Egyptian Armed Forces

In the early 1950s, politics rather than military competence was the main criterion for promotion.[10] The Egyptian commander, Field Marshal Abdel Hakim Amer, was a purely political appointee who owed his position to his close friendship with Nasser. He would prove himself grossly incompetent as a general during the Suez Crisis.[11] Rigid lines between officers and men in the Egyptian Army led to a mutual "mistrust and contempt" between officers and the men who served under them.[12] Tsouras writes that the Israelis "seized and held the ..initiative throughout the campaign and quickly destroyed the Egyptian defenses."[13] In a few instances, such as at the Mitla Pass and Abu Aghelia, Egyptian defenses were well-organised and stubbornly held, but this did not make enough difference overall. Nasser ordered a retreat from the Sinai which allowed the Israelis to wreak havoc and drive on the Canal; on 5 November British and French parachute landings began in the Canal Zone; but by 7 November U.S. pressure had forced an end to the fighting.[14]

Before the June 1967 War, the army divided its personnel into four regional commands (Suez, Sinai, Nile Delta, and Nile Valley up to the Sudan).[15] The remainder of Egypt's territory, over 75%, was the sole responsibility of the Frontier Corps.

In May 1967, President Nasser closed the Straits of Tiran to passage of Israeli ships.[16] Israel considered the closure of the straits grounds for war and prepared their armed forces to attack.[16] On June 3, three battalions of Egyptian commandos were flown to Amman to take part in operations from Jordan. But U.S. historian Trevor N. Dupuy, writing in 1978, argues from King Hussein of Jordan's memoirs that Nasser did not intend to start an immediate war, but instead was happy with his rhetorical and political accomplishments of the past weeks.[17] Nevertheless, Israel felt it needed to take action.

The Egyptian army then comprised two armoured and five infantry divisions, all deployed in the Sinai.[18] [19] In the weeks before the Six-Day War began, Egypt made several significant changes to its military organisation. Field Marshal Amer created a new command interposed between the general staff and the Eastern Military District commander, Lieutenant General Salah ad-Din Muhsin.[20] This new Sinai Front Command was placed under General Abdel Mohsin Murtagi, who had returned from Yemen in May 1967. Six of the seven divisions in the Sinai (with the exception of the 20th Infantry 'Palestinian' Division) had their commanders and chiefs of staff replaced. What fragmentary information is available suggests to authors such as Pollack that Amer was trying to improve the competence of the force, replacing political appointees with veterans of the Yemen war.[20]

After the war began on 5 June 1967, Israel attacked Egypt, destroyed its air force on the ground, and occupied the Sinai Peninsula. The forward deployed Egyptian forces were shattered in three places by the attacking Israelis. Field Marshal Amer, overwhelmed by events, and ignoring previous plans, ordered a retreat by the Egyptian Army to the Suez Canal.[21] This developed into a rout as the Israelis harried the retreating troops from the ground and from the air.

In July 1972, President Anwar Sadat expelled Soviet Armed Forces advisors from Egypt.[22] The Soviet advisors had previously had significant access and influence. When the Yom Kippur War began in October 1973, the Egyptians were initially successful in crossing the Suez Canal and establishing a bridgehead on the eastern bank. In the costly and brutal Battle of the Chinese Farm, the Israeli Defence Force shouldered aside portions of the Second Army on the eastern bank. Then crossed the canal and rapidly advanced, destroying surface-to-air missile sites and then cutting off the Third Army. However, according to the Israeli general David Elazar, the Egyptian 2nd army completely stopped him in Ismailia, and pushed his forces away from Ismailia city. Even though the third army was encircled, it resisted harshly, and managed to advance in occupying a bigger land than he did before in the east. Peace was only imposed after the United States and Soviet Union stepped in.

When Sadat and the Israelis made peace in the Camp David Accords of September 1978, part of the quid pro quo for the Egyptians accepting peace was that the U.S. would provide substantial military assistance to Egypt. Today the U.S. provides annual military assistance often quoted at some nominal $1.3 billion to the Egyptian armed forces ($1.55 billion in 2021).[23] This level is second only to Israel.[24]

Scholars such as Kenneth Pollack, DeAtkine, and Robert Springborg have identified a number of reasons why Arab (and Egyptian) armies performed so poorly against Israel from 1948 to the 1970s and afterwards. In battle against Israel from 1948, junior officers consistently demonstrated an unwillingness to manoeuvre, ‘innovate, improvise, take initiative, or act independently’.[25] Ground forces units suffered from constant manipulation of information and an inattention to intelligence gathering and objective analysis. Units from the two divisions dispatched to Saudi Arabia in 1990–91, accompanied by U.S. personnel during the 1991 Gulf War, consistently reported fierce battles even though they actually encountered little or no resistance. This occurred whether or not they were accompanied by U.S. military personnel or journalists.[26] Later researchers such as Springborg have confirmed that the tendencies identified in the 1980s and 1990s persist in the Armed Forces in the twenty-first century.[27]

In the second decade of the 21st century, the Armed Forces enjoy considerable power and independence within the Egyptian state.[28] They are also influential in business, engaging in road and housing construction, consumer goods, resort management,[28] and own vast tracts of real estate. A significant amount of military information is not made publicly available, including budget information, the names of the general officers and the military’s size (which is considered a state secret).[28] According to journalist Joshua Hammer, "as much as 40% of the Egyptian economy" is controlled by the Egyptian armed forces,[29] and other authoritative works such as Springborg reinforce this trend.

Egypt is a participant in NATO's Mediterranean Dialogue forum.

