2: Special Traits - The United States Mint: Fill & Download for Free

Please see this well-known (in military circles) article on the topic by a US Army colonel who shared the impressions from his “personal experience with Arab military establishments in the capacity of U.S. military attaché and security assistance officer, observer officer with the British-officer Trucial Oman Scouts (the security force in the emirates prior to the establishment of the United Arab Emirates), as well as some thirty year's study of the Middle East.”Why Arabs Lose Warsby Norvell B. De AtkineMiddle East QuarterlyDecember 1999Arabic-speaking armies have been generally ineffective in the modern era. Egyptian regular forces did poorly against Yemeni irregulars in the 1960s. (1) Syrians could only impose their will in Lebanon during the mid-1970s by the use of overwhelming weaponry and numbers. (2) Iraqis showed ineptness against an Iranian military ripped apart by revolutionary turmoil in the 1980s and could not win a three-decades-long war against the Kurds.(3) The Arab military performance on both sides of the 1990 Kuwait war was mediocre.(4) And the Arabs have done poorly in nearly all the military confrontations with Israel. Why this unimpressive record? There are many factors—economic, ideological, technical—but perhaps the most important has to do with culture and certain societal attributes which inhibit Arabs from producing an effective military force.It is a truism of military life that an army fights as it trains, and so I draw on my many years of firsthand observation of Arabs in training to draw conclusions about the ways in which they go into combat. The following impressions derive from personal experience with Arab military establishments in the capacity of U.S. military attaché and security assistance officer, observer officer with the British-officer Trucial Oman Scouts (the security force in the emirates prior to the establishment of the United Arab Emirates), as well as some thirty year's study of the Middle East.False StartsIncluding culture in strategic assessments has a poor legacy, for it has often been spun from an ugly brew of ignorance, wishful thinking, and mythology. Thus, the U.S. army in the 1930s evaluated the Japanese national character as lacking originality and drew the unwarranted conclusion that the country would be permanently disadvantaged in technology.5Hitler dismissed the United States as a mongrel society6and consequently underestimated the impact of America's entry into the war. As these examples suggest, when culture is considered in calculating the relative strengths and weaknesses of opposing forces, it tends to lead to wild distortions, especially when it is a matter of understanding why states unprepared for war enter into combat flushed with confidence. The temptation is to impute cultural attributes to the enemy state that negate its superior numbers or weaponry. Or the opposite: to view the potential enemy through the prism of one's own cultural norms. American strategists assumed that the pain threshold of the North Vietnamese approximated their own and that the air bombardment of the North would bring it to its knees.7Three days of aerial attacks were thought to be all the Serbs could withstand; in fact, seventy-eight days were needed.It is particularly dangerous to make facile assumptions about abilities in warfare based on past performance, for societies evolve and so does the military subculture with it. The dismal French performance in the 1870 Franco-Prussian war led the German high command to an overly optimistic assessment prior to World War I.8The tenacity and courage of French soldiers in World War I led everyone from Winston Churchill to the German high command vastly to overestimate the French army's fighting abilities.9Israeli generals underestimated the Egyptian army of 1973 based on Egypt's hapless performance in the 1967 war.10Culture is difficult to pin down. It is not synonymous with an individual's race nor ethnic identity. The history of warfare makes a mockery of attempts to assign rigid cultural attributes to individuals—as the military histories of the Ottoman and Roman empires illustrate. In both cases it was training, discipline, esprit, and élan which made the difference, not the individual soldiers' origin.11The highly disciplined, effective Roman legions, for example, were recruited from throughout the Roman empire, and the elite Ottoman Janissaries (slave soldiers) were Christians forcibly recruited as boys from the Balkans.The Role of CultureThese problems notwithstanding, culture does need to be taken into account. Indeed, awareness of prior mistakes should make it possible to assess the role of cultural factors in warfare. John Keegan, the eminent historian of warfare, argues that culture is a prime determinant of the nature of warfare. In contrast to the usual manner of European warfare which he terms "face to face," Keegan depicts the early Arab armies in the Islamic era as masters of evasion, delay, and indirection.12Examining Arab warfare in this century leads to the conclusion that Arabs remain more successful in insurgent, or political warfare13—what T. E. Lawrence termed "winning wars without battles."14Even the much-lauded Egyptian crossing of the Suez in 1973 at its core entailed a masterful deception plan. It may well be that these seemingly permanent attributes result from a culture that engenders subtlety, indirection, and dissimulation in personal relationships.15Along these lines, Kenneth Pollack concludes his exhaustive study of Arab military effectiveness by noting that "certain patterns of behavior fostered by the dominant Arab culture were the most important factors contributing to the limited military effectiveness of Arab armies and air forces from 1945 to 1991."16These attributes included over-centralization, discouraging initiative, lack of flexibility, manipulation of information, and the discouragement of leadership at the junior officer level.The barrage of criticism leveled at Samuel Huntington's notion of a "clash of civilizations"17in no way lessens the vital point he made—that however much the grouping of peoples by religion and culture rather than political or economic divisions offends academics who propound a world defined by class, race, and gender, it is a reality, one not diminished by modern communications.But how does one integrate the study of culture into military training? At present, it has hardly any role. Paul M. Belbutowski, a scholar and former member of the U.S. Delta Force, succinctly stated a deficiency in our own military education system: "Culture, comprised of all that is vague and intangible, is not generally integrated into strategic planning except at the most superficial level."18And yet it is precisely "all that is vague and intangible" which defines low-intensity conflicts. The Vietnamese communists did not fight the war the United States had trained for, nor did the Chechens and Afghans fight the war the Russians prepared for. This entails far more than simply retooling weaponry and retraining soldiers. It requires an understanding of the enemy's cultural mythology, history, attitude toward time, etc.—demanding a more substantial investment in time and money than a bureaucratic organization is likely to authorize.Mindful of walking through a minefield of past errors and present cultural sensibilities, I offer some assessments of the role of culture in the military training of Arabic-speaking officers. I confine myself principally to training for two reasons. First, I observed much training but only one combat campaign (the Jordanian Army against the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1970). Secondly, armies fight as they train. Troops are conditioned by peacetime habits, policies, and procedures; they do not undergo a sudden metamorphosis that transforms civilians in uniform into warriors. General George Patton was fond of relating the story about Julius Caesar, who "In the winter time ... so trained his legions in all that became soldiers and so habituated them to the proper performance of their duties, that when in the spring he committed them to battle against the Gauls, it was not necessary to give them orders, for they knew what to do and how to do it."19Information as PowerIn every society information is a means of making a living or wielding power, but Arabs husband information and hold it especially tightly. U.S. trainers have often been surprised over the years by the fact that information provided to key personnel does not get much further than them. Having learned to perform some complicated procedure, an Arab technician knows that he is invaluable so long as he is the only one in a unit to have that knowledge; once he dispenses it to others he no longer is the only font of knowledge and his power dissipates. This explains the commonplace hoarding of manuals, books, training pamphlets, and other training or logistics literature. On one occasion, an American mobile training team working with armor in Egypt at long last received the operators' manuals that had laboriously been translated into Arabic. The American trainers took the newly-minted manuals straight to the tank park and distributed them to the tank crews. Right behind them, the company commander, a graduate of the armor school at Fort Knox and specialized courses at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds