Fighting the last war? Civil-military relations in Egypt

Abdelfattah El-Sisi, the former chief of Egypt's Armed Forces, is expected to easily win the Egyptian presidential elections at the end of May. The military dominates Egyptian politics, which is hindering Egypt’s transition to democracy, and has two operating modes: a ‘stability mode’ to defend its own institutional interests, and a ‘crisis mode’ in which defending the state is the priority.

The Egyptian military should avoid ‘fighting the last war’ by only focusing on preserving state institutions; it should also enable reform of those institutions and create space for new political actors.

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