military north africa

7/27/2019 Military North Africa

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REVISIINGCIVIL-MILIARY RELAIONS IN

NORH AFRICA

One of the main failures of the Middle East academic community in anticipating the Arab Spring 2010-2011 has been the community’s under-appreciation of how the civil-military landscape has changed since the 1970s, particularly in North Africa. This paper, through a case analysis of Libya and Tunisia, explores the strategies of civil-military relations under Qadhafi and Bourguiba and Ben Ali to find the explanatory factors of the military’s role in the Arab Spring.

The paper concludes that the policies of the leaders in bothcountries contributed to the midwife role that Arab armies have played during revolution, particularly looking at the civilian transition in Tunisia and the army’s fragmentationand the armed civil war that ensued in Libya.

Jais Mehaji

In the Middle East and North Arica, themilitary has been a key and enduring element inunderstanding the durability o authoritarianism inthe region, having constituted the backbone o ma ny authoritarian regimes in the area.1 Military politicsin the Arab world have held a particular importanceor scholars or many reasons. Chie among themis that Arab politics, since their postcolonial

history, have been characterized by “the continuousintererence and the ascendance o army ocers inthe political lie o their countries.” 2 Tis has beenthe case in Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Iraq andother countries at dierent historical junctures.Notorious or its requency o coups, between the1940s and the 1960s, there were no less than threedozen actual and abortive coups in the region.3 Another reason or the key importa nce o Arabmilitary politics resides in the military’s central rolein acilitating transitions in the 2010-2011 “ArabSpring”, particularly in unisia and Egypt, but alsoplaying a decisive role in the Libyan uprising andongoing turmoil in Syria and Yemen. Arab armieshave been propelled to the oreront o Arab politicsonce again.4

Civil-military relations in the Middle Eastand North Arica (MENA) have however beenunderappreciated and have experienced a scholarly

neglect in recent years, primarily because o thedecline o Arab coup politics since the late 1970s,despite the act that the army has still continued toplay a crucial role in the internal aairs o MiddleEastern states. As military coups waned, academicinterest in Arab military politics also aded, whichhas let a gap in the region’s civil-military relationsliterature.

Te wanin g o the Arab milit ary coup era couldbe attributed to the act that military élites hadsuccessully consolidated themselves in countrieslike Egypt, Syria, and Iraq by using moresophisticated tools o coercion and by integratingthemselves with other segments o the politicalélites such as the technocratic and commercialbourgeoisie class.5 Te retreat rom direct and openinterventions has compelled the military to “operatethrough more subtle, and sometimes structural,intertwinings between civil and military networks.” 6

Tis sugg ests that a lthough t he mil itary coup era ha sbeen in decline, the weight o the military in Arab

states’ internal aairs has not diminished. As coupsdecreased in requency and as regimes became moreconsolidated and stabilized, “the debate on the natureo the military regimes in the Arab world had lostmuch o its importance in the Arab Middle East andthe Maghreb.”7 Furthermore, as Arab armies becameproessionalized (or rather‘re-proessionalized’) when compare d to their previ ous roles as gueri lla

or revolutionary armies, Huntington mistakenly interpreted them as a return to the barracks, becauseno link has been ound between proessionalizationand depoliticization.8 Nonetheless, this changingtrend o Arab militaries and their role vis-à-vis thestate and society requires serious analysis.

As Eliz abeth Picard instr ucts us well beore theadvent o the 2010-2011 Arab Spring, Arab military participation in politics requires the adoption o anew perspective or the post-1970s era. Exactly how armies in the Arab world have been integrated in what Ste phen Ki ng terms the ‘ne w authorit aria nism’o the 1980s and 1990s requires a look at regimestrategies in ensuring their armies’ loyalty – whetherthese strategies have an ethno-sectarian, tribal,economic, or institutional dimension to them. Wethus need to revisit and give civil-military relationsin the Arab world a new perspective, one that takesinto account the social and political changes o the

last thirty years, as well as the remarkable diversity in the politico-military “encephalogram” 9 o theregion. Gregory Gause notes that one o the ailureso the Middle East acad emic community in missingthe seismic shits o 2011 was due to a prooundunder-appreciation o civil-military relations.10 Whil e th e li teratu re h as u ndersta ndably ocuse d oncivil-military relations in countries where militarieshave dominated the political scene such as Algeria,Egypt, Syria, and Iraq, very little has been writtenabout civil-military relations in the North Aricanregion, whose importance has been somewhatneglected as it has historically been peripheral tothe major Arab theatres o war. With the ArabSpring however, and the toppling o regimes havingoccurred in two North Arican countries – unisiaand Libya – the region has gained a renewedimportance that merits some reection.

