The Nile Nation’s Next Chapter: Egypt’s Role in a Shifting Global Order
Egypt is a great power on the rise, yet still at the mercy of the greatest river in the world.
Egypt in recent years has been a major factor in many book, papers, and discussions on the Middle East, despite not being considered to even be a part of the region , or at least not it’s traditional definition. Now to understand how Egypt became so involved in this region of the world, being at odds with Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Israel, rather than creating a great African Empire and centralising its dominance over the region where the vast majority of it’s territory lays. We must first look at it’s history, before taking a pragmatic approach towards it’s current, and future geopolitical ambitions.
The great Egyptian civilisation is on par with Iran in terms of age, having been established as the first kingdom around 3100 BC. Egypt in its history hasn’t been traditionally ruled by Egyptians for a long period of its history, which make its resurgence as a state all the more fascinating.
After the Egyptian state was taken over by the Greeks, Romans, Umayyads, Turkish, and British, it finally reasserted its at least nominal independence in 1922 from the United Kingdom. Permitted this political freedom as the Kingdom of Egypt, in part thanks to the effort of the nationalist Wafd party. The Party’s history still now has heavy modern influence on the nationalistic spirit of Egypt, even after Gamal Nasser. He encouraged pan-Arabism, and changed the political spirit when he banned all parties not associated with his own in January 1953.
In the Modern Day, as you may see, Egypt is far more associated with the Middle East’s geopolitical structure , and it has much to do with the historical focuses of the various Pharaohs and Pashas of Egypt. The Nasserist period, from 1952 to 1970 saw Egypt nationalize the Suez Canal and begin to shut it off to any nation without friendly diplomatic relations to Cairo. This prompted Israel to launch an invasion, together with Britain and France (who joined the war to regain the exclusivity rights they had in the Suez Canal), which came to be known as the Suez crisis of 1956.
Egypt was crushed militarily, with estimated total casualties and captives being between 11,550 and 37,900 to the joint allied force being 1,151 casualties and captives during the conflict. However Egypt won a symbolic and political victory, with the United States and the USSR both threatening the French and British with economic sanctions (more so from the US but the USSR imposed diplomatic pressure.) This forced the Western Powers to disgracefully remove themselves from the Suez. Israel stayed and occupied both Gaza and the Sinai Peninsula until Egypt conceded to allow Israeli shipping through the Suez.
“They defended the grains of sand in the desert to the last drop of their blood.” -Gamal Nasser
Egypt’s combined armed forces stand at around 1.22 million men, making it the largest military force in the Middle East and the 19th strongest military strength in the world However they’re still behind Turkey due to Turkey's forces being generally more technologically advanced. Its drone capabilities, electronic warfare systems, and modern air defence give it a tactical edge over Egypt’s vast army. Egypt, although advanced, still uses in some cases out of date weapons from the post-Soviet era. such as the missile systems SA-12 SAMs.
Egypt has recently increased it’s military spending from 2022 to 4.82 billion dollars, in an increase of 3.66%. It has also purchased military equipment from the US, at an estimated total cost of around $5,4 billion, with for an example the largest expense of the deal being the purchase of 2,183 Hellfire AGM-114R missiles at a cost of $630 million.
What Egypt plans on doing with this newfound interest in the military domain can change depending on a number of factors. Perhaps the intention of preventing Palestinian refugees from coming into the nation from across the Sinai, although Egypt has already constructed a 12 mile long border between the two volatile regions and has created three zones, each with around 22,000 troops, to protect the peninsula.
Egypt’s relations with Israel were re-established relatively peacefully after the Camp David Accords in 1979, as well as the withdrawal of all Israeli troops from the Sinai Peninsula in 1982. Recently however, and by that I mean from 2023 to now, their relationship has heated significantly, with the construction of a 5 mile high fence along the Israel-Egypt border in the 2010s, and many cross border conflicts happening in and around Gaza. For example, on the 3rd of July 2023, an Egyptian policeman in Israeli territory killed 3 IDF soldiers, and incidents of this style have continued in recent years.
Saudi Arabia also represents a geopolitical problem in relative terms to Egypt, being the fourth regional power of the Middle East, with conflicting interests with them in and around the Red Sea in terms of trade and shipping influence in minor nations , (Egypt has the edge with control over the Sinai.) But tensions between the two nations since before 2012 have eased massively , and the two nations seem on the verge of a military alliance, with numerous treatise and economic pacts made.
On the 10th of May 2012, Saudi contributed $250 million worth of butane gas to Egypt during it’s fuel shortages. as well as $1 billion towards the nation’s central bank. Egypt symbolically returned the favour by returning the islands of Tiran and Sanafir and diplomatically supporting them in the blockade and condemnation of Qatar’s alleged terrorist support in 2021.
