A Different Paradigm

Quite obviously, the big news of the day is the surprise resignation of Egypt's president-for-life, Hosni Mubarak. I say surprise, because just yesterday he gave a defiant speech declaring his intent to stay in power until elections are held in September. While the details are still fluid, it appears that between the predictable outrage of the crowds in Tahrir Square and understandable misgivings of the top brass in Egypt's military, Mubarak's hand was forced, and now the military is in control. There appears to be a fair amount of jubilation over this outcome, despite the fact that turning over power to a council of military leaders in itself apparently represents a violation of Egypt's existing constitution. Moreover, there seems to be some sentiment that this event, which by some accounts could be argued as a non-violent military coup, is somehow a great victory for freedom and democracy. What a strange notion that a military takeover of a government can be viewed as a victory for democracy.

Egypt (like its regional neighbor Turkey) has a military that historically is a strong player in national politics, most notably beginning with the 1952 Revolution in which the military overthrew the British-backed monarchy. In a fascinating article about the role of Egypt's military in the current crisis, Ellis Goldberg writes:

The Egyptian political system under Mubarak is the direct descendant of the republic established in the wake of the 1952 military coup that brought Gamal Abdel Nasser and the Free Officers to power. Nasser and the officers abolished Egypt's limited parliamentary monarchy and ousted an entire generation of civilian political and judicial figures from public life. They created their own republic stocked with loyal military figures. Their one experiment with technocratic governance, allowing Egyptian legal experts to write a new basic document, was a failure. The experts' draft had provisions for a strong parliament and limited presidency, which the officers deemed too liberal. They literally threw it into the wastebasket and started over, writing a constitution that placed immense power in the hands of the president.

Such an arrangement would prove to work out well for the military, as every Egyptian president since 1953 has been an army officer. For two generations, the military was able, through the president, to funnel most of the country's resources toward national security, arming for a series of ultimately disastrous wars with Israel. These defeats, combined with the government's neglect of the economy, nearly drove the country to bankruptcy. Popular revolt erupted between 1975 and 1977 over the government's economic policies. To regain control, the military turned its attention away from war and toward development. It gradually withdrew from direct control over politics, ceding power to domestic security forces and the other powerful backer of Egypt's ruling party -- small groups of civilian businessmen who benefited from their privileged access to government sales and purchases to expand their own fortunes.

Now, of course, the military has stepped back into direct control. While it certainly can be argued that this move at least brings temporary stability and limits the potential of terrible bloodshed in the near term, claiming that this is a victory for democracy as we understand it is a bridge too far. It would be highly unusual for a military coup, bloodless or not, to lead to a true representative democracy that would in any way diminish the role of the military. This may be a good thing for regional stability, with a nation that is vital to U.S. national interests, but that does not in turn mean freedom for the people. Read the whole thing, but as Goldberg concludes (emphasis mine):

The Mubarak regime as it has existed for the last decade -- an increasingly corrupt and incompetent government that has conferred immense economic advantages on a handful of politically connected businessmen -- has been shattered. A more open political system and a responsive government that ensures its own safety by trimming back the power and privileges of the military could still emerge. And the army may step in as a transitional power and recognize that, as much as it might like to, it cannot return to complete control. The Egyptian military is far more professional and educated than it was in the 1950s, so many officers may recognize the benefits of a democracy. More likely, however, is the culmination of the slow-motion coup and the return of the somewhat austere military authoritarianism of decades past.

Contrast this now with the model of the U.S. civilian-military relationship. By no means am I an expert in any of this, but it is clear that our paradigm for this relationship is far removed from the model typical in several Middle East nations. With the foundation of civilian control of the military, we are accustomed to a grand "bargain" that, while not without tension, has maintained a unique equilibrium between the people, the civilian government and the military. In a post on Powerline earlier this morning, before news broke about Mubarak, Mac Owens summarized his new book, U.S. Civil-Military Relations After 9/11: Renegotiating the Civil-Military Bargain. Owens writes:

The United States has been fortunate in that its military has successfully defended the Republic on the battlefield while avoiding threats to civilian control, the most extreme and dangerous forms of which are coup d'état and praetorianism. But tensions have always existed and are manifestations of the fact that from the time of the Revolution to the present day, civil-military relations in America essentially have constituted a bargain among three parties: the American people, the government, and the military as an institution.

The goal of this bargain is to allocate prerogatives and responsibilities between the civilian leadership on the one hand and the military on the other. From time to time throughout U.S. history, certain circumstances--political, strategic, social, technological, etc.--have changed to such a degree that the terms of the existing civil-military bargain become obsolete. The resulting disequilibrium and tension have led the parties to renegotiate the bargain in order to restore balance in the civil-military equation.

He goes on at length from there, asking some fascinating questions that he addresses in the book. It's lengthy, but a good read that makes me wonder if I should buy the book sometime. In the end, I find it worthy of reflection, if not essential to our understanding, of just how fortunate we are to not have the civil-military relationship so prevalent in places like Egypt. Military rule is authoritarian, and cannot by definition be democratic - yet to survive, a democratic form of government depends on military strength, with appropriate roles and responsibilities, checks and balances. For all of our flaws, we truly have a remarkable system.