The role of the military institution in political decision-making: Egypt as a case study (1952-1981)

Introduction :

Third-world countries are generally known for their political system that is based on a military nature. Several reasons could explain this phenomenon; most notably the establishment of the state or its transition from one stage to another. Such as its transformation from colonialism to independence, from monarchy to a republic, or even the establishment of the state in itself is achieved through the contribution of the military institution.
The political-military system is well known in third-world countries and especially in Middle Eastern states. This political situation came into being because of different reasons that we will discuss in our research that will dig deeper into the Egyptian case. Egypt is considered one of the most significant military regimes in the region, even nicknamed the Military State. Since its establishment, the Arab Republic of Egypt has only known one civilian president whose rule did not exceed one year, and he was overthrown by the military.
To understand how the Egyptian army penetrated state institutions and dominated political decision-making, we chose to go back to the period of the beginnings of the establishment of the Egyptian Arab Republic.
Specifically, from 1952 to 1981, this is the most important period for Egypt and the Egyptian army, as its popularity during this stage went beyond the borders of the Egyptian state to the regional, where the Arab army was considered one of the most important armies in the Middle East.
Especially since during this stage, Egypt was in a state of war with Israel and at the end of it, it established peace with it as well.
This stage also reshaped the features of the Egyptian state, in which the army is its main pillar and the influence in all sectors. It is the one who transferred Egypt from monarchy to republic, from colonialism to independence.
Therefore, we will study in this article the role of the military in political decision-making in Egypt from 1952 to 1981 by asking a central question for research that is divided into four sub-questions as follows:

• How did the military institution contribute to political decision-making in Egypt?
• What are the characteristics of the military in third world countries and their role in political decision-making?
• How was the Egyptian army established?
• What was the role of the military establishment during the years 1952 to 1981?
• During this research, we will employ descriptive and historical methods to explain this phenomenon.

1- The military institution and its relationship to political decision-making in the third-world countries:

* The emergence of the military establishment in the third world:

The organic relationship between political rule, the military institution, and the people constitutes a triangle whose shape and structure differ according to a set of criteria that may make it an equilateral triangle, a right triangle, or other forms that weave among themselves a road map for the formula of governance in this or that country. To change and change according to the requirements of each stage and the many things affecting it, most notably the revolutions of the peoples and the position of the military institution on these revolutions.
Perhaps the most important corner of this triangle in the third world countries is the military institution, which we can liken to a “tightening egg”, given the sensitivity of its position towards any change in the government or any revolution that may occur,
To find out the reasons that push the military establishment to adopt a position or not, we must take into consideration two important points that William Taylor, “the military expert and assistant professor of American foreign policy at the Weststep and Nate Military Academy spoke about in the book “Military Responses to the Arab Uprisings and the Future of Relationships.” Civil-military in the Middle East.” The first point focuses on “interests” and refers to a group of basic elements represented in the social status of the military, funding, equipment, and independence in decision-making.
The second point talks about the subject of “censorship,” and it includes the impact of national and social customs on the culture of the military, the places of service and their geographical distance from their groups, and the control exercised by politicians over their budget, government institutions’ control over their role and powers, their military organization, and the regime’s control over decision-making centers. appointments of officers to the highest ranks, and constitutional and legal oversight of their missions and budget. ()
The importance of the military stems from the fact that they include a large segment of the people of different regions and affiliations, and that they are the ones who protect the homeland and defend the soil of the homeland and its territorial integrity, and most importantly, many political regimes have failed to win the support of their people. It guarantees them a fairly good life, and when there is “economic” popular anger, as is often the case, with governments and political currents, the army remains the only recourse given its distance from economic corruption, or the survival of this corruption within the military corridors, and away from the street. ()

Example from the third world:

The Syrian army was established in 1948, as it is considered one of the oldest Arab armies. Syria was known as the state of coups, where three coups took place in 1949 alone.
The number of coups that took place reached about 9 coups from 1949 to 1970, () when the Syrian army controlled all the joints and institutions of the state throughout the history of the Syrian state.
The army was also able to impose its political ideology on the entire population, the ideology that has so far dominated the rule in Syria for more than half a century. ()
The Syrian army is not much different from the Egyptian army. The army signed the union decision with Egypt, during which Syria was subject to the authority of the Egyptian soldiers Abdel Hakim Amer and Anwar Sadat. Syria had the same orientation as the Egyptian Arab Republic, which was the nationalist orientation toward Arab unity and the war with Israel. This pan-Arabist socialist orientation was characteristic of all the military regimes in the Middle East emerging from the new colonial era, such as Iraq, South Yemen, Libya, and Algeria. All of these countries are ruled by the military and generals, and all of them have transformed the rule from royal to military through coups. This similarity prompted unity between the military rulers in Egypt and Syria, and it was a failed experiment that did not last long.

