person:robert springborg

Egypt’s President Sisi Touts Megaprojects Ahead of March Vote

– WSJ
▻https://www.wsj.com/articles/egypts-president-sisi-touts-megaprojects-ahead-of-march-vote-1518431400

By Jared Malsin
Feb. 12, 2018 5:30 a.m. ET

CAIRO—For decades Egypt’s presidents, like the pharaohs before them, have used vast infrastructure projects to inspire a sense of national achievement and economic might. But no modern leader has claimed to launch so many in so short a time as current President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, however meager their actual impact.

Since the former general came to power following a military coup in 2013, he has decreed the expansion of Egypt’s Suez Canal, ordered a second capital city be built next to Cairo, and initiated a scheme to reclaim more than a million acres of empty desert land. In December, he approved a deal with a Russian state-owned firm to build a $21 billion nuclear plant.

Ahead of an election in March, Mr. Sisi is now again touting his role in launching massive military-led projects. When he launched his re-electioncampaign last month, he claimed the government had completed 11,000 “national projects” in his brief tenure. That number proved hyperbolic, but even the president’s landmark infrastructure initiatives have done little to defuse the economic discontent that was a key source of political upheaval seven years ago during the Arab Spring.

Mr. Sisi, second from right, looking last month at mockups of natural-gas-extraction facilities in the northern Suez canal city of Port Said. PHOTO: HANDOUT/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
“This is not investment money. This is political money,” said Robert Springborg, an expert on Egypt at King’s College, London. “The long-term consequences of this are very negative for the economy. You think of the waste of resources at a time when the country is in desperate need.”

Mr. Sisi’s embrace of big but dubious projects won’t cost him the election—Egypt’s security forces have jailed or otherwise sidelined his only credible opponents. But even officials involved in the initiatives say they are designed to create the appearance, rather than the reality, of an economic recovery following the turmoil of Egypt’s 2011 uprising that ended three decades of rule by President Hosni Mubarak.

Mr. Sisi’s government unveiled the $8 billion “New Suez Canal” in 2015, hailing it as a symbol of national rebirth and Egypt’s “gift to the world.” In a lavish ceremony on the banks of the channel, jet fighters roared past rows of visiting dignitaries alongside the channel now expanded to allow two-way traffic and vastly reduce wait times. The president sailed to the event wearing full military regalia and sunglasses.

The project’s dividends haven’t matched the hype. In 2015, the chairman of the Suez Canal Authority, Adm. Mohab Mamish, said the expansion would more than double revenue from the channel, from about $5 billion a year then to more than $13 billion by 2023.

Today, income from the canal remains largely unchanged from 2015 levels. Even then, the Canal Authority’s public claims were contradicted by a never-released internal government study that predicted a decidedly modest 4.8% rate of return on investment for individual Egyptians who bought certificates to finance the project, according to Ahmed Darwish, the former head of the Suez Canal Economic Zone.

“There were many reasons for that project to be done. It’s not only about the revenue. It came at a time when the president needed to bring back confidence to the Egyptian people,” he said. “The idea of ‘yes we can’ was very important.”

–– ADVERTISEMENT ––

Why US aid to Egypt is never under threat | News | Al Jazeera
▻http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/10/aid-egypt-threat-171002093316209.html

http://www.aljazeera.com/mritems/Images/2017/8/23/15f172a7a5b249288bd07eb5432b4f24_18.jpg

For a country to become an eligible recipient of US aid, it must align itself with American interests and foreign policy, analysts say.

In the case of Egypt, US aid granted since the signing of the 1978 Camp David Accords was “untouchable compensation” for maintaining peace with Israel.This deal is considered a cornerstone of US-Egyptian relations.

Robert Springborg, a Middle East expert and non-resident fellow at the Italian Institute of International Affairs, told Al Jazeera that US economic support was intended to stabilise Anwar Sadat’s [former Egyptian president] government and succeeding ones.

How does the US benefit?

The primary benefit is the “cessation of hostilities against Israel” by Egypt and “other Arab states that could not wage war against Israel in the absence of Egyptian participation”, Springborg said.

In addition to Egyptian support for American “counterterrorism and counterinsurgency” campaigns, Springborg says the US also enjoys marginal benefits, including access to Egyptian airspace and the prioritisation of US naval vessels through the Suez Canal.

The high amount of military aid, in particular, has also helped to create jobs and to reduce unemployment in the US. More than 1.3 million Americans work in manufacturing weaponry for defence companies, and more than three million others support the industry indirectly.

The US is among the world’s top five arms producers and distributors, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

“The United States does not give money to Egypt for military equipment; it gives the Egyptian military a list of equipment the American government will purchase on its behalf in the United States,” Gelvin told Al Jazeera.

What about economic aid?

Economic assistance, or American “investments” in Egypt, are a relatively small part of the package, analysts say.

Economic aid now stands at less than $200m annually, compared with more than $1bn from the early 1980s through the early 2000s, Springborg said.

#Egypte #etats-unis

Ties With Egypt Army Constrain Washington - NYTimes.com
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/17/world/middleeast/us-officials-fear-losing-an-eager-ally-in-the-egyptian-military.html?ref=gl

La sempiternelle fumisterie de « #nos_valeurs » vs #nos_intérêts" ("notre #sécurité_nationale") avec des journalistes du New York Times comme porte-parole du régime étasunien.

