ARVN and Iraqi army : were they (consciously) conceived as dependant forces ?

[BaronNoir]

(ARVN : Army of the Republic of Viet Nam)

A thing that struck me upon reading of the collapse of those armies and their very relative successes (the Iraqi army achievement of retaking Mossul after seven months of strike and overwhelming advantage in numbers and material is not exactly impressive) is that they were maybe independent forces on paper, but required lavish air support and ''counsellors'' to make any headway.

Was it consciously, or not, on purpose ? The French were quite open, in Vietnam and elsewhere, to have ''local'' forces incapable of using aircraft or tanks (while pretending it was because equipment was too complex for colonials) : after all, special forces and heavy airstrikes are theoricaly cheaper and more palatable to public opinion than large ground forces....

 

[Herbert West]

History forum please

 

[sgt.stickybomb]

The Iraqi army is dependent not by design but by sheer realities of the Iraqi economy. affording modern jets and logistical requirements to conduct air strikes is beyond the capabilities of the Iraqi military, despite that they still manage to operate a smallish airfleet and do conduct strikes in support of their troops. same goes for training tens of thousands of soldiers and providing them with adequate equipment. and handling the supply train from Baghdad to Mosul

I wouldn't look down on the effort it took to liberate Mosul. They were fighting an enemy that doesn't wear uniforms, that numbers in the tens of thousands, and that is hiding between millions of people and thousands of booby trapped houses and IED-laced roads. I also lost count of how many times I read reports of women pretending to be injured calling for an Iraqi solder to carry them, and when he does, they'd blow themselves up. It was a tough urban fight, and it would've been a nightmare for anyone to go through.

And while on paper they outnumbered their opponent, only the CTS had sufficient training to clear urban areas, regular army divisions liberated areas outside Mosul, but only the CTS, ERD, and Fed police conducted operations inside the city proper as far as I know.

 

[HanSime]

I would also advise looking up the essay on why Arab armies always lose. It is a cultural thing of overestimating oneself, corruption, undermining one another, paranoia, intrige and general hoarding of information. The goal of the Iraqi army members - like in all Arab armies - is to be important. Because that makes money and keeps them in a position of power.

The Iraqi army never had or has a unified goal of being an effective fighting force, certainly not to die for one's country (and then certainly not for someone else's tribe). It's all about officer status and personal gain.

 

[Eusebio]

The ARVN was consciously conceived of as an independent force: this was the entire point of the 'Vietnamisation' policy adopted after Nixon took office.

 

[BaronNoir]

It was really not a striking success as an independant force.

 

[ROMMEL_HSQ]

It took the Americans 4 weeks to take back Fallujah in the first time, and 6 weeks in the second time.
7 months for retaking Mosul isn't bad.

 

[nerd]

The ARVN was consciously conceived of as an independent force: this was the entire point of the 'Vietnamisation' policy adopted after Nixon took office.

While this may have been its point for the US, talking to ARVN officers was different. Every one I met <admittedly only ~60> was looking to move up in society by social contacts in the army and had zero interest in doing anything that would break the creases in his starched uniform, especially actually fighting.

 

[Andre Bolkonsky]

I would also advise looking up the essay on why Arab armies always lose. It is a cultural thing of overestimating oneself, corruption, undermining one another, paranoia, intrige and general hoarding of information. The goal of the Iraqi army members - like in all Arab armies - is to be important. Because that makes money and keeps them in a position of power.

The Iraqi army never had or has a unified goal of being an effective fighting force, certainly not to die for one's country (and then certainly not for someone else's tribe). It's all about officer status and personal gain.

Bingo.

It is not improbable that Iraq can muster its military might and take a city against insurgents. The Americans did it. Several times. The tactic is always to withdraw, wait, and flow back in when the tide flows out. Hold it for a couple of years, then get back to me.

 

[frolix42]

Independent is a relative term. France and Italy were the two countries that most wanted to intervene in Libya, yet they required help from their NATO ally, the United States, in order to do so reasonably efficiently. In a significant way, France, Italy and all the US partners are dependent on US capabilities.

