Sizing up Little Sparta: Understanding UAE Military Effectiveness
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Sizing Up Little Sparta UNDERSTANDING UAE MILITARY EFFECTIVENESS KENNETH M. POLLACK OCTOBER 2020 AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE Executive Summary n recent years, the armed forces of the United there, and they now benefit from having numerous I Arab Emirates (UAE) have earned the reputation combat veterans in their ranks. as the best in the Arab world. Former Secretary of Close behind the PG, and arguably even more for- Defense James Mattis went so far as to bestow on midable, is the UAE’s Joint Aviation Command (JAC), them the sobriquet “Little Sparta.” Two questions which controls most of its helicopters. Until recently, linger, however: How good are the Emirati armed the JAC was commanded by a former American mil- forces, and why are they more competent than other itary officer. It possesses some of the most advanced Arab militaries? American systems, and its pilots are impressive. The JAC has demonstrated first-rate capabilities, provid- Emirati Military Effectiveness. Taken as a whole, ing rotary-wing fire support, air mobility, combat the UAE’s military is unquestionably the most capa- search and rescue, and maritime patrol operations. ble among the Arab states, probably by a considerable The Emirati air force also has an outstanding rep- margin. The best Emirati units are the best in the Arab utation, but the validity of that reputation is harder world, and the overall average appears superior to to judge. Emirati pilots, weaponeers, targeteers, plan- that of other Arab armies. Indeed, the best and most ners, and logisticians are generally high caliber, pro- experienced Emirati soldiers, officers, and units are fessional, and well trained. At least some of the rear excellent by regional standards and appear equivalent echelon personnel are expatriates with extensive ser- or possibly even more capable than those of some vice in their home militaries, but the pilots themselves NATO members. and most ground crew are overwhelmingly Emirati. However, there is considerable variance across The air force has done well in Afghanistan, Oper- the force, and only a small percentage falls into the ation Inherent Resolve, Yemen, and now Libya. highest-quality categories. The bulk of the Emirati However, the air force has never engaged in air-to- armed forces are less competent, and too many of air combat, and only in Yemen and Libya has it con- their soldiers, officers, and units evince only modestly ducted dynamic air-to-ground missions. In these, the greater effectiveness than their Arab brethren do. The air force received more mixed reviews from both UAE’s armed forces have a sharp, strong spear point, American and Emirati ground forces. Moreover, but the shaft still needs work. the latest generation of precision guided munitions The UAE’s Presidential Guard (PG), and par- (PGM) now do much of the hard work that once was ticularly its Special Operations Command (SOC), required of pilots. Because the UAE can afford plenty are probably the most capable of the Emirati com- of cutting-edge PGMs, it is harder to evaluate the bat arms. These are professional, picked, and highly quality of their pilots based on the generally success- trained troops, who have a close mentorship program ful results of their strike missions, especially deliber- with the US Marine Corps. They are commanded by ate strike missions. an expatriate Australian general. Several dozen key The UAE Land Forces run the gamut to a much instructors, planners, administrators, and other senior greater extent. Small numbers of the best soldiers, officers are Westerners, particularly Australians. officers, and units from the Land Forces fought— The PG provided many of the forces that fought in and fought well—in Yemen, demonstrating some real Afghanistan and Yemen. They performed quite well capability in combined arms warfare. But personnel 1 SIZING UP LITTLE SPARTA KENNETH M. POLLACK selection, training, promotions, and retention pol- as Sudanese troops in Yemen—Emiratis themselves icies in the Land Forces are inconsistent and ham- now do the fighting. pered by favoritism toward key tribes and families, among other things. As a result, significant segments Emirati Force Generation. The greater military of the Land Forces have considerably less capabil- effectiveness of the Emirati armed forces derives ity. The Emirati leadership has greatly emphasized from their force-generation practices. Across the improving the Land Forces, and the leadership is board, the UAE has transformed its premilitary edu- putting in place new procedures that should improve cation, recruitment, training, promotion, and profes- the forces over time. sional military education practices over the past two Until the Yemen war, the UAE navy had been decades. While there is still much work to be done largely neglected, receiving less money, attention, and even the earliest reforms are only beginning to or high-quality personnel. Some sources claim that have an impact, the superior performance of