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Egypt FOREIGN POLICY
The Determinants of Foreign Policy
Geopolitics inevitably shaped Egypt's foreign policy. Egypt
occupies a strategic position as a landbridge between two
continents and a link between two principal waterways, the
Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean. It must therefore be strong
enough to dominate its environment or risk becoming the victim of
outside powers. Its security is also linked to control of the Nile,
on whose waters its survival depends. It has, therefore, had
historical ties with Sudan and has sought satisfactory relations
with the states on Sudan's southern borders, Uganda and Zaire. The
landbridge to Asia, route of potential conquerors, had also to be
secured, and Egyptian rulers traditionally tried to project their
power into Syria and Arabia, often in contest with other powers in
Anatolia (present-day Turkey), or the Euphrates River valley
(present-day Iraq). In contemporary times, Israel, backed by a
superpower, located on Egypt's border, and blocking its access to
the East, was perceived as the greatest threat to Egyptian
security.
Egypt was also politically strategic. As Nasser saw it, with
considerable justice, Egypt was potentially at the center of three
"circles," the African, the Arab, and the Islamic. Egypt viewed
itself as playing a major role in Africa and, beyond that, was long
a leading mover in the wider Third World camp and a major advocate
of neutralism and nonalignment. This geopolitical importance made
the country the object of interest to the great powers, and when
Egypt was strong enough, as under Nasser, allowed it to play the
great powers against each other and win political support and
economic and military aid from all sides. Even the weakened Egypt
of Mubarak was able to parlay its strategic importance in the ArabIsraeli conflict and as a bulwark against Islamic political
activism into political support and economic aid from both the West
and the Arab world.
A second constant that shaped Egypt's foreign policy was its
Arab-Islamic character. To be sure, Egypt had a long pre-Islamic
heritage that gave it a distinct identity, and in periods such as
the British occupation it developed apart from the Arab world.
Egypt's national identity was never merged in an undifferentiated
Arabism; Egyptians were shaped by their own distinct geography,
history, dialect, and customs. But the content of Egyptian identity
was indisputably Arab-Islamic. Egypt was inextricably a part of the
Arab world. It was the largest Arabic-speaking country and the
intellectual and political center to which the whole Arab world
looked in modern times. It was also a center of Islamic
civilization, its Al Azhar University one of Islam's major
religious institutions and its popular culture profoundly Islamic.
Although a portion of the most Westernized upper class at times saw
Egypt as Mediterranean or
pharaonic (see Glossary), for the
overwhelming majority, Egypt's identity was Arab-Islamic. Indeed,
Egypt saw itself as the leader of the Arab world, entitled to
preeminence in proportion to the heavy burdens it bore in defense
of the Arab cause. This Arab-Islamic identity was a great asset for
Egyptian leaders. To the extent that Egyptian leadership was
acknowledged in the Arab world, this prestige bolstered the stature
of the ruler at home, entitled Egypt to a portion of Arab oil
wealth, and gave credence to Egypt's ability to define a common
Arab policy, hence increasing the country's strategic weight in
world affairs. This leadership position also meant that Egypt was
a natural part of the inter-Arab power balance, typically embroiled
in the rivalries that split the Arab world and a part of the
solidarities that united it. In the 1950s, modernizing, nationalist
Egypt's rivals were traditional pro-Western Iraq and Saudi Arabia,
and its main ally was Syria. In the 1970s, an alliance of Egypt,
Syria, and Saudi Arabia led the Arab world in its search for peace
with honor; when Sadat made a separate peace, Syria became Egypt's
main rival. The country's Arab-Islamic identity also put certain
constraints on foreign-policy decision makers: to violate it risked
the legitimacy of the whole regime.
Finally, Egypt's foreign policy was pulled in contrary
directions by the ideals of anti-imperialist nonalignment and the
webs of dependency in which the country was increasingly enmeshed.
Egypt's long history of subordination to foreign rulers, especially
European imperialism, produced an inferiority complex, an intense
anti-imperialism, a quest for dignity, and, particularly under
Nasser, a powerful national pride among Egyptians. Egypt's national
ideal was to be independent of both East and West, to be a strong
prosperous state, to stand up to Israel, and to lead the Arab
world. Yet, as a poverty-stricken developing country and a new
state actor in the international power game, Egypt could not do
without large amounts of economic aid and military assistance from
the advanced economies and the great powers. Such dependency, of
course, carried heavy costs and threats to national independence.
The problem of dependency could be minimized by diversifying aid
sources, and Nasser initially pursued a policy of balance between
East and West, which won aid from both sides and minimized
dependence on any one.
United States support for Israel after the June 1967 War made
Egypt ever more dependent on the Soviet Union for military aid and
protection, but this dependence was, in part, balanced by
increasing financial aid from the conservative Arab oil states. By
the late 1970s, Sadat, in choosing to rely on American diplomacy to
recover Egyptian land from Israel and in allowing his ties to the
Soviet Union and the Arab world to wither, had led Egypt into heavy
economic and military dependency on the United States. This
dependency, by precluding foreign-policy decisions displeasing to
Israel and Washington, sharply limited Egypt's pursuit of a
vigorous Arab and independent foreign policy. The basic dilemma of
Egypt's foreign policy was that its dependence on foreign
assistance conflicted with its aspiration for national independence
and its concept of its role as an Arab-Islamic and traditionally
nonaligned entity.
Data as of December 1990
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