Archive through September 20, 2026
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Non-Game Discussions: Real-World Military:
Archive through September 20, 2026
The problem for the US in making millions of drones a year is what do you do with them? You can't store them for later use like missiles and bombs. The tech and counter tech advances to fast for that to work.
Build tens of thousands. Crash them into tanks and other stuff in peacetime exercises to give the troops an idea of what it's going to be like in combat. Build ten of thousand new and improved for next year since we wrecked most of last years batch. Repeat.
I think we could build more than that and if a war happens we use the stored old ones to flood the defense and mix the new good ones into the swarm.
That is indeed a problem. My answer is multifold:
1) training
2) Iran
3) You still need a stock on hand.
4) In the case of FPV drones, Ukraine is not likely to want whatever substandard drone the US produces. In the case of strike drones, they absolutely will. Give them some and see how they perform.
Quite some time ago, in this topic, I proposed a deal for the US to build, and improve, the current and future Ukrainian drones. that way Ukraine would buy all of the production we don’t need for training and ramp up our production infrastructure so we’d have the production for wartime use.
Russia is using a new tactic. They fire a couple of jet shaheed drones every 15 minutes. Those are almost impossible to stop. Russia is scattering the attacks across Ukraine, target power substations, gas stations, apartment buildings, factories, and anything else. Very few of the drones are shot down. Ukraine’s vaunted interceptor drones cannot stop jet shaheeds.
If my reading is accurate, the jet shaheds cost around $300k to manufacture. They are too fast for legacy prop drone interceptors to catch. Ukraine probably needs to step up to some kind of SAM, or develop something similar.
And supposedly the small jet engines are manufactured in Russia, China, and unfortunately smuggled in from Western Europe.
--Mike
Ukraine has had successful tests of jet Shahed interceptors. They are not yet in regular production.
Given the pace at which Ukraine moves on that kind of thing, I'd expect that to happen this year.
Obviously the US could produce Ukrainian drones. In general, this would be an excellent idea. One challenge is that Ukraine often does hardware updates every month or so, and software updates perhaps every week. I don't know if US manufacturers can keep up with that.
I imagine that Ukraine would also be fine if the US wants to improve its designs. However, I think it's more likely that Ukraine would improve it's own designs much faster. And if the US military procurement crowd gets involved in the improvements, they might involve increasing performance by 10% while multiplying the cost by a factor of ten.
Other countries' drone deals with Ukraine have involved the producing country giving Ukraine a portion of the production in return for the designs and documentation. In the case of Canada, different sources have it at either 30% or one-third.
Ukraine builds drones in a hundred or more small workshops. Weekly updates don't propagate overnight. They often require new supply chains and a given workshop may be making "two weeks ago drones" for a while until they use up the parts on hand. It's a messy situation. Most of the workshops are given a contract to build 50 or 100 drones and the parts to match. Some workshops would make 100 drones in 3 days. Some would make 50 in three weeks. And the places that make the parts also need time to propagate new tech. I have no doubt that today the "drone design directorate" sent an email today with new designs for the alerons (I cant spell the little flap things on the wingtips) and that it will be six weeks before the last workshop is using that design, at which point 20 shops will be using design 45 while 43 are using design 44 and the rest are still using 43. As I said, updates propagate on a "not overnight" basis. As fast as they can is not as fast as they want.
I would really like to see 20 small drone workshops across the US run by tech school graduates with an MBA overseeing their paperwork start producing the current Ukraine FPV suicide truck-killer drone (and get the emails of new designs) and let's just see what entirely new designs that Ukraine never thought of turn up over the next year. Elon could fund any bunch of young engineers who think maybe if they get a look they could build a better mousetrap. Do the same thing in five European countries, Japan, Korea, Australia, and Taiwan.
Just for the sake of sanity, they would all build them without warheads then turn them over to an Army shop run by an Army/Marine warrant officer and a few sergeants who can install the explosive warheads.
Yes, I view the small workshops as a tremendous strength. It means that no single Russian strike can seriously hurt Ukraine's drone production. It also allows innovation to come from many different directions, with the best solutions rising to the top.
And yes, the drones are typically built without warheads. Payload is typically added close to the time of launch. It may depend on what is needed for a particular mission.
Absolutely, US innovation on top of that could produce strong results, especially if the procurement bureaucracy is not involved. However, at the same time, we have got to recoginize that the results thus far come from Ukrainian innovation, which is likely to continue, and in most cases will probably surpass US innovation.
An ideal plan would continue to allow innovation to come from all directions, with the best ideas still quickly rising to the top. That's an advantage of small-scale manufacturing in the US as well.
