Arab Union

The Union of Arab Republics (UAR; Arabic: اتِّحاد الجمهوريات العربية ittiḥād al-jumhūriyāt al-‘arabīyah), informally known as the Arab Union (الاتِّحاد العربي al-ittiḥād al-‘arabī), is a country in North Africa and Western Asia. It is governed as a federation of 20 politically equal member republics which share sovereignty with the federal government; the republics each have their own elected government with jurisdiction over a majority of domestic affairs, as per constitutional provisions and amendments regarding republican versus federal areas jurisdiction. The Egyptian Arab Republic is the union's most populous and economically dominant member republic, with a population of around 104 million or over one-fifth of the country's total population; its capital, Cairo, is the largest city in the Arab Union by population, population density and economic output, and is also fourth most populous city in the world. The federal capital is the city of Suez, located on the western bank of the Suez Canal where it meets the Gulf of Suez and Red Sea, directly across the canal from the cities of East Suez and Kiryat Ibrahim in the Palestinian Arab Republic, which form part of the Suez–Cairo Metropolitan Area; while Suez is located on the Egyptian side of the canal, the city proper is directly administered by the federal government and as such does not form part of the Egyptian Arab Republic. The Arab Union covers a vast, environmentally and culturally diverse landscape of almost 11.9 million square kilometres, making it the second-largest sovereign state in the world by land area after the Russian Federation, and with a population of over 433 million in January 2018, it is the third-most populous country in the world, after People's Republic of China and Republic of India. Arabic serves as the mother tongue of at least 95% of the population; it is the sole official language of the union and its 20 member republics, many of which also recognise other languages at the local level. The Arab Union is home to a majority of sites considered holy by the three Abrahamic faiths of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, making it a central destination for both religious pilgrimage and tourism, and hosts multiple important and protected archeological areas as well as 85 UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Its large territory encompassing several unique landscapes and climate zones also makes the Arab Union one of the world's 18 megadiverse countries.

The Arab Union was originally established in 1958 as the United Arab Republic, a union of the two revolutionary Arab nationalist republics of Egypt and Syria; following the admission of Iraq to the UAR in 1963, the three remained the only members of the union until the start of the 1986–89 Arab Revolution. Following the rapid rise in popularity and strength of pan-Arabist movements throughout the Arab world during the 1970s and early 1980s, many sovereign Arab governments, ever the more reactionary, took a heavy-handed approach to stabilising the situation involving the pan-Arabist protests and related demonstrations (the great majority of which were peaceful); the use of lethal force by security forces against demonstrators, strikers and journalists in several states became the catalyst to the arming of the revolutionary pan-Arabist movement, which was organised by the National Command of the Ba'ath Party and made possible by the party's respective regional branch in each Arab country. The armed pan-Arabist militias answered to a committee of the leaders of each allied revolutionary organization; the committee would be funded by the Military Committee of their country's respective Ba'ath Party regional branch. These militias were either led or directly supported by the Union Defence Forces (UDF) in virtually all decisive and at least 25% of all other military actions during the revolution; the entire revolutionary campaign across all theatres of battle was, however, coordinated and directed by the Office of the General Staff of the Union Defence Forces and ultimately the president of the UAR in his capacity as commander-in-chief, meaning even actions not directly involving UAR forces occurred as part of consolidated strategic calculation. In this way, the UAR became during the revolutionary war de facto quite larger a state than it was de jure, with revolutionary-controlled territories across the Arab world practically falling under UAR administration.

