Thanks for clarifying it is always good setting up your defenses despite no conflict being on the horizon.
Glad it was helpful.
As for the east-med what is Egypt's stack there? Because Egypt already has it's oil and there is no contest in that. I fail to see benefits of the Greek-Egyptian deal.
What do you mean by "Egypt's
stack there"?
If I were the Egyptian admin I would rather seek to milk Turkey there is more benefit in them. Greece is just poor country and dry as bone with no intellectual property to offer and nothing they can offer might Egypt at this point in time
Greek/Egyptian relations date back centuries, even earlier than Turkey and the Ottoman's presence in Egypt and we even have cultural and religious ties with Greece with our Coptic population and many of northern Egyptian people. Greece is an important ally because of those reasons and also because we have common, vested interests in the region. Our goals and interests coincide strongly on top of our friendly relations and the fact that they're struggling with their economy is no reason to give up on a good friend and ally. If anything, our ways are to stick with your good friend through thick and thin and especially during rough times and show support.
As far as Turkey, I'm sure you're aware of Erdogan's big fat trap and his bashing of Sisi when the latter took over after ousting Morsi. He went off on a tangent calling it a coup and trashed Sisi which is not the way diplomacy is handled. Those are fighting words and who would ever be ok with that? If people consider it a coup, so be it. Doesn't mean you go off the deep end and bark like a rabid dog and insult and then, do the worst thing possible and harbor most of Egypt's internal enemies in the Muslim Brotherhood.
Look, the majority of Egyptians are fine with Morsi having been taken out and the purging of the MB which had nothing but selfish intentions in ruling Egypt. These are very difficult things to forgive and they recently tried. But after shipping over thousands of Syrian mercenaries to our next door neighbor to create conflict against the side that we supported because that side guaranteed security for Egypt is frankly an act of war. That was the reason Sisi drew the Red Line and was completely prepared to go in if they crossed it.
Then when they came back asking to be friends again, Egypt was even willing to listen because Sisi is one of the best diplomats in the Middle East at the moment and he saw that peace and reestablishing relations with Turkey can have its benefits, but not until they met all the conditions we presented and the biggest one was that it would be responsible for removing every single mercenary they brought over to be sure they don't end up forming groups with other terrorist to try to infiltrate Egypt. This is a major threat to the security of Egypt that Turkey obviously doesn't give a rat's *** about since they denied that request along with extraditing many wanted MB members that fled Egypt to Turkey and have been doing nothing but creating smear campaigns against our country. Who would ever put up with that? That proved that they were NOT genuine about wanting to open a new page of friendship and now, maybe the Greece partnership makes a lot more sense, I hope. Imagine someone bringing thousands of mercenaries to your neighboring country that is mired in a civil war and has been creating terrorist attacks that have killed countless Egyptians? Would you forgive treachery like that so easily without any major conditions to get rid of all of them? Imagine if we sent a bunch of FSA Syrians to assist the mountain Kurds? Erdogan would blow his top off and have a heart attack.
Turkey has created a lot of enemies for itself and frankly, it's not all about technology and selfish benefits and not much that they have interests us since we have a very particular plan about the modernization of Egypt's military which has moved at an unprecedented rate so far and 100% of it can be easily done without anything from Turkey.
Sorry for the long post, but I hope all that makes sense and answers your question.
There is olso the Dabaa nuclear plant just behind it..
Aye, you are 100% correct about that, good sir. I forgot about that and that is a BIG ONE.
Fantastic read.But I'd like to add the Egyptians need another base, Somewhere near Luxor,As Bernice base seems too far South.A base near Luxor would be a devastating trap for any infiltrating air force,They would be flanked by the base up north and south from Bernice,Hear me out you need a base in or around Luxor. By near Luxor I mean along its horizontal axis to the sea since it's a naval base
Actually one of Egypt's largest bases is in Aswan, a very short distance from Luxor. Also if you look at the other map with the naval bases, Bernice on the Red Sea is also an Airforce base not to mention Hurghada which was assigned for the 4 squadrons of F-7 Airguard interceptors. Now there are MiG-35s based there and quite possibly the Su-35SEs once they become fully operational.
Believe me, with the inevitable situation coming up with Ethiopia, they've given the southern border A LOT of attention to the point where they've coordinated with Sudan to easily use their bases to help protect them and us in the event someone from the south tried anything silly.
I posted this pic from Wiki but strangely enough, the bases on the pic don't show up here!?!? Very strange. Either way, here's the
link and scroll down until you see this pic and you can see how far south Aswan base is.