Trump has negotiated a permanent deal to control the military defense of Greenland, barring China and non-NATO countries from ever building military bases there. This deal would remain in place if Greenland becomes independent.
The Cuban national power grid has collapsed, plunging the nation into darkness, probably due to a lack of fuel.
Trump has made a deal to build a large military base in Poland. So much for abandoning NATO.
Trump is building a major manufacturing hub in Lithuania.
WJ, Thanks for backing my ideal plan for small scale innovation. Now if Trump would notice.
On the Greenland deal - reading between the lines - I am guessing Denmark and Greenland approval will go slow enough so that the next US President has to complete the deal?
With so little actual details released though - it is difficult to work out what all (i.e 3) sides gain?
What I heard was that Greenland and Denmark already approved it by signature and the US is already moving to expand it's base. Anything else is a formality that isn't really relevant.
Ukraine's SBU has released footage showing combat interception of Russian jet-powered Geran drones.
I don't know for sure, but I would guess this is not yet at scale.
On other news,
GIS, a “Geo-political” organization in Liechtenstein (small european nation) published a report in January 25, 2025, titled:
China trapped in a cycle of deflation
Illustration of Junhua Zhang
JUNHUA ZHANG
(Summation
China has entered a deflationary cycle, exposing stark economic disparities amid slowing growth and cautious policy changes.
Lots of data and charts, but the author was a former executive of China’s central bank, until he started talking about challenges facing China’s economic condition.
Just some high lights, a third of China’s current population is currently living below poverty level income, the deflationary cycle according to this author dates back to early 2000, and has not experienced any significant increase in key economic indicators.
The author also pointed out in the article that Chinas national leadership (the Communist Party) has predicted that improved economic conditions will be forthcoming as Chinas exports to the worlds markets will result in hard currencies transfers to China.
The author pointed out that there are currently increased tariffs imposed on China be the U.S. President.
The only response noted in the article from Chinese government was to point at Elon Musks current investments in China is to be used to “Pressure” President Trump into reducing the current tariff on China manufactured goods and services.
The author did not comment on how effective such pressure might be…
The article also pointed out that domestic consumption is down, new construction forecast is bleak, and housing sector has not yet recovered.
In all, the article is nothing like what U.S. mainstream media is portraying Chinas economic condition, and is predicting that 2025 through 2026 will not see China hit bottom economically, and calls for policy changes to change the “doom loop” the Chinese Economy is currently in.
The Greenland deal will be signed at the UN this week, but to come into effect it also need to be ratified by the parliaments and the congress.
Reports suggest the treaty is basically the old written with new words (The text should become available after signing.).
I therefore suspect this is an easy win to show for the midterm elections, but I am not sure Trump is content with a Greenland status quo.
Tremendous Ukrainian hit on Moscow last night. Zelensky gave a list of ten Ukrainian weapons systems he said were used: FP-1, RZ-100, MICH-2000, Palianytsia, Vendetta, Liutyi, Bars, Flamingo, Sichen and Pelican. Flamingo. Most of these are drones, but Flamingo is a cruise missile and Pelican is a ballistic missile.
Video shows at least three large fires at the Kapotnya oil refinery. It has about 3% of Russia's refining capacity.
The Sofyino logistics complex was also hit. Its area is about 850,000 square meters. For comparison, the largest Wildberries Ukraine hit was about 250,000 square meters. Video shows a large fire at the complex. Unclear to me what percentage will burn down.
Video posted by the telegram channel supernova_plus shows a strike and a large fire at Thermal Power Plant no. 22 in the Moscow region. I think this is likely legitimate video, but I don't consider it 100% established.
What is the difference between a drone & cruise missile?
Drones are slower and cheaper.
Logistics: Supply Drones in the Combat Zone
September 20, 2026: Ukraine has been using more ground combat and transport drones to reduce Ukrainian casualties and scare Russian troops who find themselves fighting armed amphibious drones. That last event happened recently when Ukrainian forces sought to retrieve a wounded comrade from an area still under fire by Russian troops and drones. The Ukrainians landed the combat drone from a naval drone to clear the area of Russian soldiers. Then a transport drone came in to take the wounded soldier back to safety and eventually to a military aid station. The supply drone was built to accommodate supplies or a soldier, wounded or otherwise. On the way back, the transportation drone was attacked by a Russian FPV drone, which detonated near the transport drone but did not disable the transport or the wounded soldier it was carrying.
Ground combat drones can carry a variety of weapons, but most have a 7.62mm machine gun with several hundred rounds of ammunition. A remote operator controls the weapon and the drone, wearing goggles or looking at a flat-screen display and operating a controller based on, or even a version of, a popular game controller.