Tis p aper wil l shed light on civ il-mil itary relat ions

in North Arica, through a case study o how regimeshave interacted with their militaries in Morocco,



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Alger ia, unis ia, and Libya . As the Arab S pring h asdemonstrated, militaries have oten ound themselvesto be the ulcrum o revolutionary dynamics, havingplayed determinative roles in sealing the ates o Ben Ali, Mubarak and Muammar Qadhaf. Inact, no revolution can succeed without the armedorces’ acquiescence; the backing o the army is not asucient but a necessary condition or revolutionary

success.11 Dierent regimes have managed theirarmy’s role in the state and society in very dierent ways, which has generat ed interes ting anal ytica linsights and theoretical implications. Because theNorth Arican regimes have been cognizant o thenecessity o maintaining their military’s loyalty tostay in power, a range o methods have been used:

“Tese include increasing non-military support by cultivating social, economicand religious groups; courting thehigh command and ocer corps withcorporate and private benefts; appointingmembers o specifc groups- otenprivileged minorities- to key posts inthe armed orces; and preventing ocersrom building a support-base within themilitary by purging potential opponents,monitoring military activity, rotatingcommands and establishing independent

security services reporting directly to thepresidency or the palace.” 12

Te purp ose o this paper is to account or thedierent strategies that North Arican regimeshave used to ensure their military’s loyalty, to draw theoretical implications, and to contextualize thesestrategies with ongoing developments, providinganswers as to how successul these strategies havebeen. In the context o unisia and Libya in the Arab Spr ing, th is paper w ill oc us on how Bourg uibaand Ben Ali’s practices o marginalizing the military establishment has ensured a civilian transition todemocracy in 2011, and how in Libya Qadhaf’sdeep distrust o militaries and ear o coup explainsthe army’s implosion and ragmentation that led toan armed civil war in 2011. Why divergence ratherthan convergence has characterized civil-military relations in North Arica has been a result o twoimportant actors: (1) the army’s role in achieving

postcolonial independence and the subsequent state-building process and (2) the agency and political

mastery (or lack thereo) o leaders like KingHassan, Houari Boumedienne, Habib Bourguiba,or Muammar Qadhaf.

TUN ISIA : MA RGINA LIZAT ION AN D

TRA NSITION TO CIV ILIA N RULE

Civil-military relations in unisia since independence

in 1956 have been quite unique or many reasons when compare d to its Alge rian, Morocco andLibyan neighbors. In unisia, two key eatures wil l be discus sed: 1) the milit ary establ ishment ’smarginalization and subordination to civilian ruleunder Habib Bourguiba and continued by Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, and 2) the army ’s midwi e rolein the 2011 Arab Spring’s political transition tocivilian lie, which was a logical consequence o theDestourian strategies to keep the army weak.

Trough out the frst decade o indepe ndence, the unisian arme d orce s were a negl ected govern mentagency; a result o the pre-protectorate and later onFrench legacy, but also an implication o Bourguiba’sinstitutionalization o a powerul one-party rule.In terms o the French legacy, native unisianssaw military service as debasing and military ruleillegitimate. Even under Destourian rule, beingin the military proession was not looked upon

avorably and the principle o civilian leadership hasalways been the linchpin o Bourguibism. Te elitethat ruled unisia ater independence emerged romthe national resistance movement dominated by theNeo-Destour, and most o the elites were socializedin the eastern coastal provinces, having received asecular Francophone education.13 Tese elites werequick to exclude military and religious elites rompolitical decision-making. Because the unisianpopulation was essentially homogenous, there wasno need or military umpirage as in Lebanon’sconessional system.14 Reusing to be mired in Arabtheatres o war, Bourguiba relied mainly on theinternational community 15 or matters o externaldeense. Contrary to Morocco which set up the army as a political instrument- even though the monarchy was caut ious not to poli ticize it- in unisia th e Neo-Destour party dispensed with the need or a strongarmy, or ear that using the army as a politicalinstrument could politicize it in undesirable ways.