“Neom will have a lot of ports, some of them in Saudi Arabia and some of them in Egypt.” -Mohammad bin Salman
Egypt is very much so in the Saudi alliance in terms of Middle Eastern politics, opposing both Turkey’s interests in the gas field in the Eastern Mediterranean, as well as Iran’s Axis of Resistance interfering with trade both in Gaza with Hamas, and the Houthis at the Horn of Africa.
In African politics, Egypt represent one of the largest and strongest nations on the entirety of the continent, the only real threat to Egypt from Africa is the upcoming Great Power of Ethiopia. Already dominating the African Union, Ethiopia’s Lake Tana contributes a significant amount to the River flow of the Nile, which is basically the entire basis of Egypt’s 114 million strong population, settled around the River Delta and Valley of the Nile.
The GERD (Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam) was announced as finished as part of a joint-Chinese agreement to harness the hydroelectric power of the Nile. This puts Egypt at a massive extend, in the pocket of Ethiopia’s goodwill, as at any time Ethiopia could shut the dam and remove freshwater sources for half of Egypt’s entire population.
“Let's set things straight... there are 300 million people living in countries within the Nile basin in horrific economic and security conditions. The $500 that they earn in Israel every month is an annual salary in their countries of origin.” -Eli Yishai
Border conflicts have come about between Egypt and Sudan concerning the Halaib Triangle. But conflicts over the region have been mostly settled, with Egypt hooking up the region to the electric grid of the nation and the majority of the world recognising Egypt’s dominion over the region, although Sudan’s President Omar Al-Bashir stated in an interview in 2010 that he wouldn’t relinquish Sudanese claims on the region at that no concessions have been made.
Egypt’s internal politics have gone through a turbulent decade, with the widespread protests against the former 30 year president, Hosni Mubarak leading to the Egyptian Revolution of 2011 which removed the draconian political system and mass torture of workers across the Nile, instating a new president in 2012 , Mohamed Morsi. Morsi was then removed the following year on the 13th of July 2013 by the military, after widespread protests that he was abusing the new constitution of 2011, as well as his association with the former political party turned terrorist group the Muslim Brotherhood.
“The Muslim Brotherhood is the parent organization of extreme ideology. They are the godfather of all terrorist organizations. They spread it all over the world.” -Abdel El-Sisi
Since 2014, Egypt has been run by Abdel El-Sisi, and after an election that saw him win with a 96,4 majority vote, he has gone about centralizing and securing Egypt’s control around the Gaza zone and the Sinai. Critiques of Sisi’s regime say that he has moved Egypt back into Authoritarianism, with the military taking more political control and his human rights abuses leading to widespread protests in nations with Egyptian minorities all around the world, like the protest against his visit to the United Kingdom in November 2015.
In economic terms, Egypt ( as mentioned before,) is practically completely based as a nation around the Nile river. It has made efforts to remove this economic dependence, by creating Lake Nasser in 1970 to hold a large renewable water source, as well as investing a planned $8 billion into 21 new desalination plants (while operating 90 currently.)
Egypt also retains control over the most valuable canal in international trade, The Sinai, through which around 15% of world trade passes through per day. Egypt made an estimated $9.4 billion from passage through it in 2023, but it plummeted to a third of that in 2024 , mostly due to conflicts in and around the Middle East, as well as the Red Sea pirate Houthis.
Egypt in terms of mineral wealth, possesses both oil/fuel resources worth up to 25% of the entire Egyptian GDP, contained both off the coast of the Suez, as well as in the Gulf of the Suez. 3.3 billion barrels of oil were expected to be Egypt’s stock in 2018, and Egypt makes not far off $2.37 billion from oil exports every year (from 2023.) Egypt’s mineral resources also consist of Gold and Iron, which are found in over 1,000 ancient mining sites. Egypt’s Gold exports are expected to be worth around $1.63 billion as of 2023.
Egypt is a diversified economy, with a very minimal agricultural export basis due to it’s high aridity. However their main worrisome problem is the threat that Ethiopia (as aforementioned,) poses in regards to the Dam across the Blue Nile, potentially cutting off water supplies if the relations between the two nations deteriorate in the near future.
To sum the Egyptian situation in the world, it has one of if not the best equipped army in the Middle East and certainly the largest, rivalling Turkey’s dominance in the region, (albeit without Turkey’s added benefit of a blue-water Navy.) Egypt also has a diversified economy , capable of outproducing Saudi Arabia in many regards and making massive sums from the Suez canal, although cooperation between the two nations has been encouraged since 2012. It’s tough to say how things will continue in the geopolitics of the Nile Republic, with border conflicts with Israel seemingly bringing them closer and closer to warring like 1967, and their walling off of the Sinai to Palestinian refugees producing scepticism within the Arab League.
Egypt, ever the complicated nation, will most likely aim to gain independence in regards to the Nile being held hostage , and maybe one day therefore, may Egypt’s people conquer their greatest gift, and curse.
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