Only about five percent of ground drone missions involve combat; the rest are for supplying the troops or retrieving wounded soldiers. Only about two percent of Ukrainian ground drone operations involve the armed drone using its machine gun.
The growing use of these ground drones has reduced Ukrainian combat losses and improved morale among Ukrainian soldiers. These drones assure troops that no matter how deep into the combat zone they are, the drones will get them out if wounded. These drones have already shown that they can travel more than ten kilometers to retrieve a casualty or supply a remote outpost under constant fire.
In one case, a soldier was stuck near Russian positions for 33 days. Six drones were destroyed during the rescue attempt. The seventh drone made it and completed a 64-kilometer trip to bring the soldier back. Before drones, a soldier in that position would have to be abandoned because too many more soldiers would be killed or wounded trying to carry out a rescue.
This extensive use of ground drones to supply, transport, and retrieve wounded soldiers is demoralizing to Russian troops. Russia has not implemented such a drone resupply and casualty evacuation system because Russia never took good care of its wounded, and often simply leaves wounded men behind, or even kills such soldiers who are in a lot of pain. Ukraine believes this use of ground drones has reduced its casualty rate by 30 percent. That means that there are more than eight Russian casualties for each Ukrainian one.
Currently, nearly 90 percent of the personnel losses are due to drones, which are everywhere in the combat zone, with Ukrainian drones outnumbering what the Russians can get into the air. On one day last July, Ukraine recorded and reported all its drone activity. There were 311 Russian personnel killed or wounded. Drones detected nearly 1,600 enemy targets and attacked them. In addition, drones pursued about 4,500 Russian personnel as well as over 21,000 other targets. On the water, in ports, or on rivers, 15 Russian vessels were hit. Other land targets destroyed included drone launch sites, 9 guns and howitzers, 337 shelters, 130 dugouts, 46 small drones, 8 land combat drones, 18 electronic warfare systems, 3 radar systems, and 98 crew antennas.
Ukrainian innovation and support for entrepreneurship have repeatedly overwhelmed Russian forces. The response was slow at first but soon had an enormous impact. Perplexed by Ukrainian tactics, the Russians persisted, thereby keeping the war going.
Drones were an unexpected development that had a huge impact on how battles were fought. Drones were successful because they were cheap, easily modified, and expendable. Forces could implement modifications and upgrades quickly and cheaply. Both Russian and Ukrainian forces soon used cheap quadcopter drones, with soldiers a few kilometers away controlling them via First Person View (FPV) goggles to see what the drone's camera saw. These drones cost a few hundred dollars each, with the most complex models going for about $1,000. Most of these drones carry a small number of explosives, so they can instantly become flying bombs that can strike a target and detonate. Some drones carry more explosives depending on what is needed to deal with a target.
These drones are awesome and debilitating weapons when used in large numbers. A major limitation on expanding drone operations is the need for trained drone operators. Ukraine found that many soldiers frequently played video games and were quick to adapt to drone operations, especially because they could use commercial game controllers.
The war has led to massive losses for Russian forces. So far, nearly a million Russian troops have died, deserted, or avoided military service because of Ukraine. Russia has lost most of its modern tanks along with many other armed vehicles and artillery systems.
For Russia, the most damaging Ukrainian innovation in drone warfare is their use of AI/Artificial Intelligence for drone targeting systems. The AI drone contains a targeting system that finds targets. The AI drone operator confirms which targets are real, and once a target is confirmed, the AI targeting system needs no further communication. It resists all forms of jamming.
FPV drones have radically changed modern warfare. These drones are an omnipresent aerial threat to all vehicles and infantry on foot. Each FPV drone costs less than a thousand dollars. Operators use the drone's video camera to see what is below and locate targets. Armed FPV operators are several kilometers away to decide when their FPV drones will drop explosives on an armored vehicle, which has thinner armor on top, or on infantry in the open or in trenches. To do so, drone operators often work in pairs, with one flying behind the other and focusing on the big picture while seeking a likely target. When the reconnaissance drone finds such a target, the armed drone is directed to it. The two FPV drone operators are usually in the same room or tent and can take control of new drones, which are lined up and brought outside for launch when needed. The reconnaissance drones are often unarmed, so they can spend more time in the air searching for a target.
