Wow.... What a speedy decision taking ability and induction speed....
The speed is credited to the planning that Sisi made with all the generals of each branch prior to starting any acquisition and they also had plan B & C incase A didn't work. Then the follow through, after having several meetings with all the top central bank financers as well as the "separate" military budget that had accrued for over 35 years without much spending. Then the upgrading of the foreign reserves through the help of most likely the UAE and Saudi Arabia as well as Kuwait to augment the balance that Egypt was facing after the revolution and the non-action by Morsi to do any of that had brought Egypt to a very sad financial state.
Then when they decided to purchase the Rafale, they had of course studied it considerably because not only had the EAF not flown a single 2-engine fighter jet before, it never dealt with all the cockpit data fusion that is at the level of the Rafale. So instead of purchasing the max order that Dassault would allow, they went with 24 (which in Egypt makes 2 squadrons) and built an entire base with also 2 simulators they bought with the deal and needed to see how they would be able to make such an advanced aircraft work in the EAF because prior to that, they were flying MiG-21MFs and F-7 Airguards (which they called flying coffins from frequent failures) and of course the 80 or so Mirage Vs and the very few Mirage 2000 and the huge fleet of F-16s none of which had 2 engines and advanced avionics. Interestingly enough, they were able to introduce them into the fleet quite easily and continue training in Egypt and even conduct bombing missions in Libya in no time at all. That gave them a lot of confidence to go out and not only get more Rafales, but get the MiG-29M/35 and now the Su-35S. Then there's all the new counter rotating attack helicopters in the Ka-52s they bought 46 of I believe and of course the two Mistrals/LHD and 3 Frigates,4 submarines and a few Corvettes with 3 of them built in Alexandria's shipyard. A bunch of other smaller stuff like a large fleet of Wingloong UAVs etc. They made the right moves at a rapid pace which is pretty impressive. What's even just as impressive is that they didn't just go to Russia for the Su-35S as it's well known to be a very dangerous aircraft in with a tremendous weapons load and CAATSA had been imposed by the US, so the usual military request channel for Egypt asked for the F-35 during Trump's presidency and of course he said "yeah, of course" and the minute the bill got on the house of representatives motion to vote, it was almost completely voted against and the same happened in the Senate from what I heard and so that opened the door for the purchase of the Su-35S. When Pompeo said "what are you doing, you can't buy that aircraft you'll be sanctioned", the EAF most likely said "well, we came to you and asked you for what we would consider the equal to the Su-35S in the F-35 and you denied it. So we went with it. There's more to the story as Pompeo offered the F-15 but probably without any advanced BVR capabilities and those days are over for the EAF. They didn't even offer the Viper upgrade for our F-16s through the MFA which would've included the new APG AESA radars and AIM-120C 5/7 & Aim-9X. So we're going Russian, French and German I hope since they're not as familiar weapons systems as the American in our region. Sorry I try to compress my posts but there's so much one needs to get out to make the point.
At this rate I won't be surprised to see Egypt taking no 6th place as a most powerful military in the world after USA, Russia, China, UK and France.... Congrats....
Honestly, as nice as that might be, I think a lot of people do think along those lines but for me, I just like to see the modernization process because there is only so much you can do with a MiG-21MF from the 70's, and donated ships & frigates from the US (minus the custom Ambassador MK attack ship custom made for Egypt only) and have parody against the other regional powers. Considering there is a civil was right next door in Libya, the situation in Syria and the tensions with Turkey and our maritime assets that need serious protection. Most of those corvettes and attack helicopters will be patrolling all the Gas field rigs of which there are A LOT including our largest one Zohr and then there's the Noor grouping that hasn't even been drilled into that could contain massive amounts of gas. All that is automatic collateral for being able to not only get these weapons purchases done, but done quickly.
I also bet that they're already discussing the purchase of the 1st or 2nd order of available Su-57. I say possible 2nd because we know Algeria has already done the same thing and they might be the first export customer.