The Arab Revolution entailed a protracted armed conflict between UAR and pro-UAR forces and a fluctuating array of opposing forces. The better part of the first year of conflict (10 months give or take) consisted mostly of conventional fighting between the UDF and the standing armies of the Lebanese Republic, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (the first Arab states to attempt to violently suppress the pan-Arabist movement), with pro-UAR revolutionary forces in each of those countries fighting alongside the UDF. Paramilitary units of revolutionary forces undertook a huge campaign of industrial and military sabotage to disrupt enemy capabilities as well as infiltration and neutralisation of counterrevolutionary political groups to weaken the enemy's base of power, while special covert forces carried out multitudes of intelligence and counterintelligence operations and mass communications/propaganda projects to bolster the revolutionary cause and undermine enemy morale. By the spring of 1987, revolutionary forces controlled significant portions of Lebanon, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the Emirates, including the major cities of Beirut, Amman, Irbid, Riyadh, Dammam, Jeddah and Dubai, as well as many smaller cities and towns across the four countries and portions of other major cities and larger rural areas; the Air Force Intelligence Directorate estimates that approximately 36% of the four countries' combined land area was controlled by UAR or pro-UAR forces at the end of March 1987. On 31 July 1987, after a period of relative calm, the Ba'ath Party's regional branch in Lebanon and allied pan-Arabist revolutionary parties gathered at the Parliament Building in Beirut to draft the request to accede to the United Arab Republic, the finalised copy of which was presented to the Union Admissions Delegation in Cairo ten days later; the following day, 10 August, President Hafez al-Assad], on advice of the [[Arab Congress which had passed the resolution presented by the Admissions Delegation, signed into law Executive Order 110.4, officially making Lebanon part of the United Arab Republic. Lebanon was followed by Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the Emirates, which between 21 and 24 August 1987 drafted and submitted their own accession requests, and which on 25 August were simultaneously admitted to the union by presidential executive order. The United Arab Republic now consisted of seven members.

By the start of 1988, the great majority of regular military forces opposing the United Arab Republic had been neutralised, via either destruction, outright desertion or more commonly, defection to revolutionary forces. The nationalist governments of the four new member states became governments in exile for all intents and purposes, with areas of these states not controlled by UAR forces mostly under the control of neutral tribal militias. The former governments of Lebanon, Jordan and the Emirates relocated to London, while the former Saudi government retreated to Yemen, where it quickly attempted to take control of the political order, quickly resulting in civil conflict. Yemenis opposing the attempted Saudi coup were immediately supported financially and militarily by pro-UAR forces, with the sitting Yemeni government pledging its loyalty to the UAR; the conflict thus became a new theatre in the ongoing Arab Revolution. In June 1988, the remaining pro-Saudi forces and their political leadership were forced to retreat to then-neutral Oman; following the Omani government's refusal to allow UAR forces to pursue the enemy into Omani territory, the UDF and its allies initiated the July 1988 invasion of Oman, culminating in the 29 July fall of Muscat to UAR forces and the surrender of the Omani government; all pro-Saudi forces in Oman were neutralised or captured in the following weeks. The last five months or so of 1988 entailed sporadic fighting across the newly expanded UAR and its occupied territories, mostly entailing clashes between pro-UAR forces and Islamist forces operating in the territory of newly admitted UAR members: following the ideological and virtual military defeat of enemy Arab governments, multiple Islamist terrorist groups led by the Muslim Brotherhood and al-Qaeda merged to form the National Council for Jihad (NCJ), which quickly came to pose the greatest military threat to the UAR, whose government Islamist fundamentalists viewed as heretical due to the secular nature of its pan-Arabist ideology.

1989 began in Algeria and Tunisia with the simultaneous violent takeover of the two states by Islamist forces linked to the NCJ; by the end of January, the Algerian and Tunisian governments had gone into exile, while a delegation of local Islamist leaders and NCJ leaders in Algiers, and an identical delegation in Tunis, declared an Islamic state in Algeria and Tunisia, respectively. Immediately following the takeover, the UAR began planning for a joint invasion of Tunisia and Algeria, with the stated goal of preempting more devastating attacks by NCJ forces as a result of its control of state resources. During the takeover, several Tunisian and Algerian military divisions defected to the UAR, often bringing with them military hardware ranging from firearms and other munitions to military aircraft and naval hardware; all military aircraft and most naval hardware which remained was destroyed by the Arab Air Force during the Islamist takeover before it could fall into the hands of NCJ forces. A ground invasion of Tunisia, immediately followed by Algeria, was planned for 10 February; on 2 February, however, before preparations for the invasion were fully underway, President Muammar Gaddafi of Libya and the Libyan Ba'ath Party's Regional Command presented to the Union Admissions Delegation a formal request for Libya's accession to the United Arab Republic. On 7 February 1989, Executive Order 110.8 was signed into law by the president, and Libya became the eighth state to be admitted to the UAR. The Libyan Armed Forces were merged with the Union Defence Forces, and Gaddafi was made Minister of Defence, a position he retained until the end of the war.