The Ukrainians developed the FPV drone in 2022, when only a few FPV drone attacks were recorded. The Ukrainian Army was the first to appreciate the potential of FPV drones. By the summer of 2023, the Russian Army also began to use FPV drones in greater numbers. Since then, the number of FPV drone attacks has grown exponentially on both sides. Only 12% of those attacks destroyed the target, which could be a vehicle, a group of infantry, or even a sniper firing through a window from inside a building. In this case, the armed FPV drone would fly through the window and explode in the room the sniper was in. The only defense is having a nearby open door the sniper can run to or dive through as the FPV drone approaches. Sometimes that isn’t possible because the armed FPV drone comes down from above the window and then in. You don’t see those coming until it’s too late.
FYEO
Surface Forces : More Naval Drones to Stop Cartels
September 19, 2026: The U.S. Navy is purchasing automated Voyager surface drones to assist in interdicting drug cartel speedboats attempting to bring large quantities of fentanyl and other addictive substances into the United States. Voyagers are ten meters long, with a six-meter mast holding a wing-like device that provides propulsion when the electric motor is low on fuel. Top speed is 8 kilometers an hour, and endurance is a hundred days before it needs to enter port or a ship at sea for new batteries and any necessary repairs or upgrades. Voyager carries a lot of electronics, including a Norbit Winghead i77h multibeam sonar (up to 300 m depth), an Integrated Sound Velocity Profiler (SVP) with winch (down to 150 meters), and a Positioning system using an Integrated POS MV OceanMaster. Atmospheric sensors monitor wind speed and direction, air temperature, humidity, and barometric pressure. The system also includes instruments and sensors for seafloor mapping & classification, dissolved oxygen, salinity, sea temperature, Wave height, and period. For video, it includes a PTZ infrared camera, radar, and an AIS transceiver.
Endurance is 100 days or more in high-seas missions, including ocean domain awareness, undersea detection, ocean mapping, sub bottom profiling, metocean (meteorology and oceanography) surveys, counter drug operations, border monitoring, illegal fishing, cable route surveys, coastal mapping, deep ocean mapping, and hurricane monitoring.
The U.S. Navy has used Voyager drones to support counter drug trafficking and illegal fishing monitoring as part of the U.S. Navy's Fourth Fleet, whose primary mission in the Caribbean is dealing with smugglers bringing in fentanyl manufactured in China and shipped to Mexico, where local drug cartels seek to get the fentanyl across the border. So far, the most effective method has been to put five to nine tons of cocaine or fentanyl onto a speedboat that will then leave a cartel-controlled port in Colombia or Venezuela for movement to Mexico and from there overland into the United States. Another route, using semisubmersible boats, moves drugs to Europe. U.S., South American, and European navies cooperate to track and capture or sink these vessels. Despite these efforts, more than half the shipments get through, and the loss of the other boats is considered a cost of doing business. Even with those losses, the cartels are still making money.
Over the last few decades, Peru and Colombia have been where most cocaine has come from. At one point, Peru was the main source of cocaine on the planet. Peru was believed to have harvested 119,000 tons of coca leaf (the source of cocaine), compared to 103,000 tons in Colombia. To get one ton of cocaine, you need to process 250 tons of coca leaf. That ton of cocaine sells for about $2.1 million in the country of origin. But get it to a major market, like the United States, and it sells for about $35 million to distributors, and for $120 million to drug users. Bolivia is also becoming a major source of cocaine, with about half the acreage of coca plants as Peru. Colombia has been aggressive in destroying coca crops and providing farmers with economic assistance and the ability to survive with alternative (legal) crops. But the aid does not come fast enough, and many farmers become destitute during the transition period.
And then there is fentanyl. This synthetic drug is fifty times more potent than heroin and is usually added to heroin to increase potency. That potency is often so high that it kills heroin users. Most fentanyl is manufactured in China, and this chemical has become a major source of illegal drug deaths. Despite the danger, it is popular with heroin addicts because of the more intense effect.
FYEO
Russia: Ukrainian Children Stolen by Russia
September 19, 2026: Since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Russia has kidnapped nearly 50,000 Ukrainian children and sent them to Russia to halt its population decline. By 2026, Russia had lost half a million men killed in Ukraine. Another half million were disabled. The kidnapped Ukrainian children were placed with families with no children to be raised as Russians. These children were to become Russian citizens, which included issuing them a Russian passport. Younger children were put up for adoption by Russian families or placed in foster homes if no family was available to accept them.
The Russian government developed a formal system to obtain children. The easiest method was to find young, orphaned children, from infants to 7 or 8 years old, and send them to Russia to be adopted. When Russian troops took some populated Ukrainian territory, special filtration teams were sent in to find any children they could kidnap without meeting violent resistance from families or neighbors.