The goal of standing up ARVN is the same as the goal standing up the Iraqi Army, is the same as standing up the Afgan Army. They are supposed to be willing allies of the United States, working with and under the military umbrella of the most advanced military force in history. The end goal of the United States would be to create a situation like that in South Korea and Japan, which are both militarily potent yet depend on the US as a strategic bulwark against China.

 

[BaronNoir]

BTW, I don't know if this is accurate, but Canadian media mention that, at their peak, ISIS forces in Mossul were around 6000 men.

 

[SFSLovenought]

I think ARVN would wipe the floor with Iraq any day of the week. They had a few good units of up to brigade and even division size, didn't they? That's all you need to conquer Iraq, at least outside of Baghdad.

 

[nerd]

I think ARVN would wipe the floor with Iraq any day of the week. They had a few good units of up to brigade and even division size, didn't they? That's all you need to conquer Iraq, at least outside of Baghdad.

Maybe lounging at some base somewhere, I never saw larger than platoon size units.

 

[Swuul]

Wrong forum. History forum is that way -->

 

[Cavalry]

the ARVN after 1970 is one of the best well equipped and numerous in the world at that time. 4th in air forces and 5th in navy. The US built them to replace the US soldiers in WAR!

the Iraqi may be just an armed police forces.

 

[DoomBunny]

As far as I know, no.

Really these armies just sucked for their own special reasons. Largely they were the same reasons as well; terrible/corrupt/political officers, few career NCOs, no motivation in the troops. That's not to say there weren't some good ARVN units (or that the material was bad, Indochinese units fought well under Communist or French leadership), but on the whole the problem here is people not taking it seriously and the gear thereby underperforming horrendously.

The example you would go to of a military being dependent would be the South Korean army before the Korean War broke out. This was a force deliberately kept by the US in a state of unreadiness, namely to stop it starting anything with the North. That is part of the reason things went so pear shaped in the first few months (that and because the US could only support its supportable ally with a few hundred men equipped with obsolete weaponry).

 

[Kgw]

Problem is that if you don't trust an allied army providing not weapons, equipment or training, it's obvious they won't perform as they should. So you have to play their part, preventing them to become real, trustworthy forces.

Even if in the last moments you drop a ton of money on them, the problem continues: they cannot pass from "guys I won't trust them with a M-16" to "here you got this tank, use it!".

On the Iraqi Army there is even the minor detail of being occupied by the US, so you're not really keen on giving them too much equipment.

 

[Gil galad]

Problem is that if you don't trust an allied army providing not weapons, equipment or training, it's obvious they won't perform as they should. So you have to play their part, preventing them to become real, trustworthy forces.

Even if in the last moments you drop a ton of money on them, the problem continues: they cannot pass from "guys I won't trust them with a M-16" to "here you got this tank, use it!".

On the Iraqi Army there is even the minor detail of being occupied by the US, so you're not really keen on giving them too much equipment.

They got enough equipment only to leave it to daesh a couple of years back. They even lost Abrams tanks to daesh.

 

[D Inqu]

Problem is that if you don't trust an allied army providing not weapons, equipment or training, it's obvious they won't perform as they should. So you have to play their part, preventing them to become real, trustworthy forces.

Even if in the last moments you drop a ton of money on them, the problem continues: they cannot pass from "guys I won't trust them with a M-16" to "here you got this tank, use it!".

On the Iraqi Army there is even the minor detail of being occupied by the US, so you're not really keen on giving them too much equipment.

The question in not really in the "stats" of the equipment. Against an irregular force, it shouldn't really matter that much whether troops use M-16 or a FAL (or even a chinese AKM copy).

The problem with Iraqi (and arab armies in general) goes much deeper, which is why Iraq was struggling Iran in the 80-s war, even though the latter was completely outnumbered and outguned at the start of the war. There is a reason why both for Iraq and Syria, various religious "pro-government militia" are so prominent as opposed to the actual regular army.

 

[Kgw]

That depends. In the case of Vietnam, at the first moments, ARVN was low on morale, equipment, training and support from their allies, against highly motivated guerrillas (or NVA forces).

Ditto for Iraq.

Once thing is dropping tons of ammo and equipment (hey, isn't there a surplus of Abrahams tanks?) on some dismoralized, poor trained, bad leaded forces and other, turn them into a real army.