The Egyptian regime has been inherently military from 1952 when Gamal Abdel Nasser with the Free Officers movement staged a coup d'état and overthrew the parliamentary monarchy that was established after Egypt's independence 30 years earlier. And military rule prevailed with Nasser's successors Anwar Sadat, and then Hosni Mubarak, before vacillating during the revolutionary turmoil between 2011 and 2013.

Another coup led by the former field marshal Abdel Fattah el-Sissi put an end to an unstable and pluralist parenthesis and reestablished the fundamentals of military rule. The presidential circle distributed sinecures among the generals whether they were on active duty or retired in the private sector,  and intelligence services were distributed throughout the country and among its population, where Egypt's general intelligence, run by the military, is paramount and acts both inside and outside Egypt.

Shortly after his return to the White House, Donald Trump suspended all forms of foreign aid, with the exception of Israel and Egypt. El-Sissi's regime was reprieved due to a clause in the Israel-Egypt peace treaty signed under the aegis of the US in 1979, which grants $2 billion in military aid each year to Israel of which two-thirds goes to Egypt. For more than four decades, Egypt's generals have regarded the $1.3 billion as their due, and have refused to put aside even a portion of it to benefit the country's development. However, since the money is often reinvested in the acquisition of American military equipment, Cairo can count on the support of Washington and the industrialists involved – a veritable lobby that is financed by the American taxpayer.

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