There was another aspect of this when it came to Ukrainians in Russia-controlled territory supporting and often joining the partisan forces. Many Ukrainians there prefer to move, at least temporarily, to Ukrainian territory. There it is safer, and you can join the Ukrainian military or leave the country. Russia blocks this and comes up with mostly unsuccessful ways to prevent the increasingly troublesome Ukrainians from getting out of Russian-controlled territory. Russia has long handled this problem by moving troublesome civilians to remote parts of Russia. For a long time, this meant exile in Siberia. Moving many troublesome civilians to Siberia is expensive, and in the age of the Internet it often doesn't work as well as it once did.
The Russians have come up with a new oppression technique of taking thousands of Ukrainian children and finding Russian couples that will adopt them. They pay a small fee to the adoptive families. This violates international agreements and is, in fact, a war crime. It wouldn’t be the first such violation by the Russians in Ukraine.
This is in addition to forcing hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian civilians, many of them children, in Russian-occupied Ukraine into camps and controlled localities all over Russia’s vast territory, generally areas far less pleasant than Ukraine. Russia has done so to troublesome minorities for the past several hundred years.
What is most unusual about this use of children as hostages to pacify occupied regions is that it is happening in Donbas, which has been under Russian control since 2014 and initially supplied troops for the 2022 invasion. As that invasion went badly and got a lot of the Russian soldiers killed or wounded, the surviving volunteers from Donbas refused to fight any longer. Worse, internal security forces in Donbas, recruited from Donbas citizens, quit because Russia was demanding harsher measures against Donbas residents expressing animosity towards Russian control of the area. Russia had to bring in security personnel from Russia to police Donbas.
Most other Russian efforts to diminish Ukrainian resistance in occupied territories are equally dubious when it comes to international law. During the 1930s, Joseph Stalin used children as hostages to assure loyalty and good behavior by subordinates and potential opponents. In the kinder and gentler 21st century, child hostages are used to persuade parents to behave while under Russian rule. That did not have the desired effect.
FYEO
Iran: Attacking Egypt
September 18, 2026: Last July, Iranian drones damaged two ships at Egypt’s Damietta Port, on the Mediterranean coast. Iranian officials later admitted the attack, noting that it was “ designed to show that global shipping and energy supplies could be more deeply disrupted if Iran chose to escalate. The Iranians were trying to turn their war with the United States and Israel into a regional or global conflict.
Iran has also attacked American businesses and military operations in the Middle East, especially the Persian Gulf. Iran warned other nations that they would be attacked if they hosted any American bases or allowed American aircraft to use local airports. Some of these nations have already reported drone attacks on business or residential areas. The nations attacked condemned the Iranian actions and said they would defend themselves, especially once the Americans helped.
Persian Gulf states like Qatar have been hit by nearly 300 Iranian missiles and drones so far. One attack used two Iranian combat aircraft. Saudi Arabia has been hit by nearly 500 missiles and drones, while Jordan intercepted about two dozen Iranian drones passing through Jordanian airspace. These attacks have changed the attitudes of most Arab Persian Gulf states, along with Egypt. No one, especially Egypt, wants to be drawn into a war with Iran. Iran/Persia has been the regional superpower for thousands of years.
A century ago, the discovery of oil in the Persian Gulf region changed everything. Formerly poor nations, like the Arab nations on the Arabian Peninsula, were now wealthier than they ever imagined. That wealth did a lot of good, but it also enabled wealthy Arabs to fund Islamic terrorists' operations against Israel and the West. The 9/11 attacks on New York City’s two World Trade Center towers killed more than 3,000 Americans, including several hundred local Muslims. The United States vowed to avenge this attack and seek to prevent another one from happening. There have been few Islamic terrorist attacks in the United States since then, and many have been prevented, often with the help of American Muslims. Before 9/11, Islamic terrorists trying to establish themselves in America were warned not to contact any American Muslims because they had become more American than Muslim.
The same could not be said of Europeans, who continued allowing Muslims to move in. In East Asia, Muslims were not tolerated at all and thus had no Islamic terrorism. These nations acknowledged some basic truths and acted accordingly. They knew that in the last fifty years, Islamic terrorism has killed over a million people worldwide. In the 21st century, the peak year was 2014, when there were nearly 34,000 Islamic terrorist related deaths. That number has decreased over the last eleven years to less than 10,000 deaths a year. Most of these deaths occur in nations with a large, often a majority, Islamic population. Arab nations suffer the most because most Islamic terrorism is between Islamic groups that don’t get along for religious, tribal, or ethnic reasons.