elite this results from the navy having had no clear mis- Emirati forces in Afghanistan, Yemen, Libya, and else- sion for many years because the coast guard han- where represents the first fruits of these changes. dled counter-smuggling and protection of offshore In 2014, the UAE instituted compulsory national oil facilities. However, the need to lift and support service for men and voluntary national service for a force in Yemen, enforce a blockade of the Yemeni women. At present, the main purpose of national coast, and defend against repeated Iranian attacks on service is political and cultural. It is meant to instill Emirati and Saudi oil exports in the Gulf in 2019 have a sense of Emirati identity and patriotism and foster forced Abu Dhabi to reconsider. A highly regarded greater critical thinking, innovation, discipline, and senior officer from the royal family was recently physical fitness. Nevertheless, national service does named commander of naval forces, some better offi- provide a secondary benefit to the military by allow- cers are being transferred to the navy from other ser- ing the armed forces to scour the conscript ranks for vices, and the UAE is now trying to purchase larger high-quality personnel and then try to convince them and more capable ships and aircraft. to enlist in the armed services themselves. Emirati forces have demonstrated some remarkable Emirati training tends to reflect the same range as logistical capabilities, particularly the UAE air force. the military’s effectiveness. Units led by competent Their combat-proven lift and aerial refueling capabili- commanders typically benefit from the best training: ties exceed that of most countries. Abu Dhabi deployed tough, frequent, and designed to produce real combat and sustained a brigade-sized force in combat in capability through unstructured exercises and reg- Yemen for roughly five years and supported armored imens that demand flexibility, adaptability, and the advances of up to 100 kilometers in that war. The internalization of skills. In contrast, units led by the Emiratis have mounted long-range strike missions indolent or incompetent receive less frequent train- against targets in Libya employing their own refuel- ing, and what they do get is typically delivered by rote ing assets. They have learned to integrate commer- memorization, demonstration rather than participa- cial and military aircraft into large-scale air bridges tion, and the absence of any effort to assess mistakes to Yemen and the Horn of Africa, supplemented by let alone try to correct them. major sealift operations by the navy. One of the Emirati armed forces’ highest aspira- The UAE still uses small numbers of non-Emiratis tions is to be a learning military. Too few armies can as part of its military machine. However, these make such a claim, fewer still in the Arab world. Yet, increasingly occupy niche capabilities that Emiratis from Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed (MbZ) cannot yet handle, and they help flesh out a small on down, the UAE’s chain of command encourages force that cannot provide the numbers needed for and tries to promote learning. This is one reason some of the military tasks Abu Dhabi has chosen to the UAE is building a large, multifaceted set of pro- tackle. However, with only a few exceptions—such fessional military education institutions. Still, across 2 SIZING UP LITTLE SPARTA KENNETH M. POLLACK the board, Emirati training and military educational helping the leadership identify its best soldiers and programs rely on Western expats to teach and eval- officers. Finally, they have done what they could to uate personnel and even integrate lessons from the build a separate Emirati military subculture, one dif- UAE’s combat experiences into doctrine, training, ferent from that of the larger society by emphasiz- and other procedures. ing those militarily desirable skills disparaged by the The Emirati officer corps is essentially divided wider culture. between a meritocratic cutting edge and a larger num- All of this has been made possible by the “benev- ber of average or below-average officers who have been olent politicization” of the UAE’s military. The polit- promoted automatically after serving the required ical leadership, driven by MbZ himself, has taken an time—in many cases, because they come from trusted extremely active role in the Emirati military—a role tribes and families. The former are the key to the sig- that would have caused other professional officer nificant capabilities of Emirati elite forces. However, corps to scream about excessive political interfer- the small size of those forces, even compared to the ence in military affairs. The difference is that MbZ’s overall citizen population of the state, reflects the rel- constant attention to the military has been extremely ative scarcity of these high-quality personnel and the beneficial, designed to help the military overcome challenge of recruiting them into the military, retain- these societal limitations and increase its effective- ing them, and promoting them to the levels in which ness in every way.