This position is currently held by General Abdel Mageed Saqr (since July 2024),[7] Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces and Minister of Defense and Military Production.

The only person above him in the leadership ladder is the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, who is the President of the Republic, and this position is currently held by Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.

[8] The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces consists of 23 members, headed by the Commander-in-Chief and Minister of Defense, and represented by the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces, with membership of: Commanders of the main branches of air, navy, and air defense, commanders of the border guard forces, commanders of the armies (Second and Third), and commanders of the military regions (Central, Northern, Western and Southern) and the heads of the Operations, Armament, Logistics and Supply, Engineering, Training, Financial Affairs, Military Justice, Management and Administration, the directors of the Officers Affairs and Military Intelligence departments, the Assistant Minister of Defense for Constitutional and Legal Affairs, and the Secretary of the Council is the Secretary-General of the Ministry of Defense.

[9][10] Senior members of the military can convene the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, such as during the course of the 2011 Egyptian revolution, when President Mubarak resigned and transferred power to this body on February 11, 2011.

[11] The armament of the Egyptian armed forces varies between eastern and western sources through weapons deliveries by several countries, led by the United States, Russia, France, China, Italy, Ukraine and Britain.

[14] Tsouras writes that the Israelis "seized and held the ..initiative throughout the campaign and quickly destroyed the Egyptian defences.

"[15] In a few instances, such as at the Mitla Pass and Abu Agelia, Egyptian defences were well-organised and stubbornly held, but this did not make enough difference overall.

[16] By early 1963, he would begin a four-year campaign to extricate Egyptian forces from Yemen, using an unsuccessful face-saving mechanism, only to find himself committing more troops.

All the Egyptian field commanders complained of a total lack of topographical maps causing a real problem in the first months of the war.

What fragmentary information is available suggests to authors such as Pollack that Amer was trying to improve the competence of the force, replacing political appointees with veterans of the Yemen war.

[23] After the war began on 5 June 1967, Israel attacked Egypt, destroyed its air force on the ground, and occupied the Sinai Peninsula.

Field Marshal Amer, overwhelmed by events, and ignoring previous plans, ordered a retreat by the Egyptian Army to the Suez Canal.

When the Yom Kippur War began in October 1973, the Egyptians were initially successful in crossing the Suez Canal and establishing a bridgehead on the eastern bank.

[28] Scholars such as Kenneth Pollack, DeAtkine, and Robert Springborg have identified a number of reasons why Arab (and Egyptian) armies performed so poorly against Israel from 1948 to the 1970s and afterwards; In battle against Israel from 1948, junior officers consistently demonstrated an unwillingness to manoeuvre, innovate, improvise, take initiative, or act independently.

[29] Ground forces units suffered from constant manipulation of information and an inattention to intelligence gathering and objective analysis.

Units from the two divisions dispatched to Saudi Arabia in 1990–91, accompanied by U.S. personnel during the 1991 Gulf War, consistently reported fierce battles even though they actually encountered little or no resistance.

[32] They are also influential in business, engaging in road and housing construction, consumer goods, resort management,[32] and own vast tracts of real estate.

[34] On 3 July 2013, the Egyptian Armed Forces launched a coup d'état against the elected government of Mohamed Morsi following mass protests demanding his resignation.

[37][38] The total casualty count made 14 August the deadliest day in Egypt since the Egyptian revolution of 2011 which had toppled former President Hosni Mubarak.

The Egyptian Armed Forces' unrivalled dominance, both in politics and within the security apparatus, appear to be the result of three combined factors: substantial economic interests, a long-time legitimacy buttressed by the army's active involvement in welfare and development initiatives, and the reliance on universal conscription as the main avenue for the successful accommodation of class and social cleavages.

[42] On March 25, 2020, it was reported that two army generals, Shafea Dawoud and Khaled Shaltout, had died from the COVID-19 pandemic in Egypt, and at least 550 officers and soldiers had been infected with the virus.

[49] It has about 579 combat aircraft and 149 armed helicopters as it continues to fly extensively upgraded MiG-21s, F-7 Skybolts, F-4 Phantoms, Dassault Mirage Vs, and the C-130 Hercules among other planes.

The Egyptian Navy existed thousands of years ago, specifically during the Early Dynastic period in 2800 BC.

After the Second World War, some fleet units were stationed in the Red Sea, but the bulk of the force remained in the Mediterranean.

AOI fully owns ten factories and shares in two joint ventures, plus the Arab Institute for Advanced Technology.