Industrialized nations have been suffering more Islamic terrorist related deaths because more Muslims have been allowed to migrate, often to escape persecution in their home countries. The only industrialized nations that have avoided this violence are those that do not allow Muslims to enter. This includes most East Asian nations, such as Japan, the Koreas, China, Taiwan, and Singapore. Nations in the region that have Muslim minorities suffer few acts of terrorism because Islamic terrorists are seen largely as an Arab problem. Occasional outbreaks in these non-Arab nations are quickly crushed and rarely recur. Young men interested in Islamic terrorism often travel to countries where the terrorism is active and seek to join local Islamic terrorist groups.
It’s been difficult to even estimate how many Islamic terrorists are active because active groups suffer regular and often heavy casualties, along with desertions and an influx of new members. Terror groups of long standing, like Hezbollah, Hamas, and various permutations of the Islamic State, seek to establish budgets that allow payments to senior and local leaders, or middle management. These men are in it as a career and receive, as much as possible, regular pay, family allowances, bonuses, and retirement benefits. That said, there are few Islamic terrorist leaders who have retired on their pension.
Finally, there is the problem of why most, often over 90 percent in most years, annual terrorist deaths are caused by Islamic terrorists and why that form of terrorism is most common in the Middle East among the Arabs, especially those from the Arabian Peninsula where Islam first appeared 1,500 years ago. Until recently, people in most Middle Eastern countries found it difficult to discuss this tendency openly, much less where it came from or what could be done about it. That has been changing over the last decade and accelerated in 2017 as Arab nations, especially the oil-rich ones in Arabia, openly developed closer ties with Israel, mainly for protection from Iranian threats. A side effect of that was that it has become possible for Arab journalists and officials to openly, in the media, discuss Israel and why it is a good idea for the Arab states, who have been in a state of war with Israel since the late 1940s, to now openly treat Israel as an ally. The main reason is obvious; Israel is the military superpower in the region, despite containing only two percent of the people in the Middle East.
Worldwide Islamic terrorism-related deaths have fallen by over 50 percent since 2014, when there were 35,000. Global deaths hit 19,000 in 2017 and under 14,000 in 2018. Since 2014, five nations Iraq, Afghanistan, Nigeria, Syria, and Pakistan have accounted for most of these deaths. The murders of Iranian civilians by the Islamic State of Iran are not deemed terrorism. The largest source of Islamic terror deaths during that period was ISIL/Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, a more radical faction of al Qaeda that currently is where the most radical practitioners of Islamic terrorism are found. Islamic terrorists continue to be, as it has been since the 1990s, the main source of terrorism-related deaths, accounting for about 90 percent of the fatalities. The remainder of the terrorist-related deaths are from ethnic, often tribal, conflicts in Africa and Asia. Purely political terrorism accounts for a fraction of one percent of all terrorist-related deaths and is outnumbered by terrorism deaths inflicted by common criminals.
Arabs don’t like to dwell on their key role in creating and sustaining this scourge of terrorism. At the same time, their new allies, the Israelis, have a different list of notable accomplishments, including great success in dealing with Islamic terrorism. Arabs don’t like to discuss why the Arabs and Israelis are different, at least not in public. But thanks to the internet, anyone curious about Israeli military capabilities can find out in private. What Arabs can discuss openly are Israeli achievements in science and technology. It is no secret that Muslims, despite having a population 85 times larger than Jews, win one Nobel Prize for every 33 awarded to Jews. Arab journalists place less emphasis on that and more on the fact that tiny Israel is one of the top creators of new inventions worldwide. Arabs attribute this to more effective educational institutions and policies. Arabs can now admit that their government has not been as pro-science/technology as the Israelis and Jews in general. Some Arab leaders attribute the disparity to Arab engineers and scientists being lured to the West by better pay and fewer restrictions, but the basic problem is that there are more employment opportunities for engineers and scientists in the non-Muslim world.
What is still avoided is a public discussion of the cultural crisis in the Arab world and the Muslim world in general. The crisis is reflected in widespread corruption and a lack of economic, educational, and political progress and performance. By whatever measure you wish to use- Nobel prizes, literacy rates, patents awarded, books published or translated, and GDP growth - the Arabs have fallen behind the rest of the world. Part of the problem is the Arab tendency to blame outsiders for everything they don’t like and to avoid taking responsibility. Tolerating tyranny and resistance to change doesn't help either. Those attitudes are shifting, ever so slowly.
