Why did the Egyptian Military Leave the Barracks?

I was not exactly surprised that a few days ago the Egyptian military overthrew President Mohamed Morsi, the country’s first democratically elected leader, and suspended the constitution amid widespread anti-government demonstrations. After all, Egypt has a completely dysfunctional civil-military relationship. Its armed forces have never been subordinate to civilian control and it is by far the most powerful political actor in the country. The coup d'état is the apex of military intervention in politics and its study traditionally been a central tenant in the civil-military relations, a sub-field of security studies. The crux of civil-military relations has generally revolved around how civilian governments can exercise control over militaries that have the strength to usurp their authority. In every country, it is the military that possess a monopoly on the use of violence (it is therefore key to first distinguish the military as a special part of the state). The organization, manpower, and weaponry possessed by militaries endow them with the ability to disobey and overthrow their governments at whim. Yet if militaries can stage coups whenever they want, and a military like Egypt’s is predisposed to such behavior because it is entirely unrestrained by civilian leaders, why then did the Egyptian military decide to leave the barracks a few days ago and seize power?

Most commentators have so far attributed the driving factors behind the recent military coup in Egypt to the failure of President Mohamed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood to unite Egypt’s various political factions and to address the major socioeconomic problems that have ailed the country since 2011. In turn, these shortcomings contributed to massive anti-government protests in Cairo which preceded the military stepping in to replace Morsi and install a new government. Yet this story is far too simple and seriously flawed. Many scholars including Samuel Huntington (1957, 1968), S.E. Finer (1962),  Rob Nordlinger (1977), William Thompson (1975),  Claude Welch (1976), and Edward Luttwak (1979)—to name only a few—have addressed the causes, typologies, and frequency of military coups.  They have identified numerous and complex web of casual factors behind military coups, which can be separated into coup opportunities (not to be confused with the ability to coup, which is constant) and coup motivations. Coup opportunities arise from a general political weakening of the civilian regime’s legitimacy, often through flagrant corruption, electoral fraud, or other forms of political mischief, or perhaps a general ineptitude at governing. Coup opportunities can also be fashioned from broader conditions in a country such as a floundering political process, internal unrest, external security threats, or economic crises.

While the June demonstrations in Egypt were probably the largest since the downfall of Mubarak in February 2011, they did not represent a major change in the chaotic political climate that has taken hold in Egypt for the last two years. Large-scale street protests against the government (whether it was being run by Mubarak, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces [SCAF], or Morsi and Muslim Brotherhood) have taken place on a near-weekly to monthly basis in Cairo and other major cities since January 2011. Nevertheless, the recent demonstrations did provide the opportunity for the military to intervene and stage a coup. But opportunity and motivation need to be separated in order to better understand why the coup happened. The Egyptian military was not acting benevolently to defend democracy or in direct support of the protesters’ grievances against the Morsi government. That’s simply not why a praetorian military like Egypt’s stages a coup (but it is exactly how praetorian militaries justify coups). 

In terms of motivating factors of coups, the perpetrators nearly always justified their actions as being in defense of the “national interest,” however such a vague concept is defined. Such benevolent claims, however, are basically rhetorical camouflage to hide the military’s pursuit of narrower sets of motivations. Some scholars contend that a military may be motivated to coup to defend or advance the interests of a particular socioeconomic class, ethnic, or sectional group in the society. Such an explanation for Egypt does not work well, since Egypt and the military are basically ethnically and religiously homogeneous (Coptic Christians aside).

Another possible coup motivation is to advance the personal interests of the military leadership. Generals may seek greater political power, glory, or riches for themselves by seizing power. This explanation has a strong historical precedent in Egypt. General Gamal Abdel Nasser led Egypt’s first modern military coup in 1952 which overthrew the monarchy and established the country as a republic, an action which initiated a wave of anti-monarchy military coups across the Arab world. Nasser was a charismatic leader and ardent Arab nationalist whose confrontational policies towards the United States, Great Britain, and Israel endeared him to the Arab world.  Nasser ruled Egypt as president until his death in 1970. Not much is known about General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the current head of the Egyptian military. Sisi took over the position in August 2012 after the newly-inaugurated Morsi ordered Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi (who led the coup against Mubarak) to step down and promoted Sisi to the job. In addition to Tantawi, Morsi dramatically retired several other top commanders. Until the coup, Sisi had kept a low political profile and was even seen by some observers as being too close to Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood for the military’s comfort. Nevertheless, Sisi has so far not struck many as possessing the personal political ambitions to engineer a coup in order to become Egypt’s head of state. At this point, my opinion is that personal glory is unlikely but still at least a plausible factor behind the coup.