ordnance school, collected the manuals from the crews. Questioned why he did this, the commander said that there was no point in giving them to the drivers because enlisted men could not read. In point of fact, he did not want enlisted men to have an independent source of knowledge. Being the only person who can explain the fire control instrumentation or boresight artillery weapons brings prestige and attention. In military terms this means that very little cross-training is accomplished and that, for instance in a tank crew, the gunners, loaders, and drivers might be proficient in their jobs but are not prepared to fill in for a casualty. Not understanding one another's jobs also inhibits a smoothly functioning crew. At a higher level it means there is no depth in technical proficiency.Education ProblemsTraining tends to be unimaginative, cut and dried, and not challenging. Because the Arab educational system is predicated on rote memorization, officers have a phenomenal ability to commit vast amounts of knowledge to memory. The learning system tends to consist of on-high lectures, with students taking voluminous notes and being examined on what they were told. (It also has interesting implications for foreign instructors; for example, his credibility is diminished if he must resort to a book.) The emphasis on memorization has a price, and that is in diminished ability to reason or engage in analysis based upon general principles. Thinking outside the box is not encouraged; doing so in public can damage a career. Instructors are not challenged and neither, in the end, are students.Head-to-head competition among individuals is generally avoided, at least openly, for it means that someone wins and someone else loses, with the loser humiliated. This taboo has particular import when a class contains mixed ranks. Education is in good part sought as a matter of personal prestige, so Arabs in U.S. military schools take pains to ensure that the ranking member, according to military position or social class, scores the highest marks in the class. Often this leads to "sharing answers" in class—often in a rather overt manner or junior officers concealing scores higher than their superior's.American military instructors dealing with Middle Eastern students learn to ensure that, before directing any question to a student in a classroom situation, particularly if he is an officer, the student does possess the correct answer. If this is not assured, the officer will feel he has been set up for public humiliation. Furthermore, in the often-paranoid environment of Arab political culture, he will believe this setup to have been purposeful. This student will then become an enemy of the instructor and his classmates will become apprehensive about their also being singled out for humiliation—and learning becomes impossible.Officers vs. SoldiersArab junior officers are well trained on the technical aspects of their weapons and tactical know-how, but not in leadership, a subject given little attention. For example, as General Sa'd ash-Shazli, the Egyptian chief of staff, noted in his assessment of the army he inherited prior to the 1973 war, they were not trained to seize the initiative or volunteer original concepts or new ideas.20Indeed, leadership may be the greatest weakness of Arab training systems. This problem results from two main factors: a highly accentuated class system bordering on a caste system, and lack of a non-commissioned-officer development program.Most Arab officers treat enlisted soldiers like sub-humans. When the winds in Egypt one day carried biting sand particles from the desert during a demonstration for visiting U.S. dignitaries, I watched as a contingent of soldiers marched in and formed a single rank to shield the Americans; Egyptian soldiers, in other words, are used on occasion as nothing more than a windbreak. The idea of taking care of one's men is found only among the most elite units in the Egyptian military. On a typical weekend, officers in units stationed outside Cairo will get in their cars and drive off to their homes, leaving the enlisted men to fend for themselves by trekking across the desert to a highway and flagging down busses or trucks to get to the Cairo rail system. Garrison cantonments have no amenities for soldiers. The same situation, in various degrees, exists elsewhere in the Arabic-speaking countries—less so in Jordan, even more so in Iraq and Syria.The young draftees who make up the bulk of the Egyptian army hate military service for good reason and will do almost anything, including self-mutilation, to avoid it. In Syria the wealthy buy exemptions or, failing that, are assigned to noncombatant organizations. As a young Syrian told me, his musical skills came from his assignment to a Syrian army band where he learned to play an instrument. In general, the militaries of the Fertile Crescent enforce discipline by fear; in countries where a tribal system still is in force, such as Saudi Arabia, the innate egalitarianism of the society mitigates against fear as the prime motivator, so a general lack of discipline pervades.21The social and professional gap between officers and enlisted men is present in all armies, but in the United States and other Western forces, the noncommissioned officer (NCO) corps bridges it. Indeed, a professional NCO corps has been critical for the American military to work at its best; as the primary trainers in a professional army, NCOs are critical to training programs and to the enlisted men's sense of unit esprit. Most of the Arab world either has no NCO corps or it is non-functional, severely handicapping the military's effectiveness. With some exceptions, NCOs are considered in the same low category as enlisted men and so do not serve as a bridge between enlisted men and officers. Officers instruct but the wide social gap between enlisted man and officer tends to make the learning process perfunctory, formalized, and ineffective. The show-and-tell aspects of training are frequently missing because officers refuse to get their hands dirty and prefer to ignore the more practical aspects of their subject matter, believing this below their social station. A dramatic example of this occurred during the Gulf war when a severe windstorm blew down the tents of Iraqi officer prisoners of war. For three days they stayed in the wind and rain rather than be observed by enlisted prisoners in a nearby camp working with their hands.The military price for this is very high. Without the cohesion supplied by NCOs, units tend to disintegrate in the stress of combat. This is primarily a function of the fact that the enlisted soldiers simply do not trust their officers. Once officers depart the training areas, training begins to fall apart as soldiers begin drifting off. An Egyptian officer once explained to me that the Egyptian army's catastrophic defeat in 1967 resulted from a lack of cohesion within units. The situation, he said, had only marginally improved in 1973. Iraqi prisoners in 1991 showed a remarkable fear and enmity toward their officers.Decision-making and ResponsibilityDecisions are made and delivered from on high, with very little lateral communication. This leads to a highly centralized system, with authority hardly ever delegated. Rarely does an officer make a critical decision on his own; instead, he prefers the safe course of being identified as industrious, intelligent, loyal—and compliant. Bringing attention to oneself as an innovator or someone prone to make unilateral decisions is a recipe for trouble. As in civilian life, conformism is the overwhelming societal norm; the nail that stands up gets hammered down. Orders and information flow from top to bottom; they are not to be reinterpreted, amended, or modified in any way.U.S. trainers often experience frustration obtaining a decision from a counterpart, not realizing that the Arab officer lacks the authority to make the decision—a frustration amplified by the Arab's understandable reluctance to admit that he lacks that authority. This author has several times seen decisions that could have been made at the battalion level concerning such matters as class meeting times and locations requiring approval from the ministry of defense. All of which has led American trainers to develop a rule of thumb: a sergeant first class in the U.S. Army has as much authority as a colonel in an Arab army. Methods of instruction and subject matter are dictated from higher authorities. Unit commanders have very little to say about these affairs. The politicized nature of the Arab militaries means that political factors weigh heavily and frequently override military considerations. Officers with initiative and a predilection for unilateral action pose a threat to the regime. This can be seen not just at the level of national strategy but in every aspect of military operations and training. If Arab militaries became less politicized and more professional in preparation for the 1973 war with Israel,22once the fighting ended, old habits returned. Now, an increasingly bureaucratized military establishment weighs in as well. A veteran of the Pentagon turf wars will feel like a kindergartner when he encounters the rivalries that exist in the Arab military headquarters.Taking responsibility for a policy, operation, status, or training program rarely occurs. U.S. trainers can find it very frustrating when