History: UsefulNotes / EgyptiansWithEagleFighters

The Egyptian military is the tenth largest in the world. It consists of the Egyptian Army, Egyptian Navy, Egyptian Air Force and Egyptian Air Defense Command. Theres also a few paramilitary forces, the Border Guards, and National Guard.

The Egyptian military traces its origins to the forces organized by Muhammad Ali Pasha in the early 19th century; they were the first modern, professional military in the region.

Since the coup d'etat of 1952, the military has been a primary player in Egyptian politics. The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces--the General Staff, more or less--was the country's highest ruling body for over a year and a half after the Revolution of 2011, until the elected President Mohamed Morsy pushed the SCAF back into the shadows in September 2012.

The Egyptian military is essentially [[RedsWithRockets Soviet]]/[[RussiansWithRustingRockets Russian]] in organization, as Egypt was more or less aligned with Moscow during the ColdWar. This means of [[{{Conscription}} conscripts]] at the enlisted level, with officers filling in many of the functions of [=NCOs=].

Egypt's alliances have been varied; in the pre-coup period, Egypt was a protectorate of Britain and arguably part of TheBritishEmpire, so until 1952 most Egyptian military equipment was secondhand or surplus British stuff. The vague alliance with the USSR (we emphasize that Egypt was never fully in the Russian camp) led to a modernization of the Egyptian military along Soviet lines, including the adoption of Soviet military equipment. Both Soviet tanks and Soviet guns were produced in Egypt under license. Furthermore, Egypt often got some of the better Soviet equipment to play with, as Britain, France, and the US were all [[ArabIsraeliConflict selling their best equipment to Israel]] and the Soviets wanted to see how their stuff matched up against the Western equipment.

However, in the 1970s, Egypt turned from a Soviet ally to a Western one (for reasons too complicated to explain here). Since then, the US has been Egypt's main supplier of arms, with Egypt getting the US versions of most military equipment; granted, most of it is secondhand or surplus, but it's also the real deal.

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