The exact nature of this lethal cultural miasma is best described by enumerating its major components. Let’s start with the fact that most Arab countries are a patchwork of different tribes and groups, and Arab leaders survive by playing one group off against another. Loyalty is to one's group, not the nation. Most countries are dominated by a single group that is usually a minority, like Bedouins in Jordan, Alawites in Syria, Sunnis in Iraq, and Nejdis in Saudi Arabia. This means leadership jobs are assigned not by merit but by loyalty and tribal affiliation.
Islamic schools favor rote memorization, especially of scripture. Most Islamic scholars are hostile to the concept of interpreting the Koran, which is considered the word of God as given to His prophet Mohammed. This has led them to look down on Westerners who look things up when they don't know them. Arabs prefer to fake it and pretend it's all in their head. While failure is accepted as the price of learning and success in the West, that sort of thing is not an option for most Arabs. Improvisation and innovation are generally discouraged. Arab government organizations go by the book, while Westerners are more likely to rewrite it and be much more effective. Despite years of Western advice on this, many Arab officials stick to old, less effective traditions.
There is little middle management, even NCOs in the military. The ruling class consists of owners, officers, and officials, while everyone else is treated like a different social caste, and there is no effort to bridge the gap using what the West calls middle management. Most people are treated harshly. Work accidents that would end the careers of Western managers, officers, or officials are ignored in the Arab world and nobody cares. This is slowly changing, with the steady growth of a proper NCO/sergeants corps and middle management, plus better management attitudes towards their subordinates. But the old ways often return, with disastrous effects on the morale and effectiveness of the average Arab.
Not surprisingly, in Arab cultures, the ruling class is despised by their subordinates, and this does not bother the leaders much at all. Many Arab leaders simply cannot understand how treating subordinates, unless they are family, decently will have any benefit. This is another old tradition that dies hard.
Paranoia prevents adequate training. This is worsened by the habit of Arab tyrants insisting that their subordinate organizations have little contact with each other, ensuring that no subordinate leader can become powerful enough to overthrow the commander. Subordinate organizations are purposely kept from working together or communicating on a large scale. Arab subordinate leaders don't have as broad a knowledge of what their subordinates do as their Western counterparts. Promotions are based more on political reliability than proficiency and efficiency. Arab leaders prefer to be feared, rather than respected, by their subordinates. This approach leads to poorly trained populations and low morale. A few rousing speeches about the Muslim Brotherhood before a national emergency boils over do little to repair the damage. Many, if not most, Arab leaders now know that the paranoia and parochialism are bad, but ancient traditions are hard to abandon.
Arab leaders often do not trust each other. While an American manager or officer can be reasonably confident that the others they work with will be competent and reliable, Arabs in similar situations seriously doubt that their peers will do their job on time or accurately. This attitude is inefficient and sometimes fatal. It's been difficult getting Arab leaders to change when it comes to trust.
Arab leaders consider it acceptable to lie to subordinates and allies to further their personal agenda. This had catastrophic consequences throughout Arab history and continues to make progress difficult. When called out on this behavior, Arabs will assert that they were misunderstood. This is still going on.
While Western American middle managers, and Westerners in general, are only too happy to impart their wisdom and skills to others because teaching is the ultimate expression of prestige, Arabs try to keep any technical information and manuals secret. To Arabs, an individual's value and prestige depend not on what he can teach but on what he knows that no one else knows. This destructive habit persists, despite years of American advisors patiently explaining why it is counterproductive.
While Westerners thrive on competition among themselves, Arab leaders avoid this as the loser would be humiliated. It's better for everyone to fail together than to allow competition, even if it eventually benefits everyone. This attitude still shapes the Arab world.
Westerners are taught leadership and technology; Arabs are taught only technology and not nearly enough. Leadership gets little attention, as Arab leaders are assumed to know it by virtue of their social status as appointed leaders. The new generation of Arab leaders has been taught leadership but, for too many of them, it remains an alien concept they do not understand or know what to do with.
Initiative is considered a dangerous trait in the Arab world, so subordinates prefer to fail rather than make an independent decision. Senior leaders micromanage large-scale enterprises and prefer to suffer defeat rather than lose control of their subordinates. Even worse, an Arab manager will not tell a Western counterpart why he cannot make the decision, or even that he cannot make it, leaving Western managers angry and frustrated because the Arabs won't decide. The Arab leaders simply will not admit that they do not have that authority. The new generation of Arab managers has been sent to Western management schools, but they still show little enthusiasm for initiative, which is often seen as a decadent and dangerous Western import.
Lack of initiative makes it difficult for Arabs to maintain modern equipment. Complex modern devices require on-the-spot maintenance, and that means delegating authority, information, and tools. Arab cultures avoid this and prefer to rely on easier-to-control central repair shops. This makes timely equipment maintenance difficult. Entrepreneurs, often non-Arab Muslims, frequently handle a lot of the maintenance. This remains a problem throughout the Middle East, where oil-rich nations staff most non-government operations with foreigners.