they repeatedly encounter Arab officers placing blame for unsuccessful operations or programs on the U.S. equipment or some other outside source. A high rate of non-operational U.S. equipment is blamed on a "lack of spare parts"—pointing a finger at an unresponsive U.S. supply system despite the fact that American trainers can document ample supplies arriving in country and disappearing in a malfunctioning supply system. (Such criticism was never caustic or personal and often so indirect and politely delivered that it wasn't until after a meeting that oblique references were understood.) This imperative works even at the most exalted levels. During the Kuwait war, Iraqi forces took over the town of Khafji in northeast Saudi Arabia after the Saudis had evacuated the place. General Khalid bin Sultan, the Saudi ground forces commander, requested a letter from General Norman Schwarzkopf, stating it was the U.S. general who ordered an evacuation from the Saudi town.23And in his account of the Khafji battle, General Bin Sultan predictably blames the Americans for the Iraqi occupation of the town.24In reality the problem was that the light Saudi forces in the area left the battlefield.25The Saudis were in fact outgunned and outnumbered by the Iraqi unit approaching Khafji but Saudi pride required that foreigners be blamed.As for equipment, a vast cultural gap exists between the U.S. and Arab maintenance and logistics systems. The Arab difficulties with U.S. equipment are not, as sometimes simplistically believed, a matter of "Arabs don't do maintenance," but something much deeper. The American concept of a weapons system does not convey easily. A weapons system brings with it specific maintenance and logistics procedures, policies, and even a philosophy, all of them based on U.S. culture, with its expectations of a certain educational level, sense of small unit responsibility, tool allocation, and doctrine. Tools that would be allocated to a U.S. battalion (a unit of some 600-800 personnel) would most likely be found at a much higher level—probably two or three echelons higher—in an Arab army. The expertise, initiative and, most importantly, the trust indicated by delegation of responsibility to a lower level are rare. The U.S. equipment and its maintenance are predicated on a concept of repair at the lowest level and therefore require delegation of authority. Without the needed tools, spare parts, or expertise available to keep equipment running, and loathe to report bad news to his superiors, the unit commander looks for scapegoats. All this explains why I many times heard in Egypt that U.S. weaponry is "too delicate."I have observed many in-country U.S. survey teams: invariably, hosts make the case for acquiring the most modern of military hardware and do everything to avoid issues of maintenance, logistics, and training. They obfuscate and mislead to such an extent that U.S. teams, no matter how earnest their sense of mission, find it nearly impossible to help. More generally, Arab reluctance to be candid about training deficiencies makes it extremely difficult for foreign advisors properly to support instruction or assess training needs.Combined Arms OperationsA lack of cooperation is most apparent in the failure of all Arab armies to succeed at combined arms operations. A regular Jordanian army infantry company, for example, is man-for-man as good as a comparable Israeli company; at battalion level, however, the coordination required for combined arms operations, with artillery, air, and logistics support, is simply absent. Indeed, the higher the echelon, the greater the disparity. This results from infrequent combined arms training; when it does take place, it is intended to impress visitors (which it does—the dog-and-pony show is usually done with uncommon gusto and theatrical talent) rather than provide real training.This problem results from three main factors. First, the well-known lack of trust among Arabs for anyone outside their own family adversely affects offensive operations.26Exceptions to this pattern are limited to elite units (which throughout the Arab world have the same duty—to protect the regime, rather than the country). In a culture in which almost every sphere of human endeavor, including business and social relationships, is based on a family structure, this orientation is also present in the military, particularly in the stress of battle. Offensive action, basically, consists of fire and maneuver. The maneuver element must be confident that supporting units or arms are providing covering fire. If there is a lack of trust in that support, getting troops moving forward against dug-in defenders is possible only by officers getting out front and leading, something that has not been a characteristic of Arab leadership.Second, the complex mosaic system of peoples creates additional problems for training, as rulers in the Middle East make use of the sectarian and tribal loyalties to maintain power. The 'Alawi minority controls Syria, East Bankers control Jordan, Sunnis control Iraq, and Nejdis control Saudi Arabia. This has direct implications for the military, where sectarian considerations affect assignments and promotions. Some minorities (such the Circassians in Jordan or the Druze in Syria) tie their well-being to the ruling elite and perform critical protection roles; others (such as the Shi'a of Iraq) are excluded from the officer corps. In any case, the assignment of officers based on sectarian considerations works against assignments based on merit.The same lack of trust operates at the interstate level, where Arab armies exhibit very little trust of each other, and with good reason. The blatant lie Gamal Abdel Nasser told King Husayn in June 1967 to get him into the war against Israel—that the Egyptian air force was over Tel Aviv (when most of its planes had been destroyed)—was a classic example of deceit.27Sadat's disingenuous approach to the Syrians to entice them to enter the war in October 1973 was another (he told them that the Egyptians were planning total war, a deception which included using a second set of operational plans intended only for Syrian eyes).28With this sort of history, it is no wonder that there is very little cross or joint training among Arab armies and very few command exercises. During the 1967 war, for example, not a single Jordanian liaison officer was stationed in Egypt, nor were the Jordanians forthcoming with the Egyptian command.29Third, Middle Eastern rulers routinely rely on balance-of-power techniques to maintain their authority.30They use competing organizations, duplicate agencies, and coercive structures dependent upon the ruler's whim. This makes building any form of personal power base difficult, if not impossible, and keeps the leadership apprehensive and off-balance, never secure in its careers or social position. The same applies within the military; a powerful chairman of the joint chiefs is inconceivable.Joint commands are paper constructs that have little actual function. Leaders look at joint commands, joint exercises, combined arms, and integrated staffs very cautiously for all Arab armies are a double-edged sword. One edge points toward the external enemy and the other toward the capital. The land forces are at once a regime-maintenance force and threat at the same time. No Arab ruler will allow combined operations or training to become routine; the usual excuse is financial expense, but that is unconvincing given their frequent purchase of hardware whose maintenance costs they cannot afford. In fact, combined arms exercises and joint staffs create familiarity, soften rivalries, erase suspicions, and eliminate the fragmented, competing organizations that enable rulers to play off rivals against one another. This situation is most clearly seen in Saudi Arabia, where the land forces and aviation are under the minister of defense, Prince Sultan, while the National Guard is under Prince Abdullah, the deputy prime minister and crown prince. In Egypt, the Central Security Forces balance the army. In Iraq and Syria, the Republican Guard does the balancing.Politicians actually create obstacles to maintain fragmentation. For example, obtaining aircraft from the air force for army airborne training, whether it is a joint exercise or a simple administrative request for support of training, must generally be coordinated by the heads of services at the ministry of defense; if a large number of aircraft are involved, this probably requires presidential approval. Military coups may be out of style, but the fear of them remains strong. Any large-scale exercise of land forces is a matter of concern to the government and is closely observed, particularly if live ammunition is being used. In Saudi Arabia a complex system of clearances required from area military commanders and provincial governors, all of whom have differing command channels to secure road convoy permission, obtaining ammunition, and conducting exercises, means that in order for a coup to work, it would require a massive amount of loyal conspirators. Arab regimes have learned how to be coup-proof.Security and ParanoiaArab regimes classify virtually everything vaguely military. Information the U.S. military routinely publishes (about promotions, transfers, names of unit commanders, and unit designations) is top secret in Arabic-speaking countries. To be sure, this does make it more difficult for the enemy to construct an accurate order of battle, but it also feeds the divisive and compartmentalized nature of the military forces. The obsession with securitycan reach ludicrous lengths. Prior to the 1973 war, Sadat was surprised to find that within two weeks of the date he had ordered the armed forces be ready for war, his minister of war, General Muhammad Sadiq, had failed to inform his immediate staff of the order. Should a war, Sadat wondered, be kept secret from the very people expected to fight it?31One can expect to have an Arab counterpart or key contact to be changed without warning and with no explanation as to his sudden absence. This might well be simply a transfer a few doors down the way, but the vagueness of it all leaves foreigners with dire scenarios—scenarios that might be true. And it is best not to inquire too much; advisors or trainers who seem overly inquisitive may find their access to host military information or facilities limited.The presumed close U.S.