Nul allié au monde n’est plus conciliant que le #CSFA,

Most nations, including many close allies of the United States, require up to a week’s notice before American warplanes are allowed to cross their territory. Not Egypt, which offers near-automatic approval for military overflights, to resupply the war effort in Afghanistan or to carry out counterterrorism operations in the Middle East, Southwest Asia or the Horn of Africa.
Multimedia

Losing that route could significantly increase flight times to the region.

American warships are also allowed to cut to the front of the line through the Suez Canal in times of crisis, even when oil tankers are stacked up like cars on an interstate highway at rush hour. Without Egypt’s cooperation, military missions could take days longer.

Those are some of the largely invisible ways the Egyptian military has assisted the United States as it pursues its national security interests across the region — and why the generals now in charge in Cairo are not without their own leverage in dealing with Washington in the aftermath of President Obama’s condemnation Thursday of the military’s bloody crackdown on supporters of the former president, Mohamed Morsi.

Même la « mesure punitive » de Obama n’était qu’une mesure de protection des troupes étasuniennes,

In his first overtly punitive step, Mr. Obama canceled the Bright Star military exercise, the largest and most visible sign of cooperation between the armed forces of the two nations. But given the growing violence in Egypt, it might have been impossible to guarantee the safety of the thousands of American troops scheduled to deploy for the war game, and the decision to call it off might have been the wise move regardless of the politics.

Et, affirme-t-on sans rire, de véritables mesures sont d’autant plus difficiles à prendre que « nos intérêts » coïncident avec le chemin de la démocratie en Egypte,

For the Pentagon, which had earlier delayed the delivery of four F-16 fighter jets to the Egyptian Air Force, other steps might be more difficult.

“We need them for the Suez Canal, we need them for the peace treaty with Israel, we need them for the overflights, and we need them for the continued fight against violent extremists who are as much of a threat to Egypt’s transition to democracy as they are to American interests,” said Gen. James N. Mattis, who retired this year as head of the military’s Central Command.

Le message étasunien au CSFA sera donc : Frappez aussi sauvagement que vous voulez, mais terminez vite,...

“The violence is intolerable, but clearly they feel the nation of Egypt is facing a sovereign, existential crisis,” said one Obama administration official. “So while the violence is intolerable, we may be able to eventually accept these decisions if the violence ends, and quickly.”

...un souhait qui a l’inconvénient d’être bancal,

The risk is that the United States may be left standing by as its allies in the Egyptian military lose control of the crisis.

En réalité nul allié au monde n’est plus conciliant que le CSFA pour aider le régime étasunien à commettre ses crimes dans la région...

For decades the Egyptians have helped the American military in ways that are largely unknown to the American public, said Robert Springborg, a professor at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif., and an expert on the Egyptian military. Mr. Springborg noted that in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003 — after the Turkish Parliament refused to allow the American military to use Turkish territory for crossing into Iraq from the north — Egypt gave the Pentagon immediate access for two aircraft battle groups and accompanying aircraft through the Suez Canal and across its territory.

Given the number of countries in the region that do not allow American military overflights, especially for combat missions, Egypt’s location makes it a vital, and relatively direct, access route to an unstable crescent of strategic importance.

...et aider Israël à commettre les siens,

Egypt’s role in the Camp David agreements has also been of critical value for America’s closest ally in the region, Israel.

En y réfléchissant bien il reste une aile de F-16 qui n’a pas encore été livrée cette année et dont la non fourniture pourrait servir de mesure punitive,...

All of the aid for this year already has been authorized, so even an order to halt the financial assistance would not have an impact until next year. In the meantime, Saudi Arabia and other oil-rich Persian Gulf nations have increased their financial support to Egypt, far surpassing the American contribution.

Beyond delaying shipment of the F-16 warplanes, officials said, there are few unfulfilled weapons contracts that could be held up as a punitive measure.

...au-delà, le « contre-productif » se profile,

American officials looking at ways to punish the Egyptian military for the order to clear Muslim Brotherhood protest sites have looked to the lesson of Pakistan, which came under economic sanctions for its nuclear program.

Among the actions taken was ending a program of inviting young Pakistani military officers to attend armed service academic programs in the United States. One result has been a generation of Pakistani officers with no affinity for — and, more often, hostility toward — the American military. A similar result could occur if the next generation of promising Egyptian officers were not invited to American military schools.

Il ne reste plus qu’à souhaiter que le CSFA se rende compte que la perpétuation de la violence n’est pas bonne pour son prolifique bizness ("l’économie de l’Egypte"),...

In the end, one powerful incentive for the generals to quickly end the civil unrest and establish order — and try to make good on promises to begin a transition to legitimate governance might be economic — to attract tourism and investment. And also to preserve Egypt’s relationship with the United States.

... et arrive à restaurer le moubarakisme,

“Both sides have a strong interest in preserving it and will work to that end,” Mr. Springborg said. “The Egyptian military will take steps to clothe the military’s behind-the-scene rule with suitable civilian trappings, making it possible for the U.S. and others to deal with it.”

#foutage_de_gueule

Egypt May Not