Quote Originally Posted by Showtime View Post
Man I had to dig this up because it stuck with me. It's very interesting you put it that way but I'm skeptical, it seems hyperbolic. I've read the publication you linked but it doesn't exactly allude to this claim. I imagine every country in the middle east would take this initiative when faced with a conscription crisis.

Not sure if the example was a figure of speech, but paramilitaries are effectively part of the regime in Syria. These institutional shortcomings are common across many states in the middle east. How do we know that they are sectarian? They seem to be no more so than the regime, people of Damascus, and "Assadist" diaspora are.

Not to mention the (incorrect) implication that the actual army is inactive/not fighting.
My tone was uncharitable, but I just followed the conclusions of the analysis, which were that the Syrian army had since the beginning of the war become less professional, less focused on its own infantry ranks than on paramilitaries, but that this had in the specific context of the fractured Syrian battlescape allowed it to be more flexible and shield itself from the worst casualties.

I did not say that it was more inactive than in the past, but did mean to suggest that it was less conventionally effective.

Not sure what you are trying to say about sectarianism. So that's just right. As opposed to 5 years ago, the commissioned ranks clearly seem to be more homogeneous in denomination.