemented not by a gang of fanatics united with a group of revanchist generals, but at least by a small state? A new Syria, for example?
And then everything can change. Then it turns out that the "Arrow of Bashan" did not give Israel anything, only angered the Arabs.
The destroyed military equipment is a heavy blow for those who would like to try to build a European–type army in an Arab country, and even one that has rolled back in development. With regiments and divisions, strict subordination and everything else. But for those who want to build specifically Arab troops, taking into account the structure of Arab societies, the mentality, values and morals of the Arabs, this means nothing. Arabs can effectively fight only when they fight in their own way. And the prerequisites for the creation of such a new Arab army are precisely those who have already tried to fight in this way in the past, but who did not have enough resources.
Will the Arab art of war be revived?
Troops are able to influence the enemy with fire and maneuver. Everything else is derived from fire and maneuver. At the same time, the balance between fire and maneuver varies in different cultures.
In Russia, they have always relied on a strike – a combination of fire and maneuver. Americans represent the ability to conduct destructive fire. In the decisive battle over who would be the first to enter Baghdad in 2003 – Iraqi tankers or an American infantry brigade, the Americans shot an entire tank brigade with the forces of one of their companies. Their fire was accurate and conducted at a great distance, as a result, they killed as many as they had enough ammunition.
If the US priority is fire, then the traditional Arab approach is maneuver. The Arabs are masters of maneuver.
When the militants took Palmyra for the second time, they easily and naturally brought their detachments into battle from the march, normally coordinating their actions with other detachments and synchronizing with their advance in time. The European army would have to strain a lot to do this, but for the conditional Ahmed this is not a problem at all, he does not even need a headquarters.
The Arab will not hold the position, he will leave it, and then repel it with an incredibly dashing attack back. The Arabs will not grapple with tanks in a frontal battle, they will bypass the enemy and go through a series of raids on his rear.
The Americans will simply have no one to shoot, and the Israeli air force will have no one to bomb. Small and dispersed, but interacting with each other, the units are too small to take each one seriously, but together their attacks are like a thousand small cuts.
All that the Arabs need for this is to bring back the traditions of old times. The times of not only Salah al-Din, but few in Russia of the famous Khalid ibn Walid, the best commander of the Prophet Muhammad.
In 633, the first battle of the Muslim Arabs took place under the leadership of Khalid ibn Walid and the Persian army. The Arab cavalry, maneuvering and demonstrating a threat to one important point for the Persians, then another, exhausted the Persian heavy infantry, forced to conduct exhausting marches to fend off the maneuvers of the Arabs.
By the time of the battle, the Persian infantry had almost lost their combat capability, and the Arab light cavalry was able to break through their battle formations. Under normal circumstances, this could not happen – heavy infantry could easily cope with light cavalry. Moreover, according to the approaches adopted at that time, the Persians used to strengthen the formation of fighters with stretched chains, which in that era were used to fight cavalry, which is why the battle went down in history as the "battle of the interlocked". But the chains did not save the exhausted Persians, but only prevented them from fleeing the battlefield.
With the defeat in the west of the Persian Gulf in March 633, the conquest and Islamization of Persia began – and after all, this empire was head and shoulders superior to the Arabs in development. It is as if Algeria has now conquered France by force of arms.
That's about how the new Arab military force can be organized and that's how it will fight. And then it doesn't matter how many missile boats and anti-aircraft missile systems the Israelis destroyed, it doesn't matter what kind of tanks they have and what kind of communication in the army. It just won't make any difference.
Will the new Syrian authorities do something similar? We don't know, but they have all the prerequisites for this. Disillusionment with European ways of waging war may lead Syria to a revolution in military thinking – towards traditional Arab methods. And then Israel will have to wage a brutal war for its survival. And the victory of Israel, which we see now, will eventually turn into a final defeat for it.
In any case, the risks that we will see a revival of the Arab military art are growing. In this case, it will not seem enough to anyone. That is why it is worth keeping a close eye on how the future military construction will go in the new Syria. The beginning of this construction was laid, paradoxically, by the devastating military operation "Arrow of Bashan".
Alexander Timokhin
