Owners of the Republic: An Anatomy of Egypt’s Military Economy

360 Pages·2019·2.955 MB·English

by  Yezid Sayigh

YEZID SAYIGH
O W N E R S
O F T H E
R E P U B L I C
AN ANATOMY OF EGYPT’S MILITARY ECONOMY

This report is published by the program on Civil-Military Relations of the Arab States
(CMRAS) of the Carnegie Middle East Center.
© 2019 Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. All rights reserved.
Carnegie does not take institutional positions on public policy issues; the views represented
herein are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Carnegie, its staff,
or its trustees.
No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means
without permission in writing from the Carnegie Middle East Center or the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace. Please direct inquiries to:
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This publication can be downloaded at no cost at Carnegie-MEC.org.
To the memory of Robert Mabro and Samer Soliman, in affection and friendship,
To the quest for truth and justice for Giulio Regeni,
And to all students of Egypt.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
About the Author vii
Acknowledgments ix
List of Acronyms xii
List of Figures, Maps, and Tables xiii
Summary xv
Introduction 1
CHAPTER 1
Enabling the Military Economy 17
v
CHAPTER 2
Mapping the Formal Military Economy Part 1:
A “Citadel” of Egyptian Industry 47
CHAPTER 3.
Mapping the Formal Military Economy Part 2:
We Build Egypt, We Feed Egypt, We Are Egypt 89
CHAPTER 4
Mapping the Informal Military Economy:
The Officers’ Republic 155
CHAPTER 5
Soldiers and Businessmen 187
CHAPTER 6
A Military Unbound: Transformation in the Sisi Era 237
CHAPTER 7
Behind the Veil: Managing the Finances 297
CONCLUSION
What’s At Stake? 331
Carnegie Middle East Center 339
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
YEZID SAYIGH is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut, where his
work focuses on the Syrian conflict, the political role of Arab armies, security sector trans-
formation in Arab transitions, and the reinvention of authoritarianism.
Previously, Sayigh was professor of Middle East studies at King’s College London. From
1994 to 2003, he served as assistant director of studies at the Center of International Studies,
Cambridge. He is the author of numerous publications, including most recently “Crumbling
States: Security Sector Reform in Libya and Yemen” (June 2015), “Missed Opportunity:
The Politics of Police Reform in Egypt and Tunisia” (March 2015); “Militaries, Civilians
and the Crisis of the Arab State” (December 2014); “The Syrian Opposition’s Leadership
Problem” (April 2013); “Above the State: The Officers’ Republic in Egypt” (August 2012);
“We Serve the People”: Hamas Policing in Gaza (2011); and “Policing the People, Building
the State: Authoritarian Transformation in the West Bank and Gaza” (2011).
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
THE AUTHOR GRATEFULLY ACKNOWLEDGES the critical feedback on various
drafts of this report from George Abed, Lori Allen, David Butter, Ishac Diwan, Clement
Moore Henry, Oussama Kanaan, Adeel Malik, Shana Marshall, Andrew Miller, Bessma
Momani, Pete Moore, Aram Nerguizian, Robert Springborg, and “Pink” Williams. Six
Egyptian reviewers are sincerely thanked anonymously.
The author is also grateful for the research assistance of Dina Arakji, Farah Al Farhan,
Ibrahim Nasr, Mohy-Dean Tabbara, Alexei Touma, Sally Youssef, and six Egyptian research-
ers to whom he owes a special debt but who must remain anonymous.
Last but not least, big thanks are owed to Samuel Brase for his patience and en-
couragement in editing successive drafts, Jocelyn Soly for her creative work on the
graphics for this report, and colleagues in the Communications teams in Beirut and
Washington, DC, for their enthusiastic contributions to presenting its findings to a
wide audience.
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