Can Military Governments be a good thing (for a while)?

[Firn]

I was going to write the same thing. They seem to have decided to keep a relative low profile - if it can be called that way - and avoided the usual arrests.

We will see.

[Dayuhan]

A good thing? No. A necessary thing, maybe, in some very rare circumstances, if the people to be governed accept it.

Anybody who starts thinking a military government would be a good thing for somebody else needs to be hit hard on the head before he has any chance to put that idea into action.

[TheCurmudgeon]

I don't have a copy and would love to know.

As far as I can see, military coup is just another option for a bloodless transition. It depends on the motivation of the military. I don't think it needs to be automatically and arbitrarily attacked.

I like the model the Egyptian's have take so far. The choice of the head of the Supreme Constitutional Court was a nice choice.

For a long time the Turkish military guaranteed secular government that Ataturk tried to establish. That kind of dedication to an ideal can act as a stabilizing factor or it can be used to gain personal political power.

[jmm99]

The OP title, Can Military Governments be a good thing (for a while)?, immediately brought to mind two questions:

1. "Good thing" for whom ?

2. "Good thing" for what ?

Each has, I expect, a dozen or more answers; as well as a similar plethora of answers for the counterpoint questions:

1. "Bad thing" for whom ?

2. "Bad thing" for what ?

--------------------------
Links to USMC Small Wars Manual (Wiki, Manual and NWC Book Review). The most important concept is the end goal, chap. 15, "Withdrawal".

I expect a spirited discussion would evolve from consideration of whether the USMC interventions in Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Nicaragua were "good things" or "bad things".

Regards

Mike

[slapout9]

I don't have a copy and would love to know.

As far as I can see, military coup is just another option for a bloodless transition. It depends on the motivation of the military. I don't think it needs to be automatically and arbitrarily attacked.

I define good as being better than a decent into internal Civil War. The Army appears to be trying to preserve the primarry purpose of Government which is to Protect and Provide the

jmm99 has provided several references for the manual. Chapter 13 on Military Government appears to be what the Egyptian Army is in so far as they are being selective as to who and what is replaced until elections can be established.

[Firn]

I was going to write the same thing. They seem to have decided to keep a relative low profile - if it can be called that way - and avoided the usual arrests.

We will see.

I was completely right, they only took a great deal of key members into costudy. Morsi is still a free man, so far.

Egypt's new military rulers have arrested the Muslim Brotherhood's supreme leader, security sources say, and issued warrants for up to 300 other members hours after ousting the elected president, Mohamed Morsi, and taking him and his aides into military custody.

The day after a momentous night in Cairo has revealed the full extent of the military overthrow, with key support bases of the Muslim Brotherhood, including television stations, closed down or raided.

Security officials told the Associated Press and Reuters that the Brotherhood's supreme leader, Mohammed Badie, was arrested in a coastal city near the Libyan border on Wednesday and flown to Cairo in a military helicopter.

The Brotherhood spokesman Gehad el-Haddad said he could not confirm the reports because the group had lost their lines of communication to Badie.

@jmm99: Cui bono indeed?

Morsi certainly was elected in a quite democratic fashion but selected to ignore a good deal of that democracy as a sort of fading fashion. Shame on him. Religion alone does in any case not sort out the economy of a country. It is of course impossible to tell how much the last years in government have weakened the brotherhood and how much strenght they can win from this coup.

[TheCurmudgeon]

Being a military man, I would like to think that the military that understands its role as a servant of the country (however you define THAT term), can step in when the alternative is a decent into civil war. There has to be other options.

I wonder if things had been different in Syria had the military not sided with Assad. I realize that is fantasy, but it begs the question of when the military has a duty to protect the population, even from its own government.

I take an oath to the Constitution, and then to the President and the Officers appointed over me. I prefer to think that, in other parts of the world, military men think the same way. I realize this has shades of "Starship Troopers", but reality can be stranger than fiction.

[Firn]

Looking at my sig there have been indeed some cases, where a quicker execution of what the intellect dictated would have saved first the one of democracy and later the very own.

... "We need officers capable of following systematically the path of logical argument to its conclusion, with disciplined intellect, strong in character and nerve to execute what the intellect dictates"

General Ludwig Beck (1880-1944);
Speech at the Kriegsakademie, 1935

Thankfully Europe today is a different continent despite the big crisis. Mr Bunga bunga and a mad Magyar.

[Fuchs]

The question shouldn't be if something is "good", but whether it's the least evil option which is available and realistic.

One can hardly think of Stauffenberg et al and not think that there are at least exceptions when a coup by or with the military is better than the status quo.


In most potential military coup scenarios it's better to keep the military in the barracks - especially if a civil war is a possibility. There isn't going to be much of a civil war if the military stays in its barracks. The threshold for the launch of a civil war by dissenters is typically so high that the government couldn't stem it with police forces alone.
Countries with lots of tribal institutions, paramilitary forces, access to foreign forces or domestic warlords are obviously exceptions to this. Soon, countries with a very much hardware-supported police state may be added to this list of exceptions.

[jmm99]

Pro re militari.

Regards

Mike

[ganulv]

Morsi certainly was elected in a quite democratic fashion but selected to ignore a good deal of that democracy as a sort of fading fashion.

Even so, does that justify removing him from office in an illegal manner? I feel like one of corollaries of adopting a democratic system is accepting that voters are going to make the wrong decision at times.

Religion alone does in any case not sort out the economy of a country.

As painful as it would have been for the people of Egypt to let the Morsi stagnation continue, I have to believe that with enough time many of his supporters would have come to accept exactly what you are saying. (Not all of them would have, admittedly. I’m an American. I know that ideology can blind people to facts. )

Al-Qaeda has been saying for years that democracy will never give an Islamist party the opportunity to succeed. Whatever favors the Egyptian military may have just done for their country’s economy may have been matched by the favors done for Al-Qaeda.

