Egypt Soviet Relations
The diplomatic relations between the countries date back to August 26, 1943. If fact, cooperation between Russia and Egypt kicked off in March 1948 when the first economic agreement for mutual supply of goods was signed. The crescendo came in the 1950s-60s when thousands of Soviet specialists were in Egypt helping build plants, as well as the renowned Aswan High Dam, Helwan Metallurgical Plant, power lines, and many other facilities. Several generations of Egypt's youth went to the Soviet Union to receive education and training.
In developing relations with Egypt, the Soviet Union faced the decision whether or not to make its help contingent upon internal political reforms that would give "progressive" Soviet-oriented elements more influence and would help prepare the way for revolutionary changes in the sociopolitical order. The more pragmatic approach felt it prudent to go slow in pressing for a revolutionary transformation which might be regarded as unwarranted interference in Egyptian affairs.
The issue of the Suez Canal was linked to Britain's desire to involve Egypt in the West's Cold War with the Soviet Union. As early as September 1952, the British government announced that there was no strategic alternative to the maintenance of the British base in the canal area. In the opinion of Anthony Eden, British foreign secretary, Egypt had to fit into a regional defense system, the Baghdad Pact, and agreement on this point would have to precede any withdrawal from the canal.
This was the period of pacts directed against the Soviet Union. The North Adantic Treaty Organization and Southeast Asia Treaty Organization were supposed to contain the Soviet Union in the west and east. The Baghdad Pact, bringing into alliance Britain, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, and Iraq, was supposed to do the same on the Soviet Union's southern borders. The British government was attempting to force Egypt to join the alliance by refusing to discuss evacuation of the Suez Canal base until Egypt agreed.
Egypt, however, would discuss only evacuation and eventual administration of the base, and the British slowly realized the draw-backs of holding the base without Egyptian acquiescence. Nasser was increasingly attracted to the Nonaligned Movement that eschewed membership in either the Western or the Soviet camp. Nasser was no particular friend of the Soviet Union, and the Communist Party remained outlawed in Egypt. It was Western imperialism and colonialism, however, that Egypt had been struggling against.
Nasser also had become an admirer and friend of President Marshal Josip Broz Tito of Yugoslavia and Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru of India. Tito had survived by aligning himself neither with the West nor with the Soviet Union. Together, he and Nasser developed the concept of nonalignment, which entailed avoiding both pro- and anti- Soviet pacts but did not prevent them from purchasing arms or receiving aid from either bloc.
The British warned Nasser that if he accepted Soviet weapons, none would be forthcoming from Britain. Rejected in this shortsighted way by the West, Nasser negotiated the famous arms agreement with Czechoslovakia in September 1955. This agreement marked the Soviet Union's first great break-through in its effort to undermine Western influence in the Middle East. Egypt received no arms from the West and eventually became dependent on arms from the Soviet Union.
The Soviet Union was offering aid to Egypt in several forms, including a loan to finance the Aswan High Dam. Then, on July 19, the United States withdrew its loan offer, and Britain and the World Bank followed suit. Nasser was furious and decided to retaliate with an action that shocked the West and made him the hero of the Arabs.
On July 26, 1956, Nasser appeared in Muhammad Ali Square in Alexandria, and he began a three-hour speech from a few notes jotted on the back of an envelope. When Nasser said the code word, "de Lesseps," it was the signal for engineer Mahmud Yunis to begin the takeover of the Suez Canal. The Soviet Union, its East European allies, and Third World countries generally supported Egypt.
What followed was the invasion of Egypt by Britain, France, and Israel, an action known as the Tripartite Invasion or the 1956 War. The Soviet Union threatened Britain and France with a rocket attack if they did not withdraw. The United States, angered because it had not been informed by its allies of the invasion, realized it could not allow the Soviet Union to appear as the champion of the Third World against Western imperialism.
Another result of the 1956 events was the increased Soviet influence in Egypt stemming from the Soviet financing of the Aswan High Dam construction and Soviet arms sales to Egypt. Thus, Egypt became the cornerstone of the Soviet Union's Middle East policy.
With the outbreak of the so-called War of Attrition from March 1969 to August 1970, Nasser flew to Moscow and asked the Soviet Union to establish an air defense system manned by Soviet pilots and antiaircraft forces protected by Soviet troops. To obtain Soviet aid, Nasser had to grant the Soviet Union control over a number of Egyptian airfields as well as operational control over a large portion of the Egyptian army. The Soviet Union sent between 10,000 and 15,000 Soviet troops and advisers to Egypt, and Soviet pilots flew combat missions. A screen of surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) was set up, and Soviet pilots joined Egyptian ones in patrolling Egyptian air space.
