Post by torpedo on Nov 13, 2019 13:53:10 GMT
Saudi Arabia is unable to win the war in Yemen, despite all the high tech weapons they got from the United States?
The KSA can win battles but not the war, not now, not tomorrow not ever. The worlds biggest and best funded military could win every fire fight and 99.9% of the conflict in Iran and Afghanistan but not the war.
Americas longest war will be lost in the end to the Talibs, it is their country, their landscape, their people, they don’t get to go home and its a contest of ideas.
Nationalism, liberation, AQI and ISIS theology and ideology are ideas, as long as the ideas have currency they will continue. To win a war of ideas is hard, it takes commitment and soft power not just fire power and money.The KSA is a made up nation that is predated by Yemeni nations and civilisations dating back to the Queen of Sheba a legendary Yemeni. The KSA was a family win around the WW1 era that had its nation facilitated by the Treaty of Versailles as it collided with American Imperial and Govt ambition in the new energy region. Yemen is more than that. Like Somalia its a complex patch work of peoples, culture and language masquerading as a modern nation but actually much more than that.
Pre colonial Somaliland and Aden would probably work as viable nations its just that nationalists, real politic and the geo politics of 2019 are blocking their success.
The KSA is a Kingdom in which not all citizens have a commitment to and choices they can make. Its armed forces are a career and an avenue of income not necessarily a vehicle for nationalist protection and fighters. Working class Saudis don’t want to fight and die killing their muslim brothers for a regime with a poor track record on their welfare.
War is hard work and dirty, the locals don’t like them, the goal is unclear, the end un measurable, the territory unfamiliar, what is the point for a 21 year old Saudi?
Winning a war like this comes down to close quarter killing and that is a nasty risky endeavour in which hi tech does not count for as much as commitment and local knowledge of the mountains and streets.
In the Arabic speaking world the Druze, the Kurds and the Berber mountain people have been showing the way to keep the central govt and invading forces out for the last 5 decades, the Houthi are Yemeni Mountain people for KSA grunts its welcome to hell and watch your back for our allies are only that in words.
The KSA can win battles but not the war, not now, not tomorrow not ever. The worlds biggest and best funded military could win every fire fight and 99.9% of the conflict in Iran and Afghanistan but not the war.
Americas longest war will be lost in the end to the Talibs, it is their country, their landscape, their people, they don’t get to go home and its a contest of ideas.
Nationalism, liberation, AQI and ISIS theology and ideology are ideas, as long as the ideas have currency they will continue. To win a war of ideas is hard, it takes commitment and soft power not just fire power and money.The KSA is a made up nation that is predated by Yemeni nations and civilisations dating back to the Queen of Sheba a legendary Yemeni. The KSA was a family win around the WW1 era that had its nation facilitated by the Treaty of Versailles as it collided with American Imperial and Govt ambition in the new energy region. Yemen is more than that. Like Somalia its a complex patch work of peoples, culture and language masquerading as a modern nation but actually much more than that.
Pre colonial Somaliland and Aden would probably work as viable nations its just that nationalists, real politic and the geo politics of 2019 are blocking their success.
The KSA is a Kingdom in which not all citizens have a commitment to and choices they can make. Its armed forces are a career and an avenue of income not necessarily a vehicle for nationalist protection and fighters. Working class Saudis don’t want to fight and die killing their muslim brothers for a regime with a poor track record on their welfare.
War is hard work and dirty, the locals don’t like them, the goal is unclear, the end un measurable, the territory unfamiliar, what is the point for a 21 year old Saudi?
Winning a war like this comes down to close quarter killing and that is a nasty risky endeavour in which hi tech does not count for as much as commitment and local knowledge of the mountains and streets.
In the Arabic speaking world the Druze, the Kurds and the Berber mountain people have been showing the way to keep the central govt and invading forces out for the last 5 decades, the Houthi are Yemeni Mountain people for KSA grunts its welcome to hell and watch your back for our allies are only that in words.