The Supreme Commander-in-Chief is the President of the Republic, Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, a former Army officer (as have been most Presidents of Egypt). All branches, forces, armies, regions, bodies, organs and departments of the Armed Forces are under the command of the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, who is at the same time the Minister of Defense.

The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCA) is composed of 23 members, chaired by the Commander-in-Chief and Minister of Defense, and is represented by the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces. Commanders of military areas (central, northern, western, southern), heads of bodies (operations, armament, logistics, engineering, training, finance, military justice, Armed Forces Management and Administration), directors of my departments (officers and Military Intelligence and Reconnaissance), and assistant secretary of defense for constitutional and legal affairs. The Secretary of the Board is the Secretary General of the Ministry of Defense.

Army

Egyptian Mi-8 Hip helicopters after unloading troops

Conscripts for the Egyptian Army and other service branches without a university degree serve three years as enlisted soldiers. Conscripts with a General Secondary School Degree serve two years as enlisted personnel. Conscripts with a university degree serve one year as enlisted personnel or three years as a reserve officer. Officers for the army are trained at the Egyptian Military Academy. The IISS estimated in 2020 that the Army numbered 90-120,000, with 190-220,000 conscripts, a total of 310,000.[1]

Air Force

Egyptian Mirage 5 at Cairo-West 1985

The Egyptian Air Force (EAF) is the aviation branch of the Egyptian Armed Forces. Currently, the backbone of the EAF is the General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon. The Mirage 2000 is the other modern interceptor used by the EAF. The Egyptian Air Force has 216 F-16s (plus 20 on order).[30] It has about 579 combat aircraft and 149 armed helicopters as it continues to fly extensively upgraded MiG-21s, F-7 Skybolts, F-4 Phantoms, Dassault Mirage Vs, and the C-130 Hercules among other planes. Egypt currently operates 24 Dassault Rafale a French twin-engine fighter aircraft as of 2019.

An Egyptian F16C Pilot

The inventory of the Egyptian armed forces includes equipment from the United States, France, Brazil, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and the People's Republic of China. This wide range of sources can cause serviceability difficulties. Equipment from the Soviet Union is being progressively replaced by more modern U.S., French, and British equipment, a significant portion of which is built under license in Egypt, such as the M1A1 Abrams tank.

Egypt is one of the few countries in the Middle East, and the only Arab state, with a reconnaissance satellite and has launched another one, EgyptSat 1 in 2007.[36]

The Arab Organization for Industrialization supervises nine military factories which produce civilian goods as well as military products. Initially the owners of AOI were the governments of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, before the latter governments gave their shares back to Egypt in 1993, valued at $1.8 billion. AOI now is entirely owned by the government of Egypt. AOI has about 19,000 employees out of which are 1250 engineers. AOI fully owns 10 factories and shares in 2 joint ventures, plus the Arab Institute for Advanced Technology

Egyptian Military Police

There is an undergraduate military school for each branch of the Egyptian Armed Forces, and they include:

• Commanders and Staff College
• Reserve Officer College
• Nasser Higher Military Academy
• Egyptian Military Academy
• Egyptian Naval Academy
• Egyptian Air Academy
• Egyptian Air Defense Academy
• Egyptian Military Technical College
• Armed Forces Technical Institute
• Armed Forces Institute for NCOs
• Armed Forces Institute for Nursery[37]
• Thunderbolt School
• Airborne School (Egypt)

• Flags of the Egyptian Armed Forces

• Tsouras, Peter G. (1994). Changing Orders: The Evolution of the World's Armies, 1945 to the Present. New York: Facts on File.

• IISS (2019). The Military Balance 2019. Routledge. ISBN 978-1857439885.
• Hazem Kandil, 'Soldiers, Spies, and Statesmen: Egypt's Road to Revolt,' Verso, 2012
• Kenneth M. Pollack, Arabs at War: Military Effectiveness 1948-91, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln and London, 2002, and Pollack's book reviewed in International Security, Vol. 28, No.2.
• Norvell deAtkine, 'Why Arabs Lose Wars,' Middle East Quarterly, 6(4).
• CMI Publications, "The Egyptian military in politics and the economy: Recent history and current transition status". www.cmi.no. Retrieved 2016-01-21.
• Maj Gen Mohammed Fawzy, The Three-Years War (in Arabic)
• H.Frisch, Guns and butter in the Egyptian Army, p. 6. Middle East Review of International Affairs, Vol. 5, No. 2 (Summer 2001).
• Ebtisam Hussein; Claudia De Martino, Egypt’s Military Post-2011: Playing Politics without Internal Cracks, March 1, 2019
• Dr Mohammed al-Jawadi, In Between the Catastrophe: Memoirs of Egyptian Military Commanders from 1967 to 1972 (in Arabic)
• Hazem Kandil, Soldiers, spies, and statesmen: Egypt's road to revolt. Verso Books, 2012.
• Maj Gen Abed al-Menahim Khalil, Egyptian Wars in Modern History (in Arabic)
• Andrew McGregor, A military history of modern Egypt: from the Ottoman Conquest to the Ramadan War, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2006
• "The Egyptian Armed Forces and the Remaking of an Economic Empire". Carnegie Middle East Center. Retrieved 2016-01-21.
• Lt Gen Saad el-Shazly, The Crossing of the Suez

• Egyptian Armed Forces
• CIA World Factbook
• FAS
• GlobalSecurity
• Department of State, Academics see the military in decline, but retaining strong influence, 23 September 2009 (US Embassy Cables, The Guardian, 2011)
• Egypt’s Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, The New York Times, February 10, 2011
• Egypt's military leadership, Aljazeera English, February 11, 2011