The invasion of Algeria and Tunisia began in earnest on 19 February 1989, with the first phase lasting approximately six weeks. The Arab Army entered the countries first via Libya and quickly took control of most of the countries' rural territory and many constituent towns and smaller cities within two weeks, virtually all urban areas excluding the capital cities within three weeks, and then laid siege to Tunis and Algiers, which fell on 4 April and 5 April, respectively. Localised fighting would continue for another three months between guerrilla formations of the NCJ and its allied sleeper cells, but by the end of April, UAR control of Algeria and Tunisia was all but assured. On 20 February, as the invasion of Algeria and Tunisia began, a pan-Arabist armed uprising began in the Kingdom of Morocco, which on 16 March culminated in the overthrow of the Moroccan monarchy and the proclamation by the revolutionary forces of a Republican Provisional Government. Islamist groups in Morocco, many of which had initially supported the anti-monarchist uprising, took up arms against the provisional government after its declared intent to join the UAR, and officially joined the National Committee for Jihad coalition of terrorist groups. Around this time, the Moroccan Army split roughly equally three-ways between those who supported the provisional government, those who supported the Islamists, and those who supported the deposed monarchy; between 17 March and 10 April, the great majority of monarchist forces were neutralised or arrested by either provisional government or NCJ forces, the former controlling the majority of urban areas including the capital and the latter much of the countryside. On 11 April 1989, the Republican Provisional Government of Morocco formally requested Morocco's accession to the UAR; the following day, similar requests were issued by Ba'athist-led pan-Arabist political coalitions in Algeria and Tunisia. On 15 April 1989, three consecutive presidential executive orders were signed and ratified, admitting the three states to the United Arab Republic.

a coalition of nationalist and Islamist groups, with both sides contesting control of the multiple formerly sovereign Arab states, all of which were ultimately pulled into the conflict. Emerging victorious at the end of 1989, the Ba'ath-led UAR consolidated its control over the newly reconstituted Arab republics, which formally placed themselves under a new federal administration, the last Arab republic being admitted in 1990. The name was changed to the Union of Arab Republics, reflecting the new federal structure of the republic, which had until the end of the Arab Revolution ruled the two original republics and subsequently admitted republics during the revolution under a single unitary authority. The end of the revolution and associated armed conflict marked the emergence of the UAR's contemporary form. The period of postwar reconstruction across the new union was mostly finished by the start of the new millennium, which gave way to an exponential increase in economic integration of the Arab world, as well as increased sovereignty on the global stage due to the amalgamation of each republic's military apparatus under the Arab Union Armed Forces.

Today, the Arab Union represents the world's third largest economy, with a large industrial and manufacturing sector and rapidly developing consumer goods, research and development, information technology and high tech sectors. All major cities and the majority of smaller cities in the 20 republics are connected by a national expressway system which was funded by the federal government as part of large-scale deficit spending during the late 1990s reconstruction period, which ultimately proved a sound investment, with similar developments including the refurbishment and construction of railways and modernisation of major ports. The Arab Union also has the highest standard of living in both North Africa and Western Asia. Its armed forces constitute the third largest standing army in the world, after Korea and the United States, with the Arab Union often considered a potential superpower. It is a full member of the United Nations, the Arab League, and the Non-Aligned Movement, and is one of the G20 major economies. Since 2000, the Arab Union has been considered by Western powers to be nuclear-capable, although the government denies possessing nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction. Nuclear energy is widely used and officially generates 18.3% of the union's electricity as of January 2020.

Since mid-2011, the Arab Union has experienced civil war in many regions, which began following mass civil unrest and armed uprisings in many republics that were put down by the military; the 2011 unrest was dubbed the "Arab Spring" by media, and the resulting ongoing civil war is thus usually referred to as the Arab Winter. The conflict is between the Ba'athist government of the Arab Union led by President Bashar al-Assad, and its domestic and foreign allies, and an array of Islamist armed groups funded by foreign sources including Arab expatriates and Western governments; many of the latter, the strongest and most influential of which is currently the Muslim Brotherhood, are at war with each other in addition to the government, with several inter-rebel battles equally destructive as those involving the Arab Army or allied forces. The Arab Union government is supported militarily by Russia and Iran, and many Islamist groups have been supported directly and indirectly by the United States, making the Arab Winter a proxy war with potential to widen in scope. The war had resulted in nearly 1.2 million casualties as of 2019, three-quarters of which represent civilian deaths, and also caused a mass exodus of over 10 million people which was the primary contributor to the 2015–18 European migrant crisis. The Russian intervention beginning in late 2015 ultimately turned the tide of the war decisively in the government's favour: as of the start of 2020, fighting is concentrated in small, relatively isolated regions limited to the republics of Yemen, Syria and Iraq, with life continuing normally for the overwhelming majority of the population. Over 75% of refugees from the war have since returned to their homes, most of those damaged or destroyed since their abandonment having been rebuilt or repaired via federal reconstruction subsidies and foreign aid, which have also funded the restoration of public infrastructure.