Security is maniacal. Everything, even vaguely military or government-related, is top secret. While Western military and corporate promotion lists are routinely published, this rarely happens in Arab organizations. Officers and managers are suddenly transferred without warning to keep them from forging alliances or networks. Officials are discouraged from building team spirit.
From the 1950s to the 1980s, Soviet advisors reinforced these traits, along with admiration for the success of Soviet socialism and management practices. To the Russians, anything government-related was secret, subordinates were scum, there was no functional middle management system, and everyone was paranoid about everyone else. These were not communist traits but Russian customs that had existed for centuries. The communists adopted them to make their dictatorship more secure against rebellion. Arab dictators avidly accepted this kind of advice but were still concerned about how rapidly the communist dictatorships all came tumbling down between 1989 and 1991. Russian influence is still fondly remembered because the Russians developed highly effective police-state methods. This made it easier for the police and military to control a country, even when they used despicable methods. While these Russian techniques can work to hunt down terrorists in a police state, they don't work in any other useful endeavors, and that’s the main reason the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.
These counterproductive traits are ancient and predate Islam, but the nature of Islamic theology has perpetuated them in Muslim nations. While the West eventually separated church and state, helped by a few useful bits of advice in the Christian Bible, that is more difficult with Islam because the word Islam literally means submission, and Moslem scripture is quite specific about Islam being a way of life and a form of government as well as a religion.
Most of these bad habits are ancient, but they aren't immune to change, even in Islam. A quick look at the history of the Islamic world since World War II shows one constant: poor leadership. There are exceptions. Turkey, starting in the 1920s, sought to reform and modernize its governmental and cultural institutions, including a clear separation of church and state. Malaysia, after a chaotic beginning in the 1950s, sorted itself out and created an efficient government by Muslim standards, adopting much of the English common law used when Britain ruled the area. This included an incorruptible judiciary, especially by local standards. This gave Malaysia a major economic advantage and fueled rapid growth, despite some loud political squabbles. Islamic radicals never got a foothold in Malaysia, although some exist there. But Malaysians in general, and local counter-terrorism forces in particular, are not hospitable to Islamic terrorists.
These reforms are always under assault by Islamic conservatives. The Islamic party that has run the Turkish government since 2003 has become increasingly paranoid about religion and anyone not Muslim. The Turkish president has been openly accusing the non-Muslim world of making war on Islam. This is the same attitude Islamic terrorists use to justify their attacks on non-Muslim targets. Yet Turkey has remained a member of NATO and taken strong measures to shut down Islamic terrorist groups inside Turkey that threaten Turkish interests. But not those that threaten Turkey outside its borders.
Since the 1920s, Turkey has kept church and state separate, but the current government wants to change that and is gradually doing so. One threat involved a proposal to undo the 1928 law that made the Roman alphabet standard. This would be done by again teaching the Arabic alphabet in schools and eventually dropping the Roman alphabet completely. This proposal was defeated, but the government did make it legal to teach the old Turkish documents using Arabic script in religious schools. In 1928, adopting the Roman alphabet linked Turkey more closely, culturally and economically, with the West, and those connections have proven difficult to undo. Returning to the Arabic alphabet was very unpopular, and the government quickly discovered that most Turks opposed the change. In response to this defeat, the government added more mandatory Islamic religious instruction in schools.
To make matters worse, the Turkish Islamic politicians got elected to power on the promise of cleaning up the corruption that was increasingly hurting the economy as well as politics and life in general. For nearly a decade, the Islamic politicians did reduce corruption, but then evidence began to appear that many of the Islamic politicians had themselves become corrupt, in addition to threatening to end the separation of church and state as well. The Islamic government sought to silence those who were openly criticizing bad behavior by pro-Islam politicians. This was even though ISIL considers the current Turkish government un-Islamic and wants to replace it, by force if necessary, and make largely secular Turkey part of the new caliphate. Most Turks oppose ISIL, but most Turks don’t want a civil war over the issue and are trying to settle the matter via elections. That may or may not work depending on how many Islamic politicians agree to respect the democratic process. Yet Islamic radicals are quite certain that democracy, and many other Western customs like education for women and free speech, are un-Islamic and must be avoided. The constant in the current outbreak of terrorist violence is religion, and particularly Islam. It is dangerous to point that out, but as the Arabs have discovered, even more dangerous to try and ignore.
FYEO