It is of course impossible to tell how much the last years in government have weakened the brotherhood and how much strength they can win from this coup.

I did a short post on my blog [LINK] questioning whether ‘coup’ is the best word for what happened in Egypt. I’m not saying that I know the right word, just that I suspect that coup might not be it.

[davidbfpo]

This thread posed a general question before recent events in Egypt and a separate thread is about to be started on the developing situation in Egypt. The title is 'Egypt: has the Spring ended?'

A number of the posts here on Egypt will be moved to the new thread.

[TheCurmudgeon]

Dave, how is Cromwell's "coup" remembered in British civil and military history?

[davidbfpo]

Dave, how is Cromwell's "coup" remembered in British civil and military history?

Most history of this period is called 'The English Civil War' and Cromwell's later coup against an elected, Puritan parliament although recorded was not widely known today. It certainly featured in the 1970 film 'Cromwell':http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065593/

This changed when the story of 'The Levellers' became part of a new interpretation of populism and revolutionary aspects of English history, allied with part of the fringe around the 'left':https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levellers

Amidst that difficult time it is important to note and taken from a review of a play in 2012:

It tells the story of the 55-day military coup in the mid-1600s when Cromwell's army took control of Parliament and moved to put King Charles I on trial for treason.

Link:http://www.theweek.co.uk/theatre/497...-military-coup

Context can provide a better answer sometimes; I cite a review of a new 2012 book on Cromwell:

The main theoretical premise of his book, The Noble Revolt, is to put forward a view of the Civil War as basically a coup d’état by a group of nobles or aristocrats who no longer supported the King. According to Diane Purkiss these nobles were ‘driven by their code of honour, they acted to protect themselves and the nation. Names such as Saye, Bedford, Essex and Warwick move from the side-lines to occupy centre stage, as do their counterparts among Scottish peers. It was they and not the rude masses who plucked a king from his throne. Oliver Cromwell, for Adamson, was merely one of their lesser lackeys’.

Link:http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/review/1254

An article in an Egyptian e-paper actually refers to Cromwell's coup!http://www.dailynewsegypt.com/2013/0...-coup-de-quoi/

Incidentally I doubt that the syllabus at RMA Sandhurst or any other military training place includes this period. We have had other coups too, such as 'The Glorious Revolution':http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glorious_Revolution

[TheCurmudgeon]

Us young colonists lack the context of your history. Most of what I know from that time is from a series of books by Quentin Skinner "The Foundations of Modern Political Thought". In that book i remember some quotes from other military men finding the acts of the King to be against the rights and honor of an Englishman. There is quite a bit about the Levellers and other similar groups in Europe, particularly the Dutch republics. It makes interesting reading for those who think that the idea of individual human rights have always existed but were simply repressed by the European monarchs since time immemorial. The Romans have no history of human rights.

So when I look at places like Egypt today it is easy for me to see shades of Europe circa 1650. That is a simplistic view, but I think there are lessons that can be learned from the machinations that Europe went through before stabilizing politically in the 1950s.

[carl]

Even so, does that justify removing him from office in an illegal manner? I feel like one of corollaries of adopting a democratic system is accepting that voters are going to make the wrong decision at times.

That corollary works in a country where the voters can reverse their mistake when the next election comes around. If they elect a 'one man, one vote, one time' outfit that opportunity will never come. That is when certain armies step in, as in Algeria and Turkey. The world would have been a lot better off if the Heer had stepped in in 1933.

Al-Qaeda has been saying for years that democracy will never give an Islamist party the opportunity to succeed. Whatever favors the Egyptian military may have just done for their country’s economy may have been matched by the favors done for Al-Qaeda.

I don't think doing things so that AQ can't say 'gotcha' is a winning game. No matter what happens or happened they would always say it is somebody else's fault and they should run things. After all Allah is on their side. Just ask 'em.

[slapout9]

I posted this article on another thread but it pertains to this as well. Saudi King says to support the Egyptian Army! Excellent article.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/saudi-king-...151611137.html

[TheCurmudgeon]

On the BBC News yesterday, Professor Rosemary Hollis was interviewed and remarked that 33% of the Egyptian economy is owned by the military.

This offers another interesting perspective. If the major problems in the company are economic and if the military has experience in business, does this not provide another argument for the military?

[davidbfpo]

Two contrasting, but similar commentaries. The first is by a Conservative MEP, Daniel Hannan and has some telling passages, like this:

There is no such thing as a good coup, only bad coups and worse coups. All military regimes, in time, become tawdry and self-serving. Whatever intentions the army officers begin with, they end up as petty tyrants. An elected ruler is kept in check by the knowledge that he can be fired. Take that knowledge away and, however pure his motives, he will end up arranging the affairs of state around his personal convenience.

Link:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...ntentions.html

A BBC Newsnight commentary, four minutes or so, which gives a very quick overview of 'Egypt crisis: Does political Islam have a future?':http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-23736446

[davidbfpo]

This offers another interesting perspective. If the major problems in the company are economic and if the military has experience in business, does this not provide another argument for the military?

Somehow I have m' doubts that a serving or retired Egyptian soldier has excellent commercial acumen, more likely via the state apparatus he'd have an "insider's track" on investments, such as a property development. In a wide-ranging critique from the 'left' Nick Cohen commented:

To add robbery to murder, it has built a military-industrial complex that keeps Egyptians poor by preventing new businesses competing with the elite monopolies it controls.

Link:http://www.theguardian.com/commentis...-west-response