Politics
There are two main centres of political power in the Arab Union: the government of the Arab Union, represented by the Arab Congress which elects the Council of Ministers; and the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party, one of the founding political parties of the Arab Union and the only party to form government since the admission of the last republic to the union in 1990. The President, the highest office in the country, is both constitutionally head of state and since the union's founding, the de facto leader of the ruling party, which in the case of the Ba'ath Party is the National Secretary of the National Command.

Ba'ath Party
The Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party was founded in 1947 in Damascus as a pan-Arabist movement seeking the establishment of a unified Arab state. The Ba'athists became the leading faction of the Pan-Arab Army during the 1986–1989 Arab Revolution, a large-scale armed conflict in most of the formerly independent Arab states, which resulted in the consolidation of Ba'athist hegemony over the Arab world and the subsequent establishment in 1990 of the Arab Union as a federation of the Arab republics. Since then, the Ba'ath Party has been the sole ruling political party; five other social democratic and leftist parties are officially allied to the Ba'ath Party as part of the National Progressive Front (NPF), a united front led by the Ba'athists which holds a majority of seats in both chambers of the Arab Congress. Federalist (pro-union) opposition parties are permitted to exist and contest legislative elections, however nationalist parties as well as Islamist and other extremist parties are illegal and barred from partaking in federal or republican politics.

The highest organ of the Ba'ath Party is the National Congress, which is held in Damascus every three years as a plenary meeting of the 20 regional branches' Regional Command (which is elected by its respective Regional Congress). The National Congress elects the National Command, which is officially the highest authority in the party between sessions of the National Congress. The National Congress also elects a National Secretary to lead the National Command, whose actions are accountable to the party as a whole at subsequent National Congress sessions.

Government
According to the 1999 constitution, the highest institution of state power is the Arab Congress, the federal legislative assembly which consists of two nominally equal chambers: the Council of Deputies, the "lower house", consists of 545 seats each representing a single electoral district of roughly 833,000 people; while the Council of Republics, the "upper house", consists of 123 seats, 5 for each of the 20 constituent Arab republics regardless of population and one for each autonomous region. Regular legislation begins in the Council of Deputies, with passed bills subsequently voted upon in the Council of Republics which if passed become law. This order is reversed in certain proceedings. Criminal law is entirely federal in nature, while civil and family law is the jurisdiction of republics. The Supreme Court of the Arab Union is the highest judicial authority in the country; its eleven puisne justices are appointed by both chambers of the Arab Congress, who elect from amongst themselves a President of the Supreme Court, also known as the Chief Justice. Directly subordinate to the Supreme Court of the Arab Union are the supreme courts of each republic; the court system hierarchy is republican in nature, with all regular trial courts subordinate to a republican supreme court, the Supreme Court of the Arab Union being the only truly federal court, and hearing only unique cases affecting the union as a whole as well as appeals of cases already tried in republican supreme courts.

The Council of Ministers is the top executive body of the Arab Union, which oversees multiple federal ministries as well as executive state committees. The Council of Ministers is the cabinet of the Prime Minister, the head of government of the Arab Union. The Prime Minister and his cabinet can be removed from office by a vote of no confidence in the Arab Congress, as well as via presidential executive order.

The head of state is the President of the Arab Union, who is popularly elected every seven years. The Presidency is vested with sweeping executive and legislative powers, including the power of veto over legislation passed by the Arab Congress and the ability to remove the Prime Minister, whom the President officially appoints on advice of the Arab Congress. These powers are also applicable at the republican level, as the President of the Arab Union is considered head of state of each constituent republic. Impeachment proceedings against the President are initiated in the Council of Republics, and must be passed by the Council of Deputies before going to the Supreme Court for final ruling.