Most civil-military relations scholars recognize one of the strongest coup motivations is the military’s desire to defend its corporate self-interests, which includes preserving the military’s autonomy, hierarchical discipline, internal unity, organizational prestige, access to resources, privileges, and similar aspects. As far as I can tell, Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood had not threatened the military’s access to resources, its budget, or economic interests (the military runs an economic empire in Egypt that encompasses around ten to forty percent of the country’s GDP). This leaves us with several other factors: the preservation of the military’s autonomy, hierarchical discipline, and internal unity.  These causes, in my opinion, were likely the strongest motivating factors in the coup. I suspect Sisi was not personally enthusiastic about staging a coup, but increasingly felt political pressure from within the officer corps to remove Morsi for the good the military (not the country). A Times piece on the prelude to the coup reveals some interesting moves between Sisi and Morsi prior to the takeover:

The first alarms went off in Mr. Morsi’s inner circle on June 21, when General Sisi issued a public statement warning that the growing “split in society” between Mr. Morsi’s supporters and opponents compelled the military “to intervene.”

Mr. Morsi was given no warning, his advisers said. But when Mr. Morsi called the general, General Sisi told the president that “it was to satisfy some of his men” and that “it was nothing more than an attempt to absorb their anger,” one of Mr. Morsi’s advisers said. “So even after that first statement, the president didn’t think a coup was imminent.”

From this account, it appears Morsi and his advisers mistakenly placed too much stock in cultivating a personal relationship with Sisi, believing a good relationship with him would be synonymous with a good relationship with the military as a whole. Nevertheless, it seems there was a good deal of discontent within the junior officer corps over Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood. While the Egyptian military is extremely politicized, it has remained a highly professional organization with a significant degree of internal discipline and cohesion. Yet the growing discontent within the officer corps over Morsi’s tenure may have been critical to Sisi’s decision to stage the coup. Obviously, militaries are by nature top-down hierarchical organizations and by no means democratic. Yet when it comes to intervening or not intervening in politics, senior military commanders must constantly gauge the attitudes and willingness of the junior officers. After all, giving orders for a coup is quite different than giving orders on a battlefield. Political passions and personal beliefs can quickly overwhelm professionalism.

When it comes to Egypt, it is also important to remember that Nasser was not the head of the military when he led the coup against the monarchy and seized power in the 1950s. Rather, Nasser came to power by leading the Free Officers Movement, a clandestine coalition of junior officers who were dissatisfied with the monarchy and the senior military brass which they considered complicit with the monarchy, responsible for the military’s terrible defeat in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, and ignorant of the country’s woes. Given this history, Sisi is probably keenly aware it is important to take the opinions of the junior officer corps into consideration. As such, I think are two highly likely motivations behind the coup (these are just hypotheses):  

1. To maintain the military’s prestige. The military’s prestige in turn confers a degree of legitimacy on its extreme autonomy and questionable economic activities. Perhaps many officers did not want the military’s prestige stained by having to defend Morsi’s government from increasingly large and combative demonstrations. Soldiers tend not relish in beating or shooting at their own countrymen, especially on behalf of a regime they despise. 
2. To maintain the military’s discipline and internal cohesion. Morsi’s maneuvers to consolidate power not only threatened the future of the country’s democratic process, but also the military’s established traditions of extreme autonomy from civilian oversight. Morsi’s removal of Tantawi and other senior officers and the appointment of Sisi last summer constituted significant meddling in the military leadership and promotion system, a highly sensitive area for the officer corps. Obviously it was in Morsi’s best interest to sow divisions in the officer corps and over time elevate loyalists into key positions so he could exert greater influence over the military. Officers on the outs may have felt the military’s discipline and internal cohesion were under threat by Morsi’s meddling and politicization.

Despite the abundance of explanations, deciphering the precise causes behind any coup is extremely difficult. Apart from the sheer array of possible factors, none of the explanations are necessarily mutually exclusive. Moving forward, it’s important to remember that military’s usually intervene in politics to advance or protect their organizational interests and rarely for the benefit of society. The Egyptian military is not a midwife for democracy and it probably never will be.