The Egyptian Army is not an instrument of either reform or democracy

The Egyptian Army is not a democratic institution despite its recent pretensions.  One only needs to recall following the ouster of Mubarak for a reminder of how quickly the Army's penchant for autocracy surfaces.  Today's slaughter of scores of apparently innocent civilian protesters underlines the urgency of getting the generals out of the Presidential palace.

Before the situation in Egypt slides further into mayhem, the USG, and not least Obama, needs to grasp that pretending what has happened was not a coup d'état only encourages the generals.  The beginning of an effective policy response is using the word c-o-u-p.  This will oblige the US to suspend military aid and strengthen leverage for moving quickly to a government of national reconciliation.  Now, more than ever, insuring the participation of the MB in such a government is urgent.

The most thuggish institution in Egypt is the police, which has resisted successfully recent attempts at reform.   unless there is an effective establishment of an effective civilian transitional leadership, the police, with the Army's sufferance if not collusion, will return to the business as usual that they know best, namely beating, abusing and arresting anyone who deems to challenge their reign.  

The situation in Egypt threatens to unravel disastrously and compelling US interests demand a firm and unmistakable commitment to inclusive civilian rule in Egypt.  Dawdling only amplifies the long-range risks for the US.

Perceptive OPED by Khaled Abou el-Fadl, "Perils of a People's Coup."

[Also see the concise analysis of Prof. Yoram Meital, a serious student of Egypt, and Sarah Carr's powerful reflection, "On Sheep and Infidels".]

Egypt's military seeks to institutionalize its independent status and privilege. In effect, the generals are moving to explicitly specify that the military is not subordinate to civilian authority.

As I noted here months ago, the generals were unlikely to accept any reforms that abridge their privileges or subordinate the military to civilian control.  The toppling of Husni Mubarak was an incredible feat, but the military's influence on Egyptian politics remains a constant.  The difference is that much of its influence was exercised behind the curtains in the past, but now the military's controlling hand is more visible.  This may represent progress on the path of reform, but it is well short of the revolution that young Egyptians hope to achieve.

Egypt's Security Apparatus

Senate Foreign Relations Committee, hearings on Hezbollah

Witnesses inclue: Assistant Secretary Jeffrey Feltman, Counter-terrorism Coordinator Daniel Benjamin, Amb. Ryan Crocker, Danielle Pletka of AEI, and yours truly.

Army War College study of Hamas

The study was published four days prior to the Israeli onslaught against Gaza.  The author is a serious analyst at the Strategic Studies Institute.  

More on the helicopter downed by Hezbollah

The Daily Star - Politics - Suspicions flare as Hizbullah hands over assailant in fatal helicopter shooting

Hizbullah handed over to military police Friday the suspect who fired at a military helicopter a day earlier, as the Lebanese army held a funeral for the officer who was slain in the shooting. "Hizbullah has handed over the person who fired at the helicopter to the Military Investigative Magistrate in the case Jean Fahd," a judicial source told The Daily Star, adding that Fahd gave orders to the military police to interrogate him "and everyone related to the incident

Deafening Silence of Hezbollah

It is being widely reported in Lebanon, not least by as-Safir, that Hezbollah is responsible for downing the Lebanese army helicopter yesterday, August 28, 2008. Samir Hanna, a first lieutenant in Lebanon's tiny air force was killed. The chopper was down in Sujud, northeast of al-Nabatiyah, in the region called the iqlim al-tuffah (literally: the apple region). Other than pledging its cooperation, there has been, as l-Orient-le Jour notes, a "deafening silence" from Hezbollah.
Here is a fitting test, and an opportunity, for President Michel Suleiman. The president, the former army commander, endorsed Hezbollah's role as a national resistance for Lebanon. If he is wise, he will use the outrage coming not just from Hezbollah's adversaries in Lebanon, but from its allies to rein in Hezbollah. For instance, former Prime Minister Salim al-Huss emphasized that Hezbollah must explain and not seek to justify what happened.
The outspoken former Speaker Hussein al-Husseini pointed to this incident as evidence that Lebanon needs a national defense strategy.

L'Orient-Le Jour: "Le silence assourdissant du Hezbollah..."