After the June 1967 War, the Soviet Union poured aid into Egypt to replace lost military equipment and rebuild the armed forces. However, by sending troops and advisers to Egypt and pilots to fly combat missions, the Soviet Union took a calculated risk of possible superpower confrontation over the Middle East. This added risk occurred because the United States under the Nixon adminis- tration was supplying Israel with military aid and regarded Israel as a bulwark against Soviet expansion in the area.
Prior to 1952, Egypt's major trading partner was Britain. By 1970 the share of Egypt's exports to the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe had risen to about 60 percent of the total, climbing from about 20 percent in 1955. The share of imports from the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe during the same period increased from 7 percent to about 33 percent.
When Nasser died, it became apparent that his successor, Anwar as Sadat, did not intend to be another Nasser. As Sadat's rule progressed, it became clear that his priority was solving Egypt's pressing economic problems by encouraging Western financial investment. Sadat realized, however, that Western investment would not be forthcoming until there was peace between Egypt and Israel, Soviet influence was eliminated, and the climate became more favorable to Western capitalism.
On July 17, 1972, Sadat expelled the 15,000 Soviet advisers from Egypt. Sadat later explained that the expulsion freed him to pursue his preparations for war. Then on October 6, 1973, Egyptian forces launched a successful surprise attack across the Suez Canal. Israel was able to counterattack and succeeded in crossing to the west bank of the canal and surrounding the Egyptian Third Army. With the Third Army surrounded, Sadat appealed to the Soviet Union for help.
On October 24, the Soviet ambassador handed Kissinger a note from Brezhnev threatening that if the United States were not prepared to join in sending forces to impose the cease-fire, the Soviet Union would act alone. The United States took the threat very seriously and responded by ordering a Defense Condition Three nuclear alert, the first of its kind since President John F. Kennedy's order during the Cuban missile crisis of 1962.
Between 1955 and 1975, the Egyptian armed forces depended heavily on the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union provided Egypt with grants and loans to pay for equipment, training, and the services of large numbers of military advisers. The Soviets initially supplied outmoded equipment from surplus stocks to help Egypt replenish its forces after the 1956 War, but in the early 1960s, the Soviet Union began furnishing up-to-date MiG-21 fighter aircraft, SA-2 SAMs, and T-54 tanks. The Soviet Union and the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) supplied large numbers of trainers and technicians, and Egypt sent many of its officers to Soviet military institutions to learn new organizational and strategic doctrines.
Egypt's defeat in the June 1967 War deepened the Soviet Union's involvement in Egypt's military. By the early 1970s, the number of Soviet personnel in Egypt had risen to nearly 20,000. They participated in operational decisions and served at the battalion and sometimes even company levels.
Soviet advisers' patronizing attitudes, Moscow's slow response to requests for more sophisticated equipment, and Cairo's desire for more freedom in preparing for a new conflict were considered by observers as some of the reasons for Sadat's decision to expel most Soviet military personnel in July 1972. The Soviet Union continued to provide equipment, spare parts, and replacements for equipment lost during the October 1973 War, but Sadat was becoming increasingly disenchanted with Egypt's reliance on Soviet weaponry.
To enhance relations with the United States and to respond to the Soviet Union's refusal to reschedule repayments of Egypt's debt, Sadat unilaterally renounced the Soviet-Egyptian Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation on March 15, 1976.
Egypt started sending selected officers abroad for advanced training as early as the 1930s. Between the mid- 1940s and mid-1950s, hundreds of Egyptian officers attended schools in Britain, France, and the United States. When the Soviet Union became the chief supplier of Egypt's arms and equipment, it became the focal point of foreign military training. After Egypt severed relations with Britain and the United States in 1967, training abroad was conducted almost exclusively in the Soviet Union, although a few officers continued to attend French schools. Although some officers believed that the standard of instruction in Soviet institutions was seriously deficient, nearly all Egyptian officers below the rank of major general at the time of the October 1973 War had attended staff schools or received specialized training in the Soviet Union.
Sadat's handpicked successor, Husni Mubarak, had trained as a pilot in the Soviet Union and became air force chief of staff in 1969 and deputy minister of war in 1972. Wanting American diplomatic help and economic largesse, Sadat had to portray Egypt to United States interests as a bulwark against Soviet threats; under these conditions Soviet relations nat- urally turned hostile and were broken in 1980. Under Mubarak amicable — but still low-key — relations were reestablished. Mubarak sought better Soviet relations to enhance his leverage over the United States, but Moscow was in no position to offer a credible threat to American influence.
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