After joining the army, Shawkat began working his way up through the ranks, and by 1982 he was an officer in the Defense Companies paramilitary force headed by Rifaat al-Assad, the brother of Syrian President Hafez al-Assad.
In 1983, after Hafez al-Assad suffered an apparent heart attack, he named governing council of six men he believed were unlikely to seize power to run the country in his absence.