Is the U. S. Relevant to Egypt?
Dave Schuler
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Monday, August 19, 2013
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8 comments
Let’s flip the question I asked in this post around. Is the U. S. relevant to Egypt? Does it make any difference to outcomes in Egypt whether we provide military support for the country or not? Does what President Obama say to or about Egypt make any difference to outcomes there?
About Dave Schuler
Over the years Dave Schuler has worked as a martial arts instructor, a handyman, a musician, a cook, and a translator. He's owned his own company for the last thirty years and has a post-graduate degree in his field. He comes from a family of politicians, teachers, and vaudeville entertainers. All-in-all a pretty good preparation for blogging. He has contributed to OTB since November 2006 but mostly writes at his own blog,
The Glittering Eye, which he started in March 2004.
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Given the fact that Egypt is getting an increasing amount of aid from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf nations, it’s unclear that our aid gives us the leverage that it once did.
Unless cutting of aid also means cutting of access to the market for spare parts – that could put about half their air force out of business in the long run. But they have a mix of US, French, Russian and even Chinese planes, so not all is lost for them. And the Iranians managed to keep their stuff going for 30 years after the embargo.
The Iranians proved out to be largely amateurish during the Iran-Iraq War. And easy access to expensive weapons systems and training in the US makes a lot of difference – the best Armies in the Emerging World are the armies that are closely allied to the US.
Other than Israel, which other country is Egypt really going to go toe-to-toe against? Face it, it’s mostly an internal security force. The American weaponry (M-1 tanks, Apache gunships, F-16s, etc.) are just showpieces they drag out to impress peopoe, but pretty useless in the day to day requirements.
They can easily function on Russian and Chinese (heck, even North Korean) weapons for their needs.
Pretty sure the generals in Egypt want to keep that US military aid flowing, so we continue to have some leverage. When the chips are down, though, they’ll forego that aid if they have to .
Our aid gives us influence, not control.
No, Egypt does not need us as much as we need Egypt. Location, location, location is everything and Egypt has the location.
My understanding is that the Egyptian military is heavily involved in Egyptian businesses. Seems to me that any leverage we have should focus on their pocketbooks.
We are no longer the indispensible superpower.