Arab Revolution


 * Not to be confused with the 2011–19 Arab Winter, also known as the Arab Civil War.

The Arab Revolution (Arabic: الثورة العربية ath-thawrah al-‘arabīyah), also known as the Arab Revolutionary War (حرب الثورة العريبة ḥarb ath-thawrah al-‘arabīyah) to distinguish the original revolutionary movement from the protracted war thereby resulting, was a major armed conflict lasting from 26 June 1986 to 10 August 1989, which radically transformed the social, economic and most of all political order of the Arab World. Beginning as an armed uprising of pan-Arabist forces in Palestine, Lebanon and Jordan, the conflict rapidly spread to neighbouring states, with all Arab countries ultimately pulled into the conflict. Fought primarily between Ba'ath-led pan-Arabist forces backed by (and ultimately becoming one with) the United Arab Republic (UAR) on one side, and a coalition of reactionary forces such as Arab monarchies and allied monarchist movements and Islamist extremist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood on the other, the war lasted just over three years, and ended with a pan-Arabist/UAR victory and the subsequent incorporation of all formerly sovereign Arab states into the UAR regime, which was reorganised shortly thereafter as a federal republic and renamed the Union of Arab Republics, which became known informally as the Arab Union.

The primary achievement with which the revolution is credited is transforming the Arab world from a collection of separate, at best indifferent and at worst hostile sovereign states, to a politically and increasingly economically integrated federation operating on the international stage as a single sovereign power, significantly reducing the influence of other world powers over the region's internal affairs. Similarly, the prewar UAR's armed forces and those of the new member republics were amalgamated into a single, unified military apparatus, namely the Union Defence Forces (UDF), which today constitute the second largest military force in the world, resulting in a drastic realignment of the global military order, ultimately reducing Western hegemony and contributing further to a multipolar international system, with the Arab Union today considered an emerging superpower.