A smattering of former top officials from the army, the secret service and the government have sought the generals' backing for their presidential bids, including Mr Mubarak's last prime minister, Ahmed Shafiq, a former air force chief.
Insurers were in focus, with Legal and General back in the frame for a possible takeover and Standard Life tipped to sell is banking business, perhaps to Barclays.
More than that, the administration is apparently determined to advance the proposition that dissent is unpatriotic, and has brought General Westmoreland back for this purpose.
In the final days of campaigning, Brown, like a retired military general called back for a critical tour of duty, has laid siege to Castle Salmond and tried to rip back the Saltire and the tunes of patriotism from the battlements of Holyrood.
The comments come as Labour tried to play down a revolt among staff over its general secretary's backing for a political consultancy to coach the party's general election candidates.
In Korea the alternative to continued backing for General Chun would probably have been a collapse of order in South Korea, which might have induced North Korea to attact.
In a general election year, his backing for Tony Blair was a highly visible show of strength, even if it wasn't generally seen as a decisive blow in the government's favour.
Although he still deserves great credit for ordering the generals back to barracks, he may have played a part in creating the conditions for a coup attempt by earlier manoeuvres to get rid of prime minister Adolfo Suárez.
It provided backing for his general position without quite imposing constraints on particular actions.
The general consensus was that unquestioned backing for Israel against Palestinians and uncritical support for autocratic Arab governments would continue to inspire new attacks against the United States.