Each constituent Arab republic has its own republican-level government, which consists of a unicameral Republican Congress elected by the republic's constituents, which elects the Premier who heads the republican Council of Ministers to oversee republican ministries. For example, the Palestine Arab Congress is the legislature of the Palestinian Arab Republic, which elects the Palestinian Council of Ministers and the Premier of Palestine. The constitution lays out a strict delineation between the responsibilities of the federal and republican levels of government, with little overlap of jurisdiction. For example, the Ministry of Interior is always a republican-level ministry, overseeing the distinct National Police of each republic, while the Ministry of Defence is a federal ministry overseeing the Union Defence Forces.

Administrative divisions
The 20 republics of the Arab Union are the first-level administrative divisions of the union; being a federation, the union's member republics each have their own elected government which share sovereignty with the federal government. Below that level, all administrative divisions exist purely at the discretion of the respective republican government, which may create or abolish such divisions as it sees fit, with the sole exception of autonomous regions.

The hierarchy is identical within each member republic: a republic consists of several governorates (Arabic: محافظات muḥāfaẓāt; sg. محافظة muḥāfaẓah) each of which are composed of at least three districts (منطقات minṭaqāt; sg. منطقة minṭaqah), which in turn encompass multiple municipalities (بلديات baladiyāt; sg. بلدية baladiyah). Each level has an executive body with jurisdiction over public administration within the division, appointed by the superior level of government. For example, each governorate is led by a governor, who is appointed by the republic's premier, and who in turn appoints an individual as prefect (head of government) of each constituent district. Municipalities differ in that they are each headed by a mayor who is popularly elected by the citizens of that municipality; the mayor's cabinet, however, is still subject to the authority of higher levels of government, namely the governor, who may order the dissolution of a municipal government, thus removing the mayor and initiating new municipal elections.

Municipalities are the lowest level of administrative division. Some major cities have merged the two or even three lowest levels into a single level of government; for example, the federal capital of Cairo is a single jurisdiction merging the governorate, district and municipal levels of government, as is Beirut, while consolidated district-municipalities include Amman, Aleppo, Damascus, Baghdad, Mosul, Sanaa Riyadh, Dammam, Abu Dhabi and Tripoli. Consolidated two- or three-level jurisdictions resemble most closely municipalities in their governmental structure.

Within a single municipality will often be found multiple boroughs; however, they exist only as geographical divisions and do not possess any government or administrative authority. There are no federal districts or federally administered territories within the Arab Union, meaning that any locality is simultaneously officially part of a particular municipality, district, governorate and republic.

Law and order
Each of the 20 republics has its own National Police, which answers to the republican government's Ministry of Interior. The National Police is responsible for all civilian law enforcement at the republican, governorate and district levels, which is how National Police departments and subordinate precincts are organised. Municipalities are responsible for forming a police board, which either contracts with the National Police to maintain a local municipal department which it oversees, or which commissions a local police department recruited from the local population; the former is the norm for small cities, towns and rural townships, while the latter is common in larger cities. For example, the city of Alexandria in the Egyptian Arab Republic is policed by a municipal department of the Egyptian National Police, while Cairo has its own department known as the Cairo Metropolitan Police.

Federal law enforcement is under the jurisdiction of "T" Directorate of the Joint Security Committee, a security agency attached to the federal Council of Ministers which also has directorates responsible for national security, surveillance, foreign intelligence and counterintelligence.

Enforcement of customs and immigration policy including related activities like border patrol and security of international points of entry is handled by a Joint Security Committee directorate, while the actual naturalisation and citizenship process is handled by republican interior ministries, which also oversee vital statistics and census matters. A federal census is conducted once every seven years by the Ministry of Health, a federal ministry, typically shortly before a presidential election.

Constitution
The Constitution of the Arab Union, proclaimed in 1999, states that the Arab Union is a secular state, and a federal republic with a semi-presidential system of government. The President is vested with ultimate authority, and can veto legislation as well as dismiss the Prime Minister, who is always a member of the party with the most seats in the Arab Congress, the bicameral federal legislative assembly of the country.

