For decades Egypt had remained on the margins of India’s engagements with the Middle East. A departure from the heydays of Nehru-Nasser friendship and non-aligned movement (NAM) when the North African nation was the axis of India’s approach to the region. It began changing in the late 1970s when under Anwar Sadat Cairo moved into the American camp at the height of the Cold War. The Camp David Accords (1978) followed by the Egypt-Israel peace treaty (1979) proved a decisive shift in Egypt’s foreign policy. In the meantime, India became closer to Soviet Union and the glue that bind India and Egypt together disappeared. The gradual post-Cold War recalibration in Indian foreign policy led New Delhi to engage closely with the Gulf region with focus on trade, business, and energy security issues and this meant that despite friendly relations, New Delhi and Cairo remained distanced.
A number of domestic, regional and international factors have now contributed to India and Egypt working to develop closer relations and the key factor is the economic potentials in bilateral relations. India is the fastest growing big economies in the world and plans to emerge as a global manufacturing hub. Egypt that in the past decades has struggled to overcome economic difficulties has been working to overcome political instabilities and expedite economic growth. Given that it has the largest Arab population with a significant educated and young population, it can no longer afford to remain trapped in a slow-growth trap. This also means finding potential international partners that can help in economic growth through trade and business. In India, Egypt can find a country that is willing to work together in enhancing two-way flow of trade, business, and investments. Indian companies can invest in various sectors in Egypt including infrastructure development, road and transports, telecommunication, education as well as in the fast growing energy sector. For India, Egypt not only provides a market but can be a source of imports of raw material and energy, especially given the discovery of gas fields in the Mediterranean off Egyptian shores.
Besides the economic potentials in the bilateral relations, India and Egypt also intend to enhance security and defence cooperation. Egypt has for long relied on weapons supplies and security cooperation with the United States for its internal and external security. For a variety of reasons, primarily the declining US appetite for ensuring regional security in the Middle East and shifting focus to Indo-Pacific, Egypt needs to find new international security partners. Cairo has therefore been working to develop closer defence and security cooperation with countries like France, Germany and Russia. It has also been working with its regional partners including Israel, Saudi Arabia and UAE to strengthen its security and defence capabilities. But this may not be enough given the magnitude of the security challenge Egypt faces.
The regional security scenario in the Middle East and North Africa has remained a cause of concern over the past decade. Egypt faces serious challenges both from home-grown and global terrorist groups as well as due to conflicts in Libya, Sudan, Somalia and Ethiopia. More importantly, Egypt needs advanced weapons, technology and training for modernisation of its armed forces. In this context, the visit by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh to Egypt during 19-20 September 2022 acquires significance. During the visit Defence Minister Singh held talks with his Egyptian counterpart General Mohamed Zaki and also called on President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi.
A memorandum of understanding (MoU) on bolstering defence cooperation between the two countries was also signed during the visit. The focus of the minister’s visit was on exploring possibilities for enhancing defence, security and military-to-military cooperation and during his interaction with Egyptian leaders, it was decided that the two countries will focus on joint training and defence manufacturing and co-production. Counter-terrorism is another area where the two countries agreed to develop cooperation.
The defence minister’s visit builds on recent efforts from both sides to develop closer security and defence cooperation. This had led to a number of exchanges between Egyptian and Indian defence officials and ministers, including from the Egyptian side by Defence Minister Sedki Sobhi in November 2017 and the Minister of State for Military Production General Mohamed El-Assar to attend the Defence Expo in April 2018. From the Indian side, then Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman visited Cairo in September 2018. Chief of Air Staff VR Chaudhari visited Cairo in November 2021. Between 24 June and 23 July 2022, Indian air force participated in the Tactical Leadership Programme at the Egyptian Air Force Weapon School to enhance joint operability in combat and search and rescue missions. Besides air force, Indian Navy too has been developing close cooperation with its Egyptian counterpart with joint naval exercises and port visits. Maritime security is a key area of cooperation between India and Egypt. In June 2022, Indian and Egyptian navies conducted a maritime partnership exercise off the coast of Safaga in Egypt.
Bilateral defence and security cooperation have also been discussed under the Joint Defence Committee meetings. In addition, Egypt has reportedly shown interest in buying Indian BRAHMOS missiles a joint production of India and Russia. Further, after Singh’s visit media reports have suggested that Egypt is considering purchase of 70 Tejas light combat aircrafts as well as combat helicopters from India. On Indian part, it can procure parts of Russian equipment from Egypt given the ongoing war in Ukraine has made it difficult for India to get hold of these parts and Egypt also uses similar Russian-made weapons.
While the prospects for strengthening of defence and security cooperation are bright, there are challenges as well. The most important being the need on expediting cooperation in defence manufacturing. Indian industries are in early stages of venturing into defence manufacturing and military production and the focus currently has been on indigenisation of weapon systems and self-reliance in manufacturing. This means that the production companies will either have to quickly enhance their capabilities and logistics chain to be able to fulfil both domestic and external demands. Delays and poor deliverability can impede cooperation as the defence trade can be highly competitive. Given that India is still in the early stage of developing its defence production capabilities, it will also have to gain credibility both in terms of quality and logistical support that will go a long way in creating a more conducive environment for international cooperation in this sector, including with Egypt. Besides, sustainable engagement are necessary for developing strong partnership and in this regard there is a need for creating more robust engagements through regular exchanges of visits and meetings among officials.
Finally, challenges also lie in making Indian industries more competitive. In the current international defence trade and exports scenario the majority of top producers and exporters are based in the US, Europe and Russia while China, South Korea, Turkey, Israel and others are fast emerging as strong contender for supplying weapons to developing countries in Asia, Middle East, Africa and Latin America. This means that if Indian manufacturers are to compete they will have to accelerate their manufacturing and delivering capabilities. Nonetheless, these challenges are not entire impossible to overcome. Greater engagement, improved cooperation with external manufacturers, increased investments in research and development and adoption of best practices in the field can go a long way in overcoming them.
India and Egypt are gradually moving towards greater political, economic and security engagements. Given the global and regional geopolitical environment and India’s position as an emerging power, there are greater prospects for strengthening defence and security cooperation between the two countries, and this shall go a long way in developing strategic partnership between New Delhi and Cairo as the two are working close to overcome past challenges and enhance bilateral relations.
-The author is Fellow, Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies & Analysis, New Delhi. Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of MP-IDSA or Government of India
–The author is an Associate Professor of Middle East Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. The views expressed are personal and do not necessarily reflect the views of Raksha Anirveda