Ater unisian army ocers were implica ted inan attempt on Bourguiba’s lie in 1962, Bourguiba

clearly outlined in 1963 his vision o civilia n primacy in state-building:

“Ocers must also realize that these tasks[o state-building] are matters or thepolitical authority and or it alone. It canonly perorm them i it knows that theState’s existence is secure...It is easier to

get rid o a man than to replace him.”16

Te Socia list Destour part y sought to impose acivilian management on the army and the security orces. Despite his reliance on diplomacy orexternal deense, Bourguiba slowly expanded themilitary ater 1962, as a result o disputes with Alger ia. Nonethel ess, it was clea r that Bourg uiba was adama nt on keepi ng his army weak andsubordinated to civilian authority.

Lewis B. Ware is one o the most authoritative sourceson the role o the military in unisia’s Bourguibaand post-Bourguiba era. In his work, he contendsthat the military establishment in unisia “is a non-praetorian, highly proessional body o ocers andmen which, as an armed orce, never mounted acoup or omented revolution against the state, neverinvolved itsel directly in the Arab-Israeli crisis, hasnever been the instrument o national ema ncipation

except as the adjunctive arm o civilian policy, andhas always answered to the authority o the statethrough the intermediary o a civilian ministero deense.”17 As King Hassan did in the 1970s,Bourguiba banned any member o the military rom joining any p olitica l move ment, includ ing t he Neo -Destour. Te unisian military was thus investedsolely in the deense o national integrity and asguarantor o the survival o unisian nationalism,it was unquestionably subservient to the resolutely non-militarist civic values o Bourguibism.

Bourguiba tried to ensure the loyalty o hisarmed orces by limiting its size and quantity o armaments, in order to dissuade them rom any orm o independent intervention in the aairso the state. In the frst decade o independence,investment in weaponry was the lowest rate o expenditure in the Middle East, never reachingas much as 2 per cent o the estimated GNP. 18

In unisia the military establishment has beeneectively isolated rom power and subjected to

civilian primacy except or on two occasions, in1978 and 1984, when the government ordered theormal intervention o the unisian army to restoreorder during severe civil disturbances.19 Anotherexception was naming colonels to command nationalsecurity orces and d irect communications at the endo the 1977 disturbances; they were nonetheless weresubordinated to the Interior Minister and were happy

to return to the barracks ater unrest had abated.20 During times o student and worker unrest in the1970s the security orces have been occasionally requested to intervene, urther confrming thequasi-impossibility o the military exercising poweron its own. Te security orces were Bourguiba’sbest instrument o military loyalty. From the1970s onward, the president created a variety o paramilitary internal security agencies feldingheavy weaponry and additional intelligence agenciestasked with monitoring one another, policing theirpopulations.21 Te excessive behavior o these orcesin early 2011 were the source o revu lsion among the unisian popula tion.

Tough he wa s an army man, Zine El A bidine Ben Ali continued the Bourg uibist practi ces o civi lianprimacy over the military, except that he marked adeparture rom Bourguiba in eectively rendering unisia a police state. He joined the army at age

15 and was appointed director o military security in 1964, then promoted to director-general o national security in 1977. 22 Ben Ali was the only proessional military member o an elite composedmainly o civilian politicians, university graduates,and lawyers. His support base was ound in theInterior Ministry and the security apparatus, thusdid not inherit the same institutional support as t heBourguiba he deposed in a medical coup in 1987.Composed o various competing secret services, thesecurity apparatus (mukhabarat) employed 150,000to 200,000 people, “virtual ly becoming a state withinthe state.”23 Ben Ali’s unisia was thus a police state where the 50,00 0 manned milit ary establ ishmentound itsel supplanted by a much larger, betterunded, and more politically inuential network o security agencies under the aegis o the InteriorMinistry.24 Tus, not only did Ben Ali continueBourguiba’s practices o politically sidelining themilitary, he actively counterbalanced it with the

growing power o the security apparatuses, which would have signi fcant rami fcations durin g the



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popular mobilization o December 2010 and January 2011.

