Lebanon's crisis threatens one of its few unifiers, the army

Lebanon's economic meltdown threatens to undermine its military, a force that Lebanese have long considered an anchor for stability

BEIRUT -- Since the civil war, through wars with Israel, militant bombings and domestic turmoil, Lebanese have considered their military as an anchor for stability, one of the only institutions standing above the country’s divisions. But the military is now threatened by Lebanon’s devastating financial collapse, one of the worst the world has seen in the past 150 years, according to the World Bank. The economic meltdown is putting unprecedented pressure on the U.S.-backed army’s operational abilities, wiping out soldiers’ salaries and wrecking morale. The deterioration puts at risk one of the few forces unifying Lebanon at a time when sectarian tensions and crime are on the rise amid the population’s deepening poverty. “Such a decline could be harbinger of the kinds of instability not seen since the last time Lebanon’s political elites gutted or set adrift the Lebanese armed forces, namely in the five years leading up to the 1975-1990 civil war,” said Aram Nerguizian, senior advisor of the Program on Civil-Military Affairs in Arab States at the Carnegie Middle East Center.