just some food for thought.

ever since the peace treaty with israel, egypt has been rapidly building and modernizing their military. on paper they look equal to the idf.

they are trying to aquire 24 more modern F-16s. any neighbor other than israel poses no strategic threat to egypt. their military is far superior.

so why the huge buildup? do you think it's just normal modernization and the desire to have a strong military?...or do you think they want to have a force capable of taking on israel, if they decide to ever give war another shot?

Given their strategic location and the important nature of the Suez Canal, it's no surprise they'd want their military strong and up to date. Personally I'm not sure why they're not taking the fight to the Horn of Africa because it's the piracy there that's hurting their Suez canal business.

maybe they will...
or maybe they might not want to be advertising how far they have come militarily just yet

I don't think that they want to attack Isreal in the near future. Egypt is one of the major non-NATO ally of the USA and has accepted the existence of israel. If they would start a new war against israel it would have very bad consequenzes for egypt with a potenzial intervention of the united states and so on. I think it's a normal modernisation in such a unstable region like the middle east.

The U.S. gives Egypt roughly $2 billion dollars a year in military aid. The only nation to get a larger share is Israel at $3 Billion.

Obviously, if the U.S. is going to significantly fund them, they are going to have the best military that money can buy.

All militaries are generally in some phase of modernization. I doubt that Egypt or Israel have any plans to get in another war with each other.



http://projects.publicintegrity.org/...aid/World.aspx

it wouldn't benefit either party...

i want to give my point of view about this topic ,i just want 2 say that there is no way that egypt is going 2 attack israel simply because it will hurt the economy so bad that it will be 2 hard recover because most of our income comes from the tourism and the suez canal and the only way 4 a war to break out is when we get hit 1st coz i cann't remember as far as i concern that our army got out of the country to find in a foreign land unless the ruler was not egyptian ,anyway there is also that camp david treaty between us and the proof that we respect it too much is that
1:we buy cubic metre of gas around 16$ and import it 2 israel with the price of 2.5$
2:the army size mustn't exceed 500,000 while our police force already have more than 4mil. (just imagine how will the no. jump in a real war)
3:fighting israel means also fighting USA which will guarantee the winning like when they were about to be defeated in 1973 and U.S send them that air train full of tanks and shells .

cool..what are your guys thoughts on the bright star exercises between the egyptians and the usa? what (perceived threats) do they train for?

i know this is a semi conspiracy type comment but possibly the US is building up both armies so that a war can errupt.... no wait that is stupid... im going to go with the defense of the suez canal in conjunction with defense of egypt, and to help the US since we basically paid for their advanced military.

I think Egypt building up its army for reasons:
1.The nature of the strategic position.
2.Suez canal.
3.Fight terrorism.
4.The Egyptian high Dam.
5.The Egyptian System.
6.The Nile.
7.Iran and Israel.
USA fund Egypt and Israel with military aid yearly to make sure of kind of military balance in M.E.
Note:In modern history Egypt didnt start a war out the home land.Israel striked Egypt in 1956(England,France and Israel) and 1967.While Egypt start one in 1973 for the land and peace.
But,What 24 F-16s can do in war?
The MiG 21 is still in service while Israel have F-15 and looking for the F-35.