In December 2010, street demonstrations galvanizedby the sel-immolation o a young ruit vendor,Mohamed Bouazizi, led to severe civil unrest andprotests demanding the downall o the Ben Aliregime and his party, the RCD. Police and security

orces harshly responded with the demonstrators inan attempt to quell the unrest. President Ben Aliused a gang o pro-government thugs and unleashedhis elite Presidential Guard against the protesters, which only exacer bated the unisian popula tion’sdistaste or the country’s paramilitary orces. Ben Ali also ordere d the army chie o sta Genera lRachid Ammar to support the security units by deploying troops, but Ammar reused, eectively dealing the fnal blow to the Ben Ali regime andorcing the president into exile. Why the army decided to save the revolution and reuse to shootagainst protesters, even opening fre on unisiansecurity and intelligence units, is a consequenceo the Bourguibist and Ben Ali relations with themilitary, as identifed above. Te unisian army,because it was marginalized since 1956, was neverinvested in the regime like in Algeria or Egypt,or had any stake in the regime’s survival. It wascomparatively disadvantaged to the detested security

orces, and was not a benefciary o any signifcantsource o patronage or oreign assistance; thus hadew economic interests tied to the regime. Havingbeen kept distanced rom the political sphere since1962, and under the oversight o the paramilitary National Guard since 1968 (a civilian orce), thisarrangement has created a schism between the a rmy and the civilian authority. Because the unisianarmy saw itsel strictly as deender o the territorialintegrity o the country, it did not enjoy suppressingcivil unrest. Ware noted the antagonism thatemerged as a result between the ar my and the policeorce, well beore the Arab Spring when he wrote hispiece in 1985:

“Te military has resented having toassume a police unction which belongsto other organs o security under civiliancontrol. And it is the bureaucrats o theInterior Ministry whom the soldiers

hold responsible or dereliction o duty.Hence, a certain distrust between armed

orces and Interior is beginning to makeits appearance in the context o an uneasy eeling that the civilians ca nnot cope withthe problems o social disorder. At thesame time, the military does not believeit is receiving either added benefts orrecognition or the new burden thecivilians have la id on its shoulders.”25

“It is apparent that Ben Ali’s strategy o marginalizingthe military had the unintended consequence o acilitating the transition rom his rule.” 26 As a resulto Bourguiba’s strategies o keeping the militar y outo politics, the army has been reluctant to let go o itsapolitical, nationalist, institutional, and proessionalrole. Its reluctance to take over the reigns o powerater the downall o Ben Ali urther attests to itsocus on reestablishing the status quo ante ratherthan taking on a more active and hegemonic role. 27 Te deleg itimiz ation o secre t police , anti-ri otorces, and other coercive agencies during the unr esto 2010-2011 kept the army, which was relatively autonomous, intact and suitable or playing themidwie role o political transition. Te military’ssubordination to civilian rule under Bourguiba andBen Ali was urther instantiated when the military reused to take over any ocial political unctions asin Egypt. In sum, unisian civil-military relations

highlight the case o a weak, not provided or,apolitical, sidelined military establishment eclipsedby the growth o paramilitary institutions andsubordinated to civilian authority. Tese patternshave been the explanatory actors o why unisia’sarmy reused to shoot on protesters and precipitatedthe exile o Ben Ali to Saudi A rabia, “allowing statebureaucrats and jurists [to] take the lead.”28

LIBYA: PRIMORDIALIZATION AND

FRAGMENTATION OF THE MILITARY

Until this past year, very little has been writtenabout civil-military relations in Libya. Te literatureon Libyan politics has suered rom Qadhaf’spersonalistic and opaque style o rule, especially regarding his relationship to his armed orces. Tissection will bring attention to the main elements

o Qadhaf’s relationship to the Libyan military establishment – namely his deep distrust o it, despite

coming to power in a bloodless military coup in1969, and how that r elated to the deection o a largepart o his orces during an armed civil war that only ended with the liberation o ripoli in August 2011.Exactly how Qadhaf attempted to coup-proo hisarmy throughout his 40 years o dictatorial rule, andthe implications o those attempts during the 2011Libyan Civil War will orm the bulk o analysis.

