ABSTRACT
This chapter delves into the relationship between the professional military and the civilian society in the Middle East and North Africa. It focuses on the varying roles the armed forces play in the political and economic lives of their individual countries, and offers explanations for how those roles evolved. The chapter considers the delicate balance between professional soldiers and civil authority in a region where military power was often the backbone of new nations, and where "civilian" leadership often consisted of retired military officers who had come to power behind the barrel of a gun. The state of civil-military relations is the most critical issues for any political system. Civil military relations are also about political control in the military sphere. Peter D. Feaver puts it well: "The civil-military challenge is to reconcile a military strong enough to do anything the civilians ask them to do with a military subordinate enough to do only what civilians authorize them to do".