2- The establishment of the military institution in Egypt:

The first regular army in the world was established in Egypt around 3400 BC(). After King Mina united Egypt and ascended its throne, he became the most powerful army in the world, and thanks to him, the Egyptians established the first empire in the world, extending from Turkey in the north to Somalia in the south, and from Iraq in the east to Libya in the west, and that was the golden age of the Egyptian army. The ancient Egyptian military provided many great leaders, and the strength of the Egyptian army was its main strength of Egyptians, not foreign mercenaries, with the system of compulsory service and a call-up for service during the war. The army consisted of infantry, horse-drawn chariots, javelins, spear soldiers, other branches, and the fleet that protected all of Egypt's sea coasts, in addition to the Nile River. ()
Although the Egyptian army during the Pharaonic period had a defensive goal rather than an expansionist one, despite its annexation of many regions, during the Islamic period, Egypt turned into a base for expansion towards the countries of the Maghreb, Spain, the islands of the Mediterranean, and southern Europe. The Soldiers of Egypt are also the main contributors to the killing of Othman bin Affan().
Muhammad Ali Pasha, who ruled between 1804 and 1848, is considered the de facto founder of the modern Egyptian army. The emergence of the Egyptian army was aimed at fighting wars, which made it in a short time become one of the most powerful armies in the world. At the beginning of his rule, Muhammad Ali Pasha fought against the English and the Mamluks for total control of Egypt. He also fought proxy wars on behalf of the Ottoman Empire: On the island of Moria against the Greek revolutionaries ()and destruction of the experience of establishing the first Saudi state(). The Egyptian army was able to annex Sudan to its rule, how quickly it entered into competition with the Ottoman Empire. Muhammad Ali was able to seize areas in the Levant and Anatolia and was close to ending the Ottoman Empire. () This-Similar to the military operations that highlight the strength of the army during the time of Muhammad Ali Pasha. It can be seen that the number of soldiers increased in just two years, from 70,000 fighters in 1831 to 194 thousand in 1833, () and by 1839 the number of soldiers reached about 236,000. () Also, the army during the era of Muhammad Ali Pasha owned many military factories In the era of Muhammad Ali, the Egyptian army was the mainstay of everything. For it, schools of medicine, engineering, and military arts were established. For its renaissance, the manufacture of weapons, ammunition, and clothing was established, and to serve it, work was done on the revival of agriculture and construction.
The Egyptian army arose from the peasants and on the doctrine of fighting wars and the basis for everything in the modern Egyptian state.-The sons of Muhammad Ali inherited the rule, and the strength of their king was the military institution.-In the year 1854, the Egyptian army participated in the Mexican war, accompanied by the French army after Napoleon III requested assistance from Egypt.
In the year 1881, Ahmed Orabi, () and his fellow soldiers revolted against the ruler of Egypt at the time, Khedive Ismail, and foreign intervention in Egypt, but at the end of the day, Orabi was exiled from Egypt.
In the wake of the Urabi revolution, “Britain occupied Egypt on June 28, 1882, and among the first things the British did was change the name of the “jihadist” ministry to the “war” ministry with the first ministerial formation in 1884, he was also appointed as a British commander of the Egyptian army”. ()It is an attempt by the British to obliterate the identity on which the Egyptian army was founded, the combative doctrine, and turn it only into a mere defense army, and thus England succeeded in occupying Egypt for 74 years.
In 1948, Egypt's loss against the Zionist gangs led by King Farouk made the Egyptian army move towards its overthrow. ()
From the Pharaonic period, through the Islamic period, and up to the modern period, the army played great roles that contributed to changing the course of the Egyptian state and almost the entire region.
The organization of what is known as the Free Officers was formed, () which was able in 1952 to end the rule of the dynasty of Muhammad Ali Pasha and control Egypt.

The military establishment in the time of Abdel Nasser:

The loss of the war in 1948 under the leadership of King Farouk was followed by a revolution against the monarchy and colonialism as a reaction to the defeat. The emergence of the Egyptian Republic following the coup of the Free Officers in 1952 by a group of officers in the Egyptian army in what was called the Free Officers Revolution. King Farouk, the last ruler of the dynasty of Muhammad Ali Pasha, the de facto founder of the Egyptian army, was expelled by the same army. The formation of the Free Officers Command Committee under the name of the Revolutionary Command Council, which consists of 11 members under the leadership of the Army Staff Brigade Muhammad Najib. () In the year 18 June 1953, almost a year after the revolution of the Free Officers, the establishment of the Egyptian Republic, headed by Muhammad Naguib, was announced after the Egyptian army gained great popularity among all popular segments. Since his early days, Muhammad Naguib clashed with Abdel Nasser and his companions, as Naguib sought to establish a civil regime in the country. ()While the rest of the members of the Officers Council sought to control the joints of the state and its apparatus, the point of appointing Abdul Hakim Amer Abdel Nasser's close friend to the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces had caused a sharp dispute between Najib and the Officers Council. The army came out of the barracks and spread to all the city departments and ministries, and the catastrophe that we are still suffering from so far occurred in Egypt. Every commanding officer wanted to be strong. So each of them became a "group", and this group was often hypocrites who did not play a role, neither in preparing for the revolution nor in carrying it out. All these factors, and the Egyptian army's effective control of the country, pushed Muhammad Naguib to independence in February 1954. () Popular demonstrations came out calling for him not to resign, which prompted the Revolutionary Council to state the return of Muhammad Naguib to the presidency. In March 1954, a decision was issued to remove Muhammad Naguib from the presidency by the Military Council. () Gamal Abdel Nasser assumed the presidency of the Council, succeeding Najib in 1954, accompanied by the position of Prime Minister, () while the position of the Presidency of the Republic remained vacant. After Nasser was able to effectively control the country internally and externally, he was appointed President of the Arab Republic of Egypt in 1956 through a popular referendum. During the time of Abdel Nasser, the proportion of military personnel in ministerial positions ranged from 23% in 1952 to 63% in 1967, () of the 65 officials who held political office, 27 were army officers. ()
The two most important events in the period of Abdel Nasser and Egypt in general and the army in particular: The tripartite aggression in 1956, strengthened the strength of the steadfast army. The Nakba, () the loss of the 1967 war, shook the image of the Egyptian army internally and externally. Gamal Abdel Nasser established the concept of the chief general and the symbol of the nation in Egypt in particular and the Arab world in general. The army controls the entire state apparatus, as the concept of the socialist state has been enshrined with a military leadership for all its institutions. Even critics described Nasser's policy as a policy of crystallization of the military community. Abdel Hakim Amer is the most visible face that shows the army's control over Egyptian institutions. During the time of Abdel Nasser's military, he held many positions: ambassadors, members of the People's Assembly, chief editor of newspapers, governors, and sports associations. () The military establishment was a major and essential political actor in Egypt. Abdel Hakim Amer, the second man in Egypt and a close friend of Abdel Nasser, said, "As long as Gamal Abdel Nasser remains president of the republic, I must be commander in chief of the armed forces," () so Abdel Hakim Amer used to say, and this sentence alone is enough to clarify the relationship of the military institution with political decision-making in Egypt. But the influence of Abdel Hakim Amer disturbed Abdel Nasser, which made him wake up with a friend to reduce the influence of the military establishment on him. ()

The military establishment in the time of Saddat:

After the death of Abdel Nasser, Anwar Sadat took over the presidency of Egypt, as he was the vice president. Anwar El-Sadat is a military officer who is also among the Free Officers group and the third military general to rule Egypt. The features Sadat, unlike Abdel Nasser, who abandoned the military uniform when he assumed the presidency, Sadat did not abandon it, and he wore it on many occasions, until the moment of his assassination he wore it. Anwar Sadat reduced the number of military personnel holding civilian jobs to 20% compared to the time of Abdel Nasser. ()
Sadat marginalized the role of the army in favor of a relatively small class of businessmen because of his policy, which he called the policy of economic openness. In 1971, he restored the Ministry of Military Production, which brought the majority of factories under its management. The October 1973 victory over the Israeli army restored the Egyptian army's position both internally and externally. With this victory, the doctrine that the army established on it since the time of Muhammad Ali changed
The Camp David Accords with Israel were signed in 1979, where the direction of the Egyptian army changed as follows:
- Which changed the name of the Ministry of War to the Ministry of Defense
- Change of many military leaders who reject the treaty
- The Egyptian army turned from a state of war to a state of defense
This change was reflected in the military industries, where most of their activities were shifted to civilian industries, which made them enter into competition with the civilian economy.
“After the Camp David Accords, the modernization of the armed forces became a major concern, and in the early eighties the officer corps was still concerned about the lack of adequate arms supplies from abroad, and in the wake of the dramatic consolidation of US-Egyptian relations, there was concern that Egypt would not receive a “reward.” () Peace; that is, obtaining more advanced military armaments; However, the slow arrival of American weapons to Egypt remained a cause of distress until the mid-eighties of the twentieth century, although this distress dissipated when Egypt began acquiring huge quantities of advanced American weapons; The officer corps continued to be alarmed by both Israel and Saudi Arabia acquiring more advanced weapons with little or no restrictions. The influence of the army diminished during Sadat's time, but the end of Anwar Sadat was at the hands of a soldier during a military parade on October 6, 1981.” ()
In the end, he was assassinated in a military parade in 1981 by an Egyptian solider. It an assassination in which charges have been brought against several parties, including the army.

Conclusion :

The emergence of modern Egypt was a kingdom whose pillar was the army, an army established to fight wars.
The army established the Egyptian Republic, which made it a military state with distinction. Throughout its history, it did not emerge from the rule of generals.
Distinguishing the era of Abdel Nasser at the height of the army’s power and its dominance over all the joints of the state and even over society, where the soldiers were present in all the functional wires.
Although Sadat marginalized a little the role of the army, such as limiting it to special jobs and specific benefits, while maintaining the military institution as an economic actor.
However, the military institution has penetrated the structures of the Egyptian state since the time of Abdel Nasser and has become the depth of the Egyptian state that cannot be eradicated.

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