-Israel relationship, thought to be operative at all levels, aggravates and complicates this penchant for secrecy. Arabs believe that the most mundane details about them are somehow transmitted to the Mossad via a secret hotline.This explains why a U.S. advisor with Arab forces is likely to be asked early and often about his opinion of the "Palestine problem," then subjected to monologues on the presumed Jewish domination of the United States.Indifference to SafetyIn terms of safety measures, there is a general laxness, a seeming carelessness and indifference to training accidents, many of which could have been prevented by minimal efforts. To the (perhaps overly) safety-conscious Americans, Arab societies appear indifferent to casualties and show a seemingly lackadaisical approach to training safety. There are a number of explanations for this. Some would point to the inherent fatalism within Islam,32and certainly anyone who has spent considerable time in Arab taxis would lend credence to that theory, but perhaps the reason is less religiously based and more a result of political culture. As any military veteran knows, the ethos of a unit is set at the top; or, as the old saying has it, units do those things well that the boss cares about. When the top political leadership displays a complete lack of concern for the welfare of its soldiers, such attitudes percolate down through the ranks. Exhibit A was the betrayal of Syrian troops fighting Israel in the Golan in 1967: having withdrawn its elite units, the Syrian government knowingly broadcast the falsehood that Israeli troops had captured the town of Kuneitra, which would have put them behind the largely conscript Syrian army still in position. The leadership took this step to pressure the great powers to impose a truce, though it led to a panic by the Syrian troops and the loss of the Golan Heights.33ConclusionIt would be difficult to exaggerate the cultural gulf separating American and Arab military cultures. In every significant area, American military advisors find students who enthusiastically take in their lessons and then resolutely fail to apply them. The culture they return to—the culture of their own armies in their own countries—defeats the intentions with which they took leave of their American instructors.When they had an influence on certain Arab military establishments, the Soviets reinforced their clients' cultural traits far more than, in more recent years, Americans were able to. Like the Arabs', the Soviets' military culture was driven by political fears bordering on paranoia. The steps taken to control the sources (real or imagined) of these fears, such as a rigidly centralized command structure, were readily understood by Arab political and military elites. The Arabs, too, felt an affinity for the Soviet officer class's contempt for ordinary soldiers and the Soviet military hierarchy's distrust of a well-developed, well-appreciated, well-rewarded NCO corps.Arab political culture is based on a high degree of social stratification, very much like that of the defunct Soviet Union and very much unlike the upwardly mobile, meritocratic, democratic United States. Arab officers do not see any value in sharing information among themselves, let alone with their men. In this they follow the example of their political leaders, who not only withhold information from their own allies, but routinely deceive them. Training in Arab armies reflects this: rather than prepare as much as possible for the multitude of improvised responsibilities that are thrown up in the chaos of battle, Arab soldiers, and their officers, are bound in the narrow functions assigned them by their hierarchy. That this renders them less effective on the battlefield, let alone places their lives at greater risk, is scarcely of concern, whereas, of course, these two issues are dominant in the American military culture, and are reflected in American military training.Change is unlikely to come until it occurs in the larger Arab political culture, although the experience of other societies (including our own) suggests that the military can have a democratizing influence on the larger political culture, as officers bring the lessons of their training first into their professional environment, then into the larger society. It obviously makes a big difference, however, when the surrounding political culture is not only avowedly democratic (as are many Middle Eastern states), but functionally so. Until Arab politics begin to change at fundamental levels, Arab armies, whatever the courage or proficiency of individual officers and men, are unlikely to acquire the range of qualities which modern fighting forces require for success on the battlefield. For these qualities depend on inculcating respect, trust, and openness among the members of the armed forces at all levels, and this is the marching music of modern warfare that Arab armies, no matter how much they emulate the corresponding steps, do not want to hear.Norvell De Atkine, a U.S. Army retired colonel with eight years residence in Lebanon, Jordan, and Egypt, and a graduate degree in Arab studies from the American University of Beirut, is currently instructing U.S. Army personnel assigned to Middle Eastern areas. The opinions expressed here are strictly his own.1Saeed M. Badeeb, The Saudi-Egyptian Conflict over North Yemen 1962-1970, (Boulder, Westview Press: 1986), pp. 33-42.2R. D. McLaurin, The Battle of Zahle (Aberdeen Proving Grounds, Md.: Human Engineering Laboratory, Sept. 1986), pp. 26-27.3Anthony Cordesman and Abraham Wagner, The Lessons of Modern War, Volume II: The Iran-Iraq War, (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1990), pp. 89-98; Phebe Marr, The Modern History of Iraq (Boulder Colo.: Westview Press, 1985), pp. 22-223, 233- 234.4Kenneth M. Pollack, "The Influence of Arab Culture on Arab Military Effectiveness" (Ph.d. diss., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1996), pp. 259-261 (Egypt); pp. 533-536 (Saudi Arabia); pp. 350-355 (Iraq). Syrians did not see significant combat in the 1991 Gulf war but my conversations with U.S. personnel in liaison with them indicated a high degree of paranoia and distrust toward Americans and other Arabs.5David Kahn, "United States Views of Germany and Japan," Knowing One's Enemies: Intelligence Before the Two World Wars, ed., Ernest R. May (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), pp. 476-503.6Gerhard L. Weinberg, The Foreign Policy of Hitler's Germany: Diplomatic Revolution in Europe, 1933-1936 (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1970), p. 21.7Stanley Karnow, Vietnam: A History (New York: Penguin Books, 1984), p. 18.8Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of Great Powers (New York: Random House, 1987), pp. 186-187. The German assessment from T. Dodson Stamps and Vincent J. Esposito, eds., A Short History of World War I (West Point, N.Y.: United States Military Academy, 1955), p. 8.9William Manchester, Winston Spencer Churchilll: The Last Lion Alone, 1932-1940 (New York: Dell Publishing, 1988), p. 613; Ernest R. May "Conclusions," Knowing One's Enemies, pp. 513-514. Hitler thought otherwise, however.10Avraham (Bren) Adan, On the Banks of the Suez (San Francisco: Presideo Press, 1980), pp. 73-86. "Thus the prevailing feeling of security, based on the assumption that the Arabs were incapable of mounting an overall war against us, distorted our view of the situation," Moshe Dayan stated."As for the fighting standard of the Arab soldiers, I can sum it up in one sentence: they did not run away." Moshe Dayan: Story of My Life (New York: William Morrow and Company, 1976), p. 510.11John Keegan, A History of Warfare (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993), p. 18.12Ibid., p. 38713John Walter Jandora, Militarism in Arab Society: A Historiographical and Bibliographical Sourcebook (Westport, Ct.: Greenwood Press, 1997), p. 128.14T. E. Lawrence, The Evolution of a Revolt (Ft. Leavenworth Kans.: CSI, 1990), p. 21.