A dispassionate but devastating review of Feith's "War and Decision"

Reviews
The review appears in the July issue of Army, the organ of the Association of the US Army (AUSA), which is a private, but closely-linked group to which many officers belong. The reviewer is Derek Leebaert, a military historian, who teaches at Georgetown U. Incidentally, while most officers will not say so on the record, in private conversations there is often deep contempt expressed toward some of the top military brass and civilians appointees (including Feith) for their failures in leadership and decisionmaking in Iraq (e.g., check out this bright retired officer). In discussions I have had, as recently as this summer, I have discerned serious concern about the health of the over-committed army. There is also widespread concern about the fate of Afghanistan (alluded to in the Leebaert review).

Here is most of the closing paragraph of the review.

"War and Decision obliges readers to consider what a “national security expert” and politically appointed “strategists” might actually be. Again the nation has encountered “the best and brightest,” the iconic term placed on the country’s national security decision makers of a generation ago, such as Defense Secretary Robert McNamara and National Security Adviser Mc-George Bundy, who had all the answers to all of the questions about Vietnam. In War and Decision, we have a true to life, though unintended, portrait of men and women also not knowing what they did not know, who appear to have been in the grip of that most dangerous of illusions—that they have no illusions at all."

Muhammad Suleiman killed by a sniper in Tartous

Top Syrian general assassinated: reports - Yahoo! News: "Arab media reported on Sunday that a brigadier general thought to be the Syrian regime's liaison with Hezbollah in Lebanon has been assassinated.

The reports came almost six months after the killing in a Damascus car bomb of top Hezbollah military commander Imad Mughnieh, which the Shiite militant group blamed on Israel."

The al-Hayat report that is the source for the report of Suleiman's killing, on Friday or Saturday, only refers to the fact that he was responsible for a "senstive file." The report does not show his name.

Recall earlier incident in Iran.

Added info:

Sunday Times: "A KEY aide to the Syrian president who was assassinated last weekend in mysterious circumstances had been supplying Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group, with advanced Syrian SA-8 anti-aircraft missiles, according to Middle Eastern sources." "Middle Eastern sources"

al-sharq al-awsat report. This later story in al-sharq al-awsat contains several interesting bits of information from anonymous sources: Suleiman was a friend of Bashar al-Asad and they were members of the same class (shilla) at the military academy; Suleiman was perhaps more important than the Defense Minister; his portfolio extended beyond the military and intersected with the Ba'th party.

Haaretz.

al-Bawaba. This story alleges that the victim was Syria's connection to Hezbollah, but this claim seems to only speculation. Nothing that I have seen lends substance to the claim. A number of copycat reports draw on the al-Bawaba report but add nothing new.

Perhaps the most interesting added report is this one in the FT by Ferry Biedermann. She reports arrests in Syria and suggest this an intra-regime struggle.

America's stressed army

Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Richard Cody testified on April 9, 2008, before the House Armed Services Committee. He treats a number of problems that you have seen hightlighted here for some time, including overall force readiness and the flood of highly qualified young officers.
I also discussed this problem in my talk in Manhattan last month.
Army Under Stress From Long Wars - washingtonpost.com

The Volunteer Army

The Volunteer Army: Who Fights and Why? - The New York Review of Books

Also see this earlier post.

An army strained to the limits in Iraq--my take

Washington Babylon (Harper's Magazine)

Also see these earlier posts: discontent with senior officers; troop shortages; lowering promotion standards; flood of officers leaving army; strained military; Gary Hart on the strained army; and recruiting problems.

This 2006 CRS study is valuable. It includes data on officer accessions, showing a decline in officers from ROTC and an increase to 30% (probably more today) of the total from OCS.

This is an important story and it goes to the heart of the military manpower crisis.

There has been a flood of top-quality, combat experienced captains from the Army, especially combat arms officers who face the toughest and most dangerous assignments. The article cites an overall attrition rate over the past six years of 12% but that is a very squishy number and should not be trusted. A better indication is the implication that they need to retain over 70% of those eligible to leave in order for this bonus system to succeed (at the end of the article). That suggests a 30% attrition rate overall.

