Egypt's military has played a dominant role in the country since a 1952 coup, and Wednesday's ouster of President Mohammed Morsi showed that the armed forces still feel empowered to intervene when they disapprove of the country's course.
"They are the center of gravity in the Egyptian state," said Jeffrey Martini, a Middle East analyst at the Rand Corp. in Washington, speaking shortly before the coup on Wednesday night. "They are the strongest player in the game."
The military's decision to push out Morsi, the country's first democratically elected leader, prompted a huge celebration in Cairo's Tahrir Square. However, it's not clear how long the military's popularity will last.
In the 2011 demonstrations that ousted Hosni Mubarak, the military was widely despised by the secular liberals who filled the same landmark square in central Cairo.
After Mubarak's ouster, the generals ran the country for nearly a year and a half, but they faced widespread opposition from many sectors of Egyptian society.
That experience may have convinced the military that it did not want to formally be in charge of the country.
After Morsi was elected and took power a year ago, the military was no longer front and center, though it retained its position as the country's most powerful institution.
And in announcing Wednesday's coup, the military said that the chief justice of the constitutional court would lead Egypt until new elections are held, though no date was set.
A Long History
As NPR's Eric Westervelt noted during the protests that toppled Mubarak:
"Since the 1952 military coup that toppled the monarchy, all of the country's leaders have come from the military. But Mubarak worked hard to keep his commanders out of politics and out of the public light. He frequently fired generals and reshuffled their commands so no one general grew too powerful or popular."