( A reprint of article originally published in the British Army Quarterly and Defense Journal, Oct. 1920.)15Author's observations buttressed by such scholarly works as Eli Shouby, "The Influence of the Arabic Language on the Psychology of the Arabs," Readings in Arab Middle Eastern Societies and Culture, ed. Abdullah M. Lutfiyya and Charles Churchill (The Hague: Mouton Co., 1970), pp. 688-703; Hisham Shirabi and Muktar Ani, "Impact of Class and Culture on Social Behavior: The Feudal-Bourgeois Family in Arab Society," Psychological Dimensions of Near Eastern Studies, ed. L. Carl Brown and Norman Itzkowitz (Princeton: The Darwin Press, 1977), pp. 240-256; Sania Hamady, Temperament and Character of the Arabs (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1960), pp. 28-85; Raphael Patai, The Arab Mind (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1973), pp. 20-85.16Pollack, "The Influence of Arab Culture," p. 759.17Samuel P. Huntington, "The Clash of Civilizations," Foreign Affairs, Summer 1993, pp. 21-49.18Paul M. Belbutowski, "Strategic Implications of Cultures in Conflict," Parameters, Spring 1996, pp. 32-42.19Carlo D'Este, Patton: A Genius for War (New York: Harper-Collins, 1996), p. 383.20Saad el-Shazly, The Crossing of the Suez (San Francisco: American Mideast Research, 1980), p. 47.21Jordan may be an exception here; however, most observers agree that its effectiveness has declined in the past twenty years.22Pollack, "The Influence of Arab Culture," pp. 256-257.23H. Norman Schwarzkopf, It Doesn't Take A Hero (New York: Bantam Books, 1992), p. 494.24Khaled bin Sultan, Desert Warrior: A Personal View of the War by the Joint Forces Commander (New York: Harper-Collins, 1995), pp. 368-69.25Based on discussions with U.S. personnel in the area and familiar with the battle.26Yesoshat Harkabi, "Basic Factors in the Arab Collapse During the Six Day War," Orbis, Fall 1967, pp. 678-679.27James Lunt, Hussein of Jordan, Searching for a Just and Lasting Peace: A Political Biography (New York: William Morrow, 1989), p. 99.28Patrick Seale, Asad of Syria: The Struggle for the Middle East (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), pp. 197-99; Shazly, Crossing of the Suez, pp. 21, 37.29Samir A. Mutawi, Jordan in the 1967 War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), p. 161.30James A. Bill and Robert Springborg, Politics in the Middle East, 3rd Ed. (New York: Harper-Collins, 1990), p. 262.31Anwar el-Sadat, In Search of Identity (New York: Harper and Row, 1978), p. 235.32Hamady, Temperament and Character of the Arabs, pp. 184-193; Patai, The Arab Mind, pp.147-150.33Joseph Malone, "Syria and the Six-Day War," Current Affairs Bulletin, Jan. 26, 1968, p. 80.

Grapes have been cultivated domestically for thousands of years, a trade that started in the Middle East in areas including Israel, Cyprus, Egypt, Iran and Turkey, to name a few. Another fun fact: According to the Food and Agriculture Organization, the world uses 70 percent of the grapes grown to make wine. And while an estimated 10,000 types of grapes exist in the Vitaceae family, only around 1,300 of these are used in winemaking. But even if you make vino out of the fruit, that doesn’t discount them from being a tasty, healthy snack option with limitless potential.“Wine grapes are smaller than table grapes and have many seeds in them,” says Peter Becraft, winemaker at Anthony Road in the Finger Lakes region of New York. “That doesn’t mean that you can’t enjoy them on their own or use them in making jam.”In the United States, these berries (yup, they’re berries) are the sixth-largest crop. All 50 states produce the fruit, with California, Washington and New York taking the lead. According to the National Agricultural Statistics Service, the U.S. had approximately 1,049,600 acres of grape-growing land in 2014, and harvested more than 7 million tons of the fruit.Frankly, it’s overwhelming when you start to think about all the grapes out there. To get you started on your next grape adventure, check out the profiles of these 15 popular varietals. To keep it simple, we separated them by red and white. You may already be familiar with some, while others sound like they were concocted in a fantasy novel, but all are edible and delicious.RED GRAPES1. Moon DropsMoon Drop grapes on the vine. You may have also seen a related varietal called Witch Fingers.Just this year this elongated purple-skinned grape made its way to markets, and boy are we happy it did. The person to thank for this variety is Dr. David Cain, a plant breeder and scientist who works for the grape-growing company Grapery, developing new types. He has been working on the Moon Drop for about 15 years, cultivating the plant from a Middle Eastern sample. No, it’s not a GMO fruit; Cain practices old-school plant breeding, which is why it took so long to develop this novelty.Characteristics: Finger-like shape with dark purple, almost black skin. The flesh is firm and crunchy, giving this variety a nice snap that also helps it maintain in the refrigerator for days. It’s sweet, but not too sugary, and tastes a little like grape jelly.Where they grow: Central CaliforniaSeason: Late July to late September2. ConcordThis cultivar was developed by Boston native Ephraim Wales Bull in 1849 in a small farmstead outside of Concord, Massachusetts. Bull started selling the grapes in 1854, and since then they have remained one of the most widely used fruits in the country. The famous juice we know so well appeared shortly after in 1989 thanks to New Jersey dentist Thomas Welch. This beverage remains 100 percent pure grape juice — that jammy sweetness comes solely from the fruit.Characteristics: If you have ever had Welch’s classic grape juice, then you know exactly what the Concord tastes like. Bright, sweet and full of that signature dark grape flavor. In the early fall, you might see these perfect blue-purple orbs popping up in the farmers’ market. They have easy-to-peel skins and large seeds. As an added bonus, they smell fantastic!Where they grow: The Finger Lakes region in New York, Yakima Valley in Washington, Michigan and Lake OntarioSeason: August to September3. Pinot NoirBelieve it or not, your favorite bottle of bubbly may come from one of these purple bunches.Classically this grape is used to make wine, and though the Burgundy region in France popularized it, growers all over the world now cultivate this vine. Lately, good samples are coming out of the Willamette Valley in Oregon and the Russian River Valley in Sonoma County, California. You also find this grape in sparkling wines, namely champagne (more on champagne grapes later).Characteristics: You find this thin-skinned vitis vinifera in tight clumps of deep purple fruits. “Pinot noir has flavors and aromas of ripe cherry, wild strawberry, earthiness and caramel,” says Dreaming Tree winemaker Sean McKenzie. This is the profile you find in both the raw fruit and wine, which is why these grapes have such a following. You may also detect rose, black cherry and currents.Where they grow: All over the world but mainly in France, Oregon, New Zealand and CaliforniaSeason: August to September4. LembergerAlso known by the equally awesome name blaufränkisch, this grape is used for making dark, tannic wines with subtle spice notes. Originally this early-budding varietal grew in the Württemberg wine region of Germany, but in the last few decades the Finger Lakes of New York and the Okanagan Valley in British Columbia have been having a lot of luck with the vines.Characteristics: The plump grapes have a dusty blue color with a tannic berry essence. If you peel the skin back, you get more sweet, dark fruit flavors. Notes of pepper tend to come out in the grape, especially when made into wine.Where they grow: Germany, Austria, Canada and New YorkSeason: August to September5. Sweet JubileeLooking for an extra-large, extra-grapey grape? Look no further than tight clusters of Sweet Jubilees.This grape hails from the Grapery’s Flavor Promise series, and made the scene in 2012. It’s one of the seeded varietals they grow, but proves so big you can cut it like an apple and just pop those suckers out. Eat them raw, sliced on a peanut butter sandwich or lightly grilled to give your salad a fruity, smoky kick.Characteristics: You will know these grapes by the large black ovals that make up a bunch. They are sweet and firm with a clean grape flavor.Where they grow: Central CaliforniaSeason: Mid-August to early September6. ValiantIt can’t be easy to cultivate grapes in Alaska, but thanks to its durability in freezing temperatures and harsher soil conditions, the fast-growing valiant does quite well there. These large blue grapes are used for juicing, jams and as a table grape, though they can be on the sweeter (almost sugary) side.Characteristics: These cold-weather beauties taste a lot like Concords, and have an easy-to-remove skin and high-sugar flesh. They’re larger than the average table grape and aren’t as astringent.Where they grow: Alaska, CanadaSeason: Late August to September7. ChampagneNo, this isn’t the grape that the French make sparkling wine out of, though we understand how that might be confusing. Actually, this teeny-tiny grape’s official name is the Zante currant (though it’s not technically a currant) and is sometimes also called the black corinth. They are thought to have originated in Asia and/or Greece, but now are mainly grown in Europe and the United States. They are popular with chefs too, and at Rebelle in New York City chef Jessica Yang uses them alongside more standard grapes in her grape clafoutis. “Champagne grapes provide sweetness while the combination of table grapes add an element of tartness,” she says.Characteristics: These are some of the smallest berries you can find, roughly the size of a pea, which makes them perfect for decorating