The constitution declares the country as the homeland of the Arab nation, the majority of the population speaking Arabic as a first language, which also functions as the lingua franca of the country. Arab people and seventeen other minorities are officially designated by the constitution as Scheduled Peoples of the Arab Union; the languages of the minorities have official status in the autonomous regions where they are used. However, Arabic is the sole official language of each Arab republic and its regular governorates as well as of the federal government.

The secular state outlined by the constitution officially entails the separation of church and state, declaring that all religions may be practiced openly and separately from government. Religious shrines and places of worship are officially protected, and are not subject to land tax at any level of government, but are otherwise not genuinely tax-exempt. The constitution makes no mention of specific religions by name, stating only that a religion is a "system of belief" about "life, death, and the divine" common to a particular community. There is also a prohibition on discrimination based on religious affiliation. Religious extremism is explicitly prohibited, with such groups outlawed by the constitution, notably the Muslim Brotherhood. The constitution also makes mention of equal rights between genders, as well as the prohibition on discrimination according to sex, which has been interpreted by the Supreme Court of the Arab Union to include sexual orientation.

Military
The Union Defence Forces (UDF) are the regular military force of the union, consisting of three active service branches: the Arab Army, Arab Navy and Arab Air Force; each active service branch also has a complimentary reserve force, whose personnel may be deployed on active duty during wartime. National defence policy mandates the reserves be at least as numerous in personnel as the active forces during peacetime. The Union Defence Forces have over 3.3 million active servicemembers and almost 4.3 million reserve members, over three-quarters of whom are members of the Army or Army Reserve. The three active and three reserve service branches answer to the General Staff of the Union Defence Forces, which is subordinate to the Minister of Defence who appoints the Chief of the General Staff. The President of the Arab Union is ex officio commander-in-chief of the UDF, according to the constitution.

The President is also commander-in-chief of the National Guard, a unified command of militia forces raised by the member republics. The command structure of the National Guard exists as a parallel hierarchy to the UDF, with its own General Staff which answers directly to the President, bypassing the Minister of Defence and Prime Minister. This parallel military structure is part of a comprehensive coup-proofing policy employed by the Arab Union government. This role is shared by the Republican Guard, an elite mechanized division of the Arab Army responsible for protecting the President and the Council of Ministers, and the only division of the armed forces allowed on the grounds of the Presidential Palace.

National Guard personnel are similar to reservists, in that most maintain separate full-time occupations, normally training on weekends with their brigade. Each National Guard brigade is named after the municipality or district in which it is based, with almost all urban and many rural communities having a local brigade raised from members of the community. While republican governments are responsible for organising National Guard brigades, equipment and funding is provided by the federal government directly through the office of the President.

The Military Police Directorate under the Ministry of Defence serves as the provost (official law enforcement) of the armed forces, responsible for enforcing law and order amongst all UDF personnel as well as National Guard personnel when on active duty. The Military Police are also charged with assisting civilian National Police personnel in maintaining order and security during major national events such as presidential inaugurations.

During the ongoing civil war known as the Arab Winter (2011–present), the Arab Army has deployed in multiple zones across 16 of 20 republics, fighting an array of extremist rebel forces which managed to hold territory including cities for long periods. During this time, the National Guard increased exponentially in size, becoming responsible for maintaining government control following a community's liberation from rebel forces by the Arab Army, which itself would swiftly move on to areas still under insurgent control. Police in many of these communities continue to rely on the superior firepower of National Guard forces to maintain pacification and proceed with uncovering and arresting rebel cells, which often results in deadly skirmishes. Arab Army operations against rebel forces typically involved extensive air support by the Arab Air Force, while the Arab Navy and its Marine Forces took the lead in securing the union's many ports and waterways. As of November 2019, a total of 296,417 personnel remain deployed on active duty, the vast majority inside the Arab Union, including 204,733 Arab Army personnel.

The economy of the Arab Union has a large defence sector, which consists of over 50 large- and medium-sized companies, both state-owned and publicly traded. Together, the sector produces at least 80% of the weapons and equipment needs of the military, which also imports abroad mainly from Iran, Russia and Germany. The defence sector also produces arms and military hardware for foreign customers, the actual export of which is handled exclusively by the government via the Military Purchases Directorate under the Ministry of Defence, which also oversees all imports of foreign-supplied military hardware.