Muammar Qadhaf was a remarkable young captain when in 1969 he and other junior ‘Free Ocer s’staged a bloodless coup deposing the unpopular,pro-Western Sanussi monarchy. Tough the FreeOcers had a network in the army, they were aminority in the ocer corps.29 During the phase o seizure, expansion, and consolidation o power thepolitical vacuum in Libya at the time meant ampleopportunity or the new ocer-elite to monopolizethe system o political power. Te new elite’s frsttask was to consolidate its power over the coerciveapparatus and the army. Tis task was acilitatedby the act that other higher ranking ocers weresympathetic to and cooperative with Qadhaf’sorces, since they were also planning a coup. Qadhafthen proceeded by purging nearly all middle-rank and senior ocers (about 430), placing the FreeOcers into the vacant commanding positions.30 Tough or a sho rt period Qadha f ap pointed some

high ranking ocers like Colonel Musa Ahmadas Interior Minister or Colonel Adan Hawaz asDeense Minister in the frst cabinet, when they exhibited signs o seeking more independentpositions, Qadhaf ruthlessly purged them andlaunched a process o eliminating all high rankingocers o the upper class as well as the educatedmiddle class in the ocer corps.31 Tus, by avoidingany recruitment o and purging older ocers, andby propelling the junior ocers in their twenties tohigher positions, the generational dimension hasbeen a particularly salient issue in Qadhaf’s controlo his army. Qadhaf also purged any elements seento be loyal to the monarchy as well as those suspectedo any orm o opposition to the reg ime.

Despite coming rom a military background andseizing power through a coup himsel, Qadhafexcluded both the army and bureaucracy rom any visibl e politic al rol e, exce pt or top un it command ers

which as par t o the frst core o elite acted as inor malmediators between clients and decision makers.32

Nonetheless, Qadhaf made serious attempts toremain close to his army base. He held on to thepost o Deense Minister in order to exercise directcontrol over promotions and dismissals in the a rmy.“Signifcantly, he had evidently allowed no politicalocer to turn the army into a personal ‘fedom’comparable to that o Amer in Egypt.” 33 Moreover,Qadhaf marginalized those who played a key role

in the 1969 coup by keeping them outside o theRevolutionary Command Council (RCC). In Libya,contrary to Egypt, the army did not orm a powerulpolitical-administrative sphere o recruitment andocers have not been given any roles in the civilbureaucracy or any ministerial ranks.34 Nevertheless,though not institutionalized, some ocers that havebeen included in Qadhaf’s core elite still retainsome inormal power and possess a key constituency or that elite.

Qadhaf’s strategy or coup-proofng his army – which has pr esented sever al c hall enges to his rule –has been mainly to create parallel military structuresas countervailing orces to the military elite. He frstsought to mobilize the Libyan population by creatinga “people’s militia” in the early years o the revolution,comprised o part-time public employees, workersand armers.35 Largely used or guard duty at strategiclocations, the “people’s militia” was dispatched to

Uganda to bolster Idi Amin’s regime in the 1970s. As a way o counterba lanci ng the proessi onalmilitary orce, in the early 1980s Qadhaf mobilizedemale students and trained them in actories, highschools, and universities which essentially becamemilitary barracks.36 Qadhaf deliberately generatedantagonism between the army and people’s militia,granting the revolutionary press a ree rein inpublishing open attacks in 1983 that besmirched theormal army.37 Te “people’s militias” underscoredthe distinction between ‘proessionals’ and ‘loyalists’and were used by Qadhaf as a certifcation process which was a way or ‘loy alis t’ ocers to persu adeQadhaf o their support.38 Tese loyalists wereto dominate the military command structure andcontrol key military installations. Comparatively,the proessional ocers enjoyed much less inuenceand many o them have been demobilized. Kamravaremarks that Qadhaf “gives ar more priority to therevolutionary credentials and loyalty o his ocers

as opposed to their rank or qual ifcations.”39



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Another strate gy Qadha f used to elimi nate thepossibility o coup was to rely on military advisorsrom abroad, particularly rom East Germany,Syria, and Cuba.40 Some estimate up to 3,500oreign advisors were relied upon to counterbalanceany possible coup attempts by Libyan units.41 Teseexpatriate units were essentially used to hold key intelligence and security roles (since the late 1980s