a plate, popping in you mouth as a snack or giving to kids. They are tender and sweet, with a pleasing crunch.Where they grow: California, Europe, MediterraneanSeason: June to September8. Crimson SeedlessYou now know the name for the red seedless grapes you’ve been serving with cheese plates for years. Say it loud and proud: Crimson Seedless!Most of the red table grapes you see in the store are Crimson Seedless, thanks to David Ramming and Ron Tarailo of the USDA Fruit Genetics and Breeding Research Unit in Fresno, California. They bred these popular berries and released them to the public in 1989. Essentially, this is the classic grape many of us are used to, and since they have a later growing season you especially see them in the winter. Chef Yang also works with these grapes: “They add an element of tartness and have a thick skin, which keeps the juiciness and gives them a nice pop when you bite in,” she says.Characteristics: They are firm and sweet with a pleasing tartness and have a long shelf life. The color is usually a pale brick red, sometimes with greenish streaks.Where they grow: CaliforniaSeason: August to November9. KyohoExtra-large Kyoho grapes are prized in Japan for their size, uniform roundness and unparalleled flavor.With fruits that get as big as a plum, these are the largest grapes you can find. In fact, the name “Kyoho” translates from Japanese to “giant-mountain grape,” a moniker that stemmed from Mount Fuji. These black beauties were specially bred in the 1930s and are a cross between the Ishiharawase and Centennial grape varieties. In Japan, this grape is served for dessert or juiced and mixed into traditional chuhai cocktails.Characteristics: Large, dark black-purple berries with a big inedible seed and thick, bitter skin. You will want to peel off the outside to enjoy the sweet fruit underneath, which has a similar taste to the Concord grape.Where they grow: JapanSeason: July to AugustWHITE GRAPES10. Cotton CandySure doesn’t look like cotton candy, but one taste of these inimitably sweet green grapes and you’ll be like a kid at the fair again.One bite of this juicy green grape and you will understand why they are so popular. Yes, they taste just like cotton candy, but in a healthy, natural form. “We weren’t breeding for a specific flavor, just grapes with a great flavor,” says Jim Beagle, CEO and co-owner of Grapery, which grows these sweethearts. “It’s amazing how much they taste like cotton candy.” You can find this varietal trademarked under the Grapery’s banner, and thus far it is only grown in California.Characteristics: Cotton candy in grape form, hands downWhere they grow: Central CaliforniaSeason: Mid-August to late September11. RieslingRiesling grapes are good for so much more than German and Austrian wine. That said, they make really great German and Austrian wine.Riesling grows best in areas with cooler climates, like Austria, Germany and the Finger Lakes in New York. “Riesling is the most versatile grape grown, giving one the potential to make wines from bone-dry to dessert wine–sweet,” says Anthony Roads winemaker Peter Becraft. “The natural acidity of the grape provides structure, freshness and balance for the grape’s sugars. Riesling is wonderfully expressive of its site and the vintage it was grown in.” They taste great pressed into non-alcoholic juice, too.Characteristics: As a grape, this specimen runs on the sweet side, with floral undertones and high acidity. This fruit also picks up the terroir of the land, meaning if the soil has more minerals in it, the grapes reflect that. All of these traits make it a great grape for winemaking. Becraft, for one, calls Riesling “the best food wine ever invented.”Where they grow: Austria, New York, Germany, Canada and AlsaceSeason: August to September, though Riesling grapes for ice wine are picked at the first frost, usually October.12. GewürztraminerFrom pink grapes come white wine! Stranger things in winemaking have occurred.You don’t have to have wine to understand what a bottle of gewürztraminer tastes like — just pop a fresh grape in your mouth. “For me the tastiest grapes in the vineyard to munch on are the gewürztraminer grapes,” says Becraft. “They really taste of the wine they turn into — so good.”Characteristics: It may surprise you find out these white grapes have a pink-red skin, nothing like the almost clear wine you tend to see in the glass. While the size proves standard for the fruit, the flavor remains less grapey, and instead comes across as soft and clean with a hint of stone fruit.Where they grow: All over the worldSeason: July to September13. Moon BallsCreated by Dole, you won’t often find these white-seeded grapes since they are only grown in South Africa and thus far production is limited. The company hopes to cultivate more in other parts of the world, so next year there might be a plethora of Moon Balls just waiting to orbit your kitchen.Characteristics: These round hybrid grapes come out large and green, almost like an edible bouncy ball. They posses a thick skin and supple, sweet flesh that proves a bit more sugary than most table grapes.Where they grow: South AfricaSeason: February to March14. SultanaAlso known as Thompson Seedless, these small white grapes originally hailed from the Ottoman Empire. Today, they are a favorite with chefs and are the chief fruit used to make commercial raisins. In the kitchen, prolific chef Chris Cosentino takes the little berries and gives them a blast of heat. “They are great blistered, which brings out most of their sweetness,” he says. “We’re using them in a great dish with squid, watermelon radish, serrano, mint, basil and cilantro.”Characteristics: Sultanas are small, light green oval-shaped grapes that pack a wallop of sugar. Once dried, the sugar concentrates and produces that earthy-sweet raisin flavor everyone knows. Even when you see a darker raisin, that’s still a sultana.Where they grow: Turkey, California and AustraliaSeason: July to September15. Fry MuscadineYou might not realize that this large, brown-gold orb is actually a grape, but we assure you it is. Turns out the fry muscadine has a lot in common with beach bunnies: They bronze in the sun and get a taut, crispy outside. These heat-resistant cultivars were introduced to the market in 1970 by R. Lane of the University of Georgia.

I shall give this a shot but there are some heavy hitters of intellect weighing in and I consider myself fortunate to be among them. In either way, my bet is you're going to get more out of my answer than you had intended! So here goes!I think you are not giving mankind benefit of the doubt. After all, we have to ask, ‘’What is a ‘’Civilization?’’Answer that, and you’ll find your way to answering your question. Before we get there, let’s look at what is generally agreed to be the Four Cradles of Civilization and One Controversial Civilization which has only recently entered into this discussion because of a fanatical need to include everybody. (You’ll see shortly!)There are four cradles of civilization on this planet. They share some common traits while possessing a few uncommon character traits. These all seemed to have sprung up during a tropical warming period that began with a rapid shrinkage of polar ice-caps. While still cold enough to cause the seas to be shallow, species of mankind were on the move. They moved out of Africa on two separate occasions (200,000 years ago, and again about 75,000 years ago, only interrupted by the sudden freezing of the earth.) Our first tool-maker, Homo-Habilis, made flint tools and knives en-masse. Do you know how easy it is - even now - to take a hike somewhere in South Africa and somewhere along the way there’s a reasonable shot of finding one of these?But Homo-Habilis, for being a handyman, wasn’t too keen to carry them on long trips. As long as there were rocks nearby, they could fashion one as needed and toss it away when done. But civilizations become civilization because they ‘aren’t’ on the move all the time. There are capitals, laws, a place of worship, and perhaps a tax collection building, a military, reading and writing, and soon thereafter, expansion.In all four of our cradles of civilization, Yellow-River, Mohenjo-Daro/Harappa, Tigris-Euphrates, and Nile River there are certain things which indicate a desire to settle. (Depending on who you ask and what the latest findings are, you can feel safe in saying that all four of these civilizations sprung up in relatively close time together.Is it diffusionist? Nah. Ask me, and i’ll say it is not diffusion because there’s no way of telling why the languages are so different. Diffusion requires us to find crumbs left along the way. These include language, customs, beliefs, clothing, even how they looked when using a DNA Analyzer. (We didn’t even have this 15 years ago, so this is exciting! We can now map the DNA in a way that puts a face onto the skull.)So if its not Diffusionist, then how exactly did all these ‘’civilizations’’ spring-up at the same time? The answer is held in the tools we find, and how they begin to look and feel different. (finally!) Everything was just right for a massive population explosion. For starters, most humans we have found will take care of their infirm, elderly, and crippled. We even find this in Neanderthals, who we have found to be taking care of a grandfather with a broken arm, skull-fracture and possibly blind.These tools that we associate with early man, (see picture of my collection) may have changed in size, but over the course of millions of years, they remained unchanged in terms of variety. The exception are the very well-made Neolithic Tools of Ancient Jericho, (if not an early civilization, certainly an early ‘’city.’’