Event box

[In-Person] Why Are Gulf Arab Armies So Ineffective? In-Person

Speaker: 

Professor Zoltan  Barany is chiefly interested in military politics and democratization worldwide. In the past decade, his field research has focused on the Arabian Peninsula and Burma/Myanmar. Barany’s recent books include How Armies Respond to Revolutions and Why (Princeton, 2016), The Soldier and the Changing State: Building Democratic Armies in Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas (Princeton, 2012), and, as co-editor, Security Sector Reform in Constitutional Transitions (Oxford, 2019) and Is Democracy Exportable? (Cambridge, 2009).  His new book, Armies of Arabia: Military Politics and Effectiveness in the Gulf, is forthcoming from Oxford University Press in September 2021.

 

Description: 

The Arabian Peninsula is among the most strategically and economically important areas in the world yet its armies remain terra incognita.  In this talk, based on his new book – Armies of Arabia: Military Politics and Effectiveness in the Gulf (Oxford University Press, 2021) Zoltan Barany explains the conspicuous ineffectiveness of these forces with a combination of political-structural and sociocultural factors. Based on over 150 personal interviews with military officers and politicians in the Gulf, the book argues that Gulf armies’ ineffectiveness is rooted in the absence of meritocracy, the domination of personal connections over institutional norms, disregard for personal responsibility, half-hearted leadership, casual work ethic, and training lacking intensity, frequency, and up-to-date settings.  Massive expenditures on armaments are primarily pay-offs to the US for protecting them and have resulted in bloated and inappropriate arsenals and large-scale corruption. The Saudi-led coalition’s disastrous war in Yemen (2015-) starkly illustrates the royal armies’ humiliating combat record. 

 

Location: Tower Center Boardroom, Room 227, Carr Collins Hall, 3300 University Blvd 

Date:
Wednesday, February 9, 2022
Time:
12:00pm - 1:00pm
Time Zone:
Central Time - US & Canada (change)
Location:
To be determined
Registration has closed.

More events like this...