December 22, 2004: Libya is rivaling Syria for the position of having the worst military in the Arab world. Both countries' military equipment is obsolete and its personnel poorly trained, but Libya's military is among the most unprofessional and poorly-trained in the world.
| I wonder if that's why Muammar can't get promoted? Good thing they don't have an up or out policy. |
The Libyan Army currently consist of about 45,000 personnel. Out of those 45,000, about 40,000 are conscripts, leaving only 5,000 career officers and NCOs to lead the force. This low ratio of professional to conscript is almost unheard of, even among the poorer Arab states in North Africa. Libya's neighbor to the east, Egypt, also retains conscription, but about one third (around 30 percent) of its manpower is professional careerists. With such a shortage of capable leaders, it comes as little surprise that the Libyan military has performed so poorly in combat. Essentially, the Libyan army is a force of compulsory servicemen with little training led by understaffed, inadequate leaders. For all of the problems facing the country's military, this may be the biggest one.
Another major obstacle to any modernization that Libya might want to undertake is money. Libya's military budget is only about $1.3 billion annually. This is significantly larger than, say, Syria's which is only $858 million, but its certainly not enough to undertake massive modernization and repairs of equipment on a large scale. By contrast, Egypt's defense budget is around $2.4 billion a year, in addition to over a billion dollars in US military aid annually. |