- the mortar and pestle you see in the upper left and second one down on the right) go back to 6000–5500 BCE (Neolithic) and I am being generous with that date. One anthropologist in Turkey thought they were 7000–7500 BCE.These tools have a very complex origin so don’t believe the first thing you see if you get curious about them. Mortar-and-Pestles have been dated from this very area of the world all the way back to the Pleistocene (35,000 years ago!) Used to crush grain, it made it easier to digest and thus to metabolize, which enabled humans to travel longer distances and supplement what was once a protein deficient diet with red meat. (Although this is a scandalous idea among the trail-mix vegan elite in California, it is proven by the differences in brain-casings between early homo-sapiens and homo-erectus, ergaster, denisovan, heidelbergensis, sediva, paranthropus, habilis and well, you get the idea!)So then, what about these four cradles of civilization? Well, (1) Often overlooked but never forgotten is the need to SURVIVE. People do what it takes to survive because to do anything less would drive us to extinction. What must they have in common?(1) Ability to Feed many people without moving. Think of it as the birth of agriculture, owing its origins in a wide-span of time. With this, we can know the following civilizations arose independently of one another within the years of 5000–2000 BCE. This is a huge span of time. The truth is fluid when we make new archaeological finds. But consider how we are lucky to live into our 80s. This is a long time relative to our conditions. Now consider that as many as 1500 years, nearly 20-times the longest lifespan one person will live, and consider the distance between the rise of Sumer and the rise of Egypt! To me -that is MIND BLOWING!These dates are not solid. Don’t be a hater if I am off a couple of decades! Although the evidence is very contrary, some want to shorten that date to only 1500–2000 years BCE. Both Carbon and U-238 dating has more than disprove this theory of ‘’newness’’ but for some professors of sociology and philosophy, this is the date they now want each of us to believe as the recent starting point for humanity.Some anthropologists like Lee Berger, slide that back as far as 8000 BCE, and still others push the date back to 10,000 BCE which is the date you mark in your question. The reason I don’t think it’s quite that old is because we humans are slow to change, slow to respond to environmental conditions that we attribute only to the gods in the skies.It’s a good starting point for your question, and one that marks a definite divide between small bands of tribes that wandered as nomads with the animals and between more sophisticated specialists who found the value in cooperation, wealth, and dominance. Yes, involuntary servitude was common in all of the early civilizations but there was a more equal trade-off back then. Be a servant, and be protected. Be fed. Have your family grow. Absorb the language and the customs, maybe even marry an attractive daughter off to a nobleman and raise your status in society. And hope for benevolent rulers.(2) Advancements in Technology, Specialization, Communication, Early Trade:Clearly if you are going to settle down, you have to have followers to settle down with. They are members of your family, where your status was elevated if you happened to in-breed. (Egypt, Mesopotamia, and The Yellow-River) You know, ‘royalty’ shouldn’t mix with the peasants and ‘outsider’ myths. Read the creation myths of the Sumerians for a really hot-and-heavy story) Inbreeding amongst royalty was happening all the way until the 20th century arrived. If you have any doubts, consider taking a look at King George of England and Czar Nicholas of Russia. Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany, England’s enemy in WWI, was the nephew of Queen Victoria, who married her first cousin, Albert.People tend to confuse a work of art as a work of civilization. It is actually a part of human culture and an expression of communication where the written/spoken language had yet to develop. Thus, ‘’things’’ took on deeper meanings, and if there was craftsmanship to it, all the better. Rock art of Neanderthals from 40,000 years ago in France tell us a great deal about the people living in that cave in Lascaux, but they do not begat a civilization.At the heart of all of this is communication. So far as we know, Sapiens were the only ones proven to have spoken. It’s probably a given that habilis and erectus and others may have also had this ability. But how can we know? One of the foundations for a large population is a common language. The largest band of ANY group at ANY one time appear to have been a Neanderthal settlement in Spain where 20–25 people lived. We have to have a common language. There would be chaos in the streets if this weren’t the case. Thus, our first trade deal. It wasn’t a few shells for a few sheckles. Our first trade deal was a simple ‘agreement’ on what a sound that you utter, means to both people.Think about it. In order for me to write this to you, and for you think of me as the genius I am, we have to agree that the words I am writing make sense. If we don’t agree on one or two words, we can explain it to where we reach that common understanding. ALL of these civilizations would eventually war as well as trade with one another. ALL of them except for ONE.So, here they are - in no particular order, but the four oldest civilizations we know:[a] Yellow River, (China) : Expansionist, Strong Moral Code, Rice, Fishing, herbal remedies, Limited Ranching[b} Mesopotamia: (Militaristic, Rule by power, Unique religion built on blood and warfare; Probably the oldest civilization of them all, The Fertile Crescent-And Seeds of Sumer, Ur, Babylon) Wheat, Barley, Kale, Chickpeas, Nuts, Beans, Mint, Ranching confined mainly to Sheep, Wild Boar[c] Mohengo-Daro/Harappa - Maybe not expansionist by design but by result. They began a long trade network whose roads would be used all the way through the 1600s AD. Their diet was variable and led to an explosion throughout the Indian subcontinent. They cooked peas, lentils, chickpeas, wheat and barley.[d] Nile River (Early Egypt, and ALSO Ethiopian and Sudanese, known then as Nubians) One of their first signs of a highly developed stage of thinking is in their codexes (rules) on how to live as one and the moral courtesy required to succeed. The Nile overflowed regularly, leading to predictable seasons and the ability to plan for the long-term. Wheat, Barley, Beans, Spices and Spinach were all to be found in early Egyptian cuisine. Ranching was widespread, with large herd animals and soon, weapons made to exploit these herd animals.*The important point I want to make is to say that the Western understanding of African Civilizations is limited at best. Our image of Egypt is not one of a black African civilization. But how foolish we are to believe that every man on this planet today comes from Africa, one way or the other, and thus we have to be more educated on the great civilizations that are now buried under Saharan sands along the Nile Rift Valley. Our image of the Egyptian world is largely from the Roman Empire, and so the perspective is from an outside view. Now THAT’S interesting, but bear with me, and you’ll see this makes sense.Around 320 BCE, The Macedonian Empire of Alexander the Great was reaching its vast expanse. Included in that conquest was Egypt, which for 2300 years had been largely run by Nubian pharaohs who were black in color. Who knows? Maybe I am wrong. But the hieroglyphics I saw with my own two eyes in the Valley of the Kings clearly show people who are Nubian in appearance. By the time Julius Caesar arrives and Cleopatra seduces him, (as some say) the Roman Emperor isn’t looking upon a black queen of Egypt. If she had been Nubian, Caesar never would have bothered with her, for Roman views on race were never progressive and he didn’t consider them equal in any way. This is historical common sense, although uncomfortable it is still the truth.Cleopatra, a descendent of the Macedonians some 12 generations before, was of the same skin color and tone that Julius Caesar was accustomed to. If there are any doubts about this, consider Mark Antony, her lover. He was transfixed by her gaze and power, but interestingly enough neither he or Julius Caesar comments on her looks. Based on coins that have her face, she isn’t much of a looker. Then again, I set the bar high when it comes to these things.(e) The Americas: Way down here in the letter-’’e’’ slot is a civilization that universities today insist on including in the ‘’cradles of civilization.’’ I don’t know. I think it’s a mistake to massage history to fit a narrative. But having said that, ‘’E’’ is for Ecuador, which also loses its identity to today’s professors and simply referred to as ‘’Ancient Peru.’’ I think you get the idea that I don’t buy into this at all. But if I don’t include it, someone is going to get butt-hurt and I am trying to please everyone with this great answer.I have visited Machu Picchu when I was a wee lad still in my high teens. The story told to me in high-school was how Pizarro conquered the Incas in the the 1500s. The book made it look rather easy, especially when you consider the Spaniards also had the help of as many as seven unique peoples living in Pre-Columbian South America. Their help was vital to the Spanish conquest. They knew how to get there; they brought supplies; they knew how to medicinally heal the numbers of insect bites that the Spaniards had never experienced before. The Huanca probably had as many as 2000 warriors, several of whom were handpicked to learn Spanish and act as intermediates on the journey.Another tribe was the Canara. They were multi-talented, having mastered navigational routes along the northern coast, had their own language until the Inca defeated them, and inter-married with the Spanish at a rate that forced the surviving Inca to give the Canara a large tract of lands on which to live.I know you are thinking, ‘’this is so interesting, but what does it really have to do with my question?’’ And I would answer with, ‘’Nothing really. Because we’re talking about 1500–1600 AD, nowhere even close to the 4000 BCE, right?Well there IS more to the story. The peoples who developed in this geographically forbidden world did so without the help of other peoples.That IS what you will hear in history classes today. Some social historians refer to this as a ‘’Pristine’’ condition. And it is a dangerous way to approach the Americas with this idea. Why is it dangerous?It’s dangerous for two reasons: (1) It assumes the Norte-Chico civilization, which is newly discovered but already facing scrutiny from Historians because of the idea that about two-dozen ancient clusters of people with no ceramic pottery, no language, no evidence of sustained culture and artwork, were somehow completely ruled and organized from one center location. (yet to be identified) AS of now, the data we have doesn’t support this at all. Anthropologists are quickly racing to be the one who can ties these together with proof. It may well be out there, but it isn’t as of now. These people built some high mounds and dug some craters, and aside from that, we have little else to go on.Moreover, (2) anytime you hear that one group of peoples is ‘’Pristine’’ because they developed independently of all OTHER civilizations fails to accounts for the vast differences in the peoples who were ALREADY here. Some of the people Pizarro came across spoke a different language from the Inca and yet were not what we would classify as a ‘civilization’ in any-sense of the word. Yet they are not to be lumped into the Inca as one group and thusly described as ‘’Pristine.’’ Try spending a month in Ecuador and Peru and telling everyone you meet that you are happy to meet a proud Inca native. They are as different to one another as the peoples in Europe, but we remain largely ignorant of them and as a result, will take the words from someone who seems to know better. Don’t take my word for it either!Be The Historian DetectiveGo research for yourselves. Go to the Primary Source if you can, think of history as a detective novel and you are the detective. You need eyewitnesses, secondary witnesses, material, evidence, biology, geology, zoology, geography, all that you already know are mountains more than your own fathers, and grand-fathers ever did. Do your own examination of history as a matter of record and turn it into an interesting story full of intrigue, drama, humor, and betrayal. It’s what I happen to do every day!Be aware also that any student of philosophy would clearly see that IF there is ONE group of PRISTINE peoples on our planet, the rest of us must be filthy animals. And in our current self-loathing university environment here in America, this is the narrative that you must learn, and you must never, ever question it. Isn’t that ironic? If you want to bring up the point, ‘’Hey, I happen to think the peoples of Sumer were Pristine because they were thousands of years ahead of anyone else,’’ you’d have a totally valid point. But you cannot say that. You will not say that in any American university classroom. ‘’Why’’ you ask. The answer is that anything that leads to the rise of Judeo-Christian-Islamic thought and/or the rise of Europe as a focus center of world power is BAD. It’s BAD because that leads directly to the United States, and if you are a student in many of today's schools, you are taught to hate this country.This is systematic destruction of our own cultural heritage, which deserves to be seen in an equal light, just as every other culture is. But to shred our history and eliminate our American past, our European past, and our Middle-Eastern past, is just the entry point to rewrite the history that you and I know to be true.History has, for the most part, been an operation of diffusion. In other words, something that has happened today, comes from an event before, and like a staircase with a few hallways here-and-there, you can keep driving backward in time until the evidence disappears. This IS a bigtime generalization, and I admit that. If you want more dissertation on it, I have written on the subject for The History Channel. (Chasing Conspiracies - How to know Truth from Legend, Legend from Myth, and Myth to Lie April 2012)The evidence of any earlier civilization from the ones I listed just aren’t there to support it. And make no mistake, we are ‘Intelligent.’ It took us awhile, but we came out of those trees. And before anyone reads this and slams their fist into the keyboard, please inform the Creationists that I have no beef with them. Theology and Scientific learning should be able to coexist rather than contradict.GREAT Quotes on Meat“IF God didn’t want us to eat animals, He wouldn’t have made them out of Meat.” —————- Jim GaffiganWe became more ‘intelligent’ when our diets became more omnivorous. Nothing will grow a brain faster than protein. Australopithecus was small and vulnerable to prey. Humans have very few natural defenses to predators. Their life-span was lucky to make it to mid-twenties. If there is one thing we learned with the 2013 discovery of Shining Star Cave, it is that there was a reason why Homo-Naledi had fingers designed for climbing and feet designed for walking. They were making the transition, walking upright, able to see over the vast savannas and grasslands newly formed by the changes in the earth’s climate.But they need essential protein to grow a larger brain. A larger brain improves abstract thought, creates modeling and consequential critical analysis, and begins to form words to define things unseen. Amino acids vital to brain growth include Valine, Lysine and Tryptophan. There are more, but this isn’t a Biology paper. The only way to get that much protein quickly is through meat. Meat, meat, meat. And when you are done scavenging the MEAT off of the dead zebra and especially the marrow, you will go on to the next scavenged animal. True, there are proteins in cashews and almonds and lentils and shrimp. The problem is that you will burn off more calories preparing them than you will when you eat them.So meat becomes the first and foremost change we made to become more intelligent. The very acquisition of this food source already requires an inventive mind. And I am thousands of years away from mentioning hunting tools are organized entrapments of game. I mean, I am MILES away. We didn’t get smart overnight. We didn’t even pass down what little we knew to our offspring. And here you might ask, ‘’Robert, what in the heck do you mean? Are you saying that hunting animals led to ‘invention?’’Yes INDEED. Think of it this way. You are with your family out on the range, singing a popular ancient human song. All of a sudden, you come across a cheetah with its kill, a deer that happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Now a cheetah is formidable foe, but inherently they are not aggressive. Humans - especially a group - will run the cheetah off.Now you are in front of this MEAT, dripping with delicious MEAT blood and covered with enough good coats for everyone. (Invention) In the past, whenever we ate meat, it was taken raw. We didn’t season it or anything. The jaws get tired and the teeth worn down gnawing on tendons for several hours. Not only that, hyenas are making their presence felt, nipping and agitating for a place at the table. Vultures circle overhead and more brave ones will land near the carcass until chased off.If only we could chase the animals away so our own safety is guaranteed. If only earliest man had some way to break down the meat rather than eat it raw, so the meat is easier to chew and digest. If only we didn’t get sick or die to exposure during the seasonal storms. If only. And through some kind of experience or thought, a force of nature is harvested - Fire.In conclusion, let’s say the first hominin was identified as being a conservative 7,000,000 years. Now let’s also say that human civilization has been around 6000 years. Taking only those two figures, a stunning mathematical paradox sits before us. How is it that civilization only accounts for 0.0008571 % of our entire experience on this planet?It sounds to me as if humans learned how to waste time for millions of years before finally deciding to work for it a little bit. Tell me, have our lives changed all that much? ###Robert BluesteinSee? I told you this would be the BEST ANSWER you ever got!