Syrian pilots were to y in the Libyan air orce)and they actively complemented the loyalists inthe Libyan army, representing a counterweightto both the loyalists and the proessionals. Tisorm o compartmentalization o the military hasbeen a salient eature o Qadhaf’s military modusoperandi. Tis way, dissension in one unit can beeectively contained beore it permeates to anotherpart o the military establishment, ensuring thelocalization o any orm o coup attempt. Tirdly,Qadhaf’s strategy also consisted o increasingly relying on acquiring ‘smart’ biological and chemical weapons, which were well- suited to coup-proo his orces since “they represent a maximal threato mass destruction with minimal requirements inhuman resources.”42 Qadhaf sought to decrease hisdependence on his army by relying on these ty pes o weapons. F inal ly, triba lism ha s colored an i ncreas ingnumber o Qadhaf’s decisions vis-à-vis the military establishment. Since the 1980s, Qadhaf thought he

could ensure the loyalty o his army by appointingocers based on their tribal origin. o orm thesecurity organizations, Qadhaf preerred to recruitmembers o all six tribes o the Qadhadha tribalcommunity and requently suppressed any dissidenttribal groups inside Libya.43

Since the 1990s, military unrest has underminedthe eectiveness o Qadhaf’s ragmentation o the military with regards to army loyalty. A lot o unrest has ensued in Libya in the 1990s and theLibyan army has been responsible or a number o coup attempts. In October 1993, a military plot,devised by an army colonel to ambush Qadhaf inBani Walid, ailed, leading to the arrest o 1,500people and the execution o hundreds. 44 Also, sincethe mid-1980s a considerable amount o soldiers andocers have been unpaid experiencing wage arrearsand cuts in arms spending as a result o budget cutsrom the restructuring o the economy.45 Another

element that has threatened the loyalty o Qadhaf’sarmy has been the military unre st since the deeat o

the Libyan army by French-backed Chadian orcesin 1987. Te orced withdrawal o Libyan troopsrom the Aouzou Strip in 1994 coupled with theICC’s ruling in avor o Chad ha s led to the growingdisaection o the ocer corps and subsequentabortive coups rom dierent tribes and militantIslamists.

Ultimately, the disaection o the military establishment and much more importantly, thecontagion eects o the Arab Spring that startedin unisia and spread to Egypt, took the Libyanregime and the entire world by surprise. Protests which began in Be nghazi on Febr uary 15 and aced violen ce by th e secu rity and loy alis t element s withi nthe army, quickly escalated into an armed rebellionby deected soldiers, volunteers, and a cross-sectiono Libyan society. In March a NAO coalition ledby Britain, France, and the United States enorceda UN-mandated no-y zone over Libya to protectcivilians, giving rebels close air-support, ultimately leading to the liberation o ripoli in August. Tisled to the dismemberment o the Libyan Arab Jamah iriya a nd the capt ure and e xecution o Qa dhafby rebel groups south o Sirte in October 2011. Teimplosion o the army and the armed civil war thatensued were a direct result o Qadhaf’s strategy o ragmenting the army to coup-proo it.

Qadhaf was well aware that his army could not betrusted, because rather than initially deploying theregular, more proessional army, he frst unleashedhis paramilitary organizations and security unitscommanded by his relatives. Almost all o theunits near Benghazi and obruk in eastern Libyadeected, while desertion was common or largesegments o units in Kura, Misrata, the WesternMountains, and Zaqiya.46 Particularly interesting was Qadha f’s d ecision to im port mercena ries romsub-Saharan Arica, Europe, and Latin America –as a continuation o his past practices o relying onoreign fghters. Te tribal element discussed abovealso helps us understand why some segments o theLibyan orces were persuaded by the coercion andbribery o the Qadhaf regime. Tose tribes whichell out o love with the regime as shown throughthe deections and desertions were not lured by theQadhaf’s last-ditched desperate eorts to dispense

patronage.

