The Nile As the Core

Geographical Analysis

The Nile as the core

Natural limit Khartoum

White Nile—Lake Victoria

Blue Nile—Ethiopia

Aswan High dam redefines navigability and limits Egypt

Long Mediterranean coast—key Alexandria port

Suez Canal introduced in 1880s

Western Desert Blocks attacks and offensives

Sinai as buffer to the east—logistical difficulties moving to east.

Red sea is usually a buffer, sometimes invasion route.

Population massed and movement on land extremely difficult.

Easy to conquer, hard to rule.

Strategic imperative

1: Protect the Nile Basin to Aswan, particularly delta

2: Defend Alexandria

3: Control and manage Suez Canal

4: Maintain Sinai as a buffer

Grand Strategy

Problem

1: Long Mediterranean coast

2: Difficulty of supporting troops outside of Nile

3: Dependent on outside powers for capital because of subsistence farming

4: Vulnerable to blockade and strangulation

5: Subject to dynamics of the Mediterranean basin

Advantage:

1: Attack through populated area difficult

2: Impossible for foreigners to administer

3: Egyptian bureaucracy maintains control

4: Ability to block Suez Canal

Fundamentally a defensive power. Frequently under formal foreign control.

Solution

1: Maintain strategic defensive mode

2: Maintain high cost of direct attack on Egypt

Strategy

1: Use Suez Canal as a lever for alliances

2: Use Sinai and Western Desert as buffers

3: Minimize road system to make attack from sea difficult

4: Use Aswan High dam to block threats from the South

5: Maintain subordinate alliance with major Mediterranean naval power

6: Threat of internal breakdown high because of infrastructure and crowding. Aggressively resist anti-regime movements and foreign assistance to them.

Tactics

1: Maintain peace treaty with Israel in order to maintain Sinai buffer and avoid high defense costs. Avoid being drawn into conflict by Palestinians

2: Maintain alliance with the United States as major Mediterranean military power

3: Build economic ties with Europe as a hedge and alternative

4: Maintain covert presence in Libya and Sudan to assure neutralization of both toward Egypt. Encourage Libyan and Sudanese conflicts elsewhere.

5: Maintain good relations in the Arabian Peninsula with some powers for investment and market for labor.

6: Use intelligence service to extract benefits in the Arab world.

7: Intense security measures internally.

Comparison to Israel:

1: Israel wants to neutralize Egypt in order to prevent serious strategic threat.

2: Egypt wants to maintain Sinai buffer to secure Nile and open Suez Canal

1967-1977 was a miscalculation by Nasser. Sadat acted to reverse it. Regime has maintained the agreements.