In fact, when the numbers are disaggregated the losses are far more serious. Why? Because when you adjust for officers with top quality records, including many West Point graduates, the numbers are far higher. The generals know this and they worry about it all the time. They also have the data in detail.

If education and intellectual training matter in today's Army, as Gen. David Petraeus has suggested it does, then there is great cause for worry. Of course, there are many fine officers graduated from ROTC programs at average or mediocre colleges and universities, but if you look at the numbers from the top schools the attrition rate is well over 50%.

Based on my experience at West Point, where I taught for many years, as well long experience in the army including two years of combat, I argue that grads of USMA--where cadets earn a respected four year college degree as well as a commission--provide a foundation of integrity and professionalism to the officer corps. (I am not a West Point grad--I was commissioned from the ranks at the ripe age of 20.) These talented officers, and many others with first-rate educations, are leaving in alarming numbers.

You will find some senior generals arguing that they don't care about smarts but instead they want officers ready to get in the foxholes with their troops and officers who are committed to service, but in a technically sophisticated military facing complex challenges in Iraq and elsewhere, some brains and book-smarts matter too.
What the Pentagon is doing now is putting a cork in the dam. What the nation really needs is a full-blown debate about military (wo)man-power and about national service, and I hope Secretary Gates, who is proving to be a very fine Secretary of Defense, decides to address the bigger problem.


Army Offers Big Cash To Keep Key Officers - washingtonpost.com

A related story on large bonuses being offered to retain special operations people.

Young Officers Leaving Army at a High Rate

The nation needs a serious debate about military manpower. The current efforts to stem the flood of young officers opting to leave the military are no more than a few fingers in the dike. The flood continues, as do recruiting woes for the enlisted ranks. While the restoration of a draft is political poison, there remains a strong argument that required national service would restore ideological balance to the military as well as imbue young Americans with a sense of pride in service to their country. The reality is that the army, in paricular, is stetched far to thin. It is simply too small to do all that is demanded of it, notwithstanding the unpersuasive denials of Donald Rumsfeld.

Young Officers Leaving Army at a High Rate - New York Times: "It was the second year in a row of worsening retention numbers, apparently marking the end of a burst of patriotic fervor during which junior officers chose continued military service at unusually high rates.
Mirroring the problem among West Pointers, graduates of reserve officer training programs at universities are also increasingly leaving the service at the end of the four-year stint in uniform that follows their commissioning."

Army Stretched to Breaking Point on Yahoo! News

This is an important study by Andrew Krepinevich, who is a former colleague of mine. Andy is a fine analyst and his work has enjoyed a wide and respectful audience in the Pentagon. His earlier work, including a powerful book on the failure of the US in Vietnam, is serious and difficult to dismiss. Architects of failure in Iraq, including Donald Rumsfeld will exert themselves to dismiss this study with flag-waving and banalities. Don't fall for it.
Print Story: Study: Army Stretched to Breaking Point on Yahoo! News

Pentagon Says Iraq Effort Limits Ability to Fight Other Conflicts

The generals have been worried about this for a long time, but they often seal their lips outside of the Pentagon's corridors.
The New York Times > Washington > Pentagon Says Iraq Effort Limits Ability to Fight Other Conflicts: "The concentration of American troops and weapons in Iraq and Afghanistan limits the Pentagon's ability to deal with other potential armed conflicts, the military's highest ranking officer reported to Congress on Monday."

"The officer, Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, informed Congress in a classified report that major combat operations elsewhere in the world, should they be necessary, would probably be more protracted and produce higher American and foreign civilian casualties because of the commitment of Pentagon resources in Iraq and Afghanistan. "

Army Recruiters Say They Feel Pressure to Bend Rules

The New York Times > National > Army Recruiters Say They Feel Pressure to Bend Rules
Recruiting shortfalls now plague both the active army and the reserves. While Pentagon officials have studiously avoided admitting the scope of the manpower problem, it is an open secret that the the all-volunteer force is showing severe signs of strains. In my view, there must an open national debates about manpower, recruitment and national service.
This article should be read in tandem with the following front page story also from the Times. Serious doubts--though couched in delicate, reassuring language--are now being raised about readiness and the capacity of the US to respond to respond to serious security threats outside of Iraq and Afghanistan.