Te above anal ysis sugges ts that the var ious coup-proofng strategies that Qadhaf implemented,such as the tribal stacking, ragmentation o ocercorps through creation o competing paramilitary agencies, and inadequate economic benefts – inconjunction with the relatively important rolethe army plays in saeguarding the revolution andthe state – have ailed to ensure its loyalty to the

same extent Bashar al-Asad has in Syria, or moretenuously Ali Abdullah Saleh in Yemen. Surely,the Arab Spring precipitated the implosion o theLibyan armed orces, yet coup risk or ar my deectionmust be understood to reect structural, backgroundcauses that increased its likelihood, “rather thanimmediate, triggering causes that precipitate specifccoups.”47 With or without the permeable regionalorces o the Arab Spring, Qadhaf would have mostlikely aced signifcant challenges rom the military establishment sooner or later. How the militiasand dierent rebel groups will disarm and orm anational army is another question, and what role themilitary will play in Libya’s post-Qadhaf period willbe interesting or scholars o civil-military relations.

CONCLUSION

Tis paper has sketche d out a vari egated pictur eo civil-military relations in North Arica, onethat is complex and characterized by a number o interlocking actors and variables such as, but notlimited to: ethnic and tribal coloring o the ocercorps, the apoliticization o the army in unisia,and to a lesser degree in Libya; the role o the army during the colonial and post-colonial period in Alger ia; the eect o p urgi ng in Morocco a nd Libya ,in nearly all o the cases explored the prolierationo paramilitary institutions; the allocation o patronage and economic procurements o militaries;the idiosyncrasies and convictions o particularleaders like King Hassan, Bouteika, Bourguiba,and Qadhaf- whose particularist actions played key roles in managing the civil-military balance- therole o oreign policy, and many others. Tese actorsall interact with each other and this interaction isconditioned by the historical contingencies andspecifcities o the country and regime in question.

Te pape r then ol lowed by accounti ng or th e statu so North Arican civil-military relations today,

particularly the relation King Muhammad VI has with his milita ry, that o a n a ging Boutei ka withthe generals, and at present the new role o themilitary in the Arab Spring o 2010-2011 or unisiaand Libya.

unisia looks the most lik ely to entrench the pri ncipleo civilian primacy that was initiated by Bourguiba,

with a highl y proess ional ocer corps which hashappily remained in its barracks. Libya looks themost uncertain, and the situation can go either way,though recent developments have suggested a morebleak medium-term given the prolieration o smallarms and military cleavages that have emerged.

One actor which will be important to look at isthe role o paramilitary and parallel agencies, whatDroz-Vincent calls “tentacular” apparatuses.48 Tis was and still is a orm o coup-pro ofng or theNorth Arican regimes, but its use seems to havebackfred in unisia and Libya, oten ater growingantagonism disrupts the balance between the twoand is reected in the population. More work needsto be done in this area, as the literature on security sectors in the MENA has been scanty. Oren Barak and Assa David note “the lack o adequate attentionto the Arab Security Sector and its complex politicalsocial roles in the Arab States” and that “recent

theoretical and comparative advances in the study o civil-military relations have not been paralleledin the study o the Arab Security Sector.”49 How the security services interact with the military asin unisia, or with other state institutions like theparty and bureaucracy, their unctions, their relationto the president or King are all pertinent questionsbecause o the sector’s importance in Arab politics, wil l enhance our unders tandin g o civi l-mili tary relations.

Tis paper has demonstr ated a r egai ned interes t i ncivil-military relations and the regional importanceand uniqueness o North Arica. Te army’s role in Arab politic s ha s be en a nd c ontinues to be decisi veand politically cr itical. Paying more attention to theregion’s civil-military relations will illuminate theacademic community’s understanding o this critical junctu re and the Middl e East’s politi cal direc tionor decades.

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