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Comment by Revanche1367 | Hacker News Reader

Any large government project in Egypt is a project of the Egyptian military. That’s the result of being under a military dictatorship with a fake civilian president.

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A state of affairs you can thank the US for.

Besides Israel and, as of recently, Ukraine, Egypt is the biggest receiver of US military "assistance". Most military officials have attended elite U.S. military academies and the two forces work closely together.

The 2011 revolution successfully outed Hosni Mubarak (another Egyptian dictator propped up by the US). Following the 2012 elections came the 2013 coup by Sisi. Except, the US was one of the few countries in the world that refused to label this a "coup". The Rabaa Massacre marked the definitive end to the Arab Spring in Egypt

Which exact part of the state of affairs? Because if your point is that the current regime is propped by US assistance, it sounds fair, but would Egypt be a democracy if this military dictatorship disappears? If anything, revolution of 2011 suggests it's unlikely.

Besides, your sources need to be updated as you seem to believe that Ukraine is within top 3 receivers of the US military aid, and it's definitely not true.

The revolution that overthrew a US-backed authoritarian lead to a democratic election. The results of that election were thrown out the window when another coup brought in another US-backed authoritarian

> Besides, your sources need to be updated as you seem to believe that Ukraine is within top 3 receivers of the US military aid, and it's definitely not true.

As of 2026 Q2, the U.S. disbursed over $116 billion in aid to Ukraine and is obligated for a total of $177b. Yes the rest is being disbursed despite Trump's political antics

https://www.ukraineoversight.gov/Funding/

> As of 2026 Q2, the U.S. disbursed over $116 billion in aid to Ukraine and is obligated for a total of $177b. Yes the rest is being disbursed despite Trump's political antics

Where are you getting those numbers from?

https://www.ukraineoversight.gov/Funding/

Here's the Congressional Budget Justification for FY-2026 if you wanna dig in https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/FY-2026-Sta...

Total Appropriated: $195.03 billion

Total Obligated: $177.76 billion

Total Disbursed: $116.02 billion

This does not look to be “military” spending on Ukraine, it’s all spending.

$135b of it is from the "Department of War". What percentage do you believe is not "military" spending and why do you think that?

Also the distinction seems silly for a country in total war. Funding their medical or food system or whatever means they can re-allocate money to defense

    The results of that election were thrown out the window

Might be good to mention the result of that election were Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood (the originator of many jihadist movements like Al-Qaeda).

And that vague connection justifies what exactly ?

The parent correctly noted that the elected president represented ideology with ideals of is violent theocracy, and he almost immediately started powergrabbing, trying to gain non-supervised judicial and legislative powers in addition to executive. How vague is that? I don't know, to me it looks rather clear that this was a path from one authoritarianism to another.

Mohamed Morsi, far from a violent theocrat, was actually a neoliberal. Egypt, being 90-95% Muslim, ofc would take inspiration from Islamic law principles. Morsi was democratically elected and sought to maintain that democracy unlike that authoritarian that replaced him.

The Brookings Institute even rated him with the Polity Index (which goes from -10 to +10 with -10 being autocratic and +10 being democratic) and concluded he got between a 2 and a 4.

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/was-mohammed-morsi-really...

Notably, unlike the current US-backed regime, he did not repress or imprison opponents.

I'm obviously not a fan of either leaders but it's absurd to suggest he did anything that justified ending a democracy.

The result was definitely unfortunate. He was a neoliberal that was friendly to Israel, China, and even the Iran (to the dismay of the Brotherhood). He only won by about 4 percentage points. Definitely not what I would've wanted for Egypt (I don't think Egypt needed to further the failed neoliberal project) but it was a democratic election nonetheless.

The phenomenon of mostly democratic elections installing the next authoritarianism is not unknown. And Morsi was clearly not a democrat.

You are comparing multi-year overall aid with one-year specifically military assistance which is not how it works.

To be clear, Egypt receives on average $1.3 billion annually and Israel in a normal year receives about $3.8 billion. Ukraine has received $116 billion since the invasion and averaged about $250m before it.

> A state of affairs you can thank the US for.

Egypt was a military dictatorship long before they were American allies. You can thank Nasser for that. Repproachment with Egypt in the 1970s was a diplomatic effort to stop the fighting between the Arabs and Israel, and to win over a Soviet ally.

The US supported the democratic movement and even helped ease the way. In fact, alot of Middle Eastern countries are still resentful for American support of the Arab Spring. But it couldn't stop, and admittedly wasn't particularly interested in stopping, the regression back to a military dictatorship in Egypt given the elected president was about as democratic as Turkish president Erdogan. But it never intervened, AFAIU, because while dysfunctional, Egypt is relatively stable from an international perspective and a reliable-enough American ally either way.

What are you talking about? This is literally every single major infrastructure project in the world. In the U.S. for example, every major waterway and roadway is built by the govt (local or federal). There is even the “Army Corp of Engineers”.

You can dislike the project, but take your political beaf elsewhere. Your statements are irrational.

Tbh I think your point is overstated but you do bring up an interesting point that affords me the opportunity to plug a really interesting relevant book called Standardizing Empire: The US Military, Korea, and the Origins of Military-Industrial Capitalism. It traces the origins of both global capitalism and the US military's involvement in massive infrastructure projects back to post-war South Korea. In the 50s, about 60-70% of all oceanic shipments were movement of goods to and from SE Asia by the US military. You can, arguably, thank this economic/infrastructure project for the standardized shipping container.

https://bookshop.org/p/books/-/dd8603df55055d43

Here's a good interview with the author:

https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/new-books-network/patri...

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