Second, a thorough analysis of the links between the military and the economy should be carried out. To explain how the Syrian war differed from the Sudan campaign, for example, one has to explain how it was possible to create the economic infrastructure that enabled a fifty-thousand-troop army36 stationed hundreds of miles away from home to be well fed, adequately clothed and regularly paid. This, in turn, necessitates understanding how the economy was run and knowing what links existed between economic needs and military expansion.

XREF: Relates to earlier claims about how cotton profits and monopolies financed the army, and how economic infrastructure underpinned military expansion. Builds on: "Mehmed Ali weighed expansion costs only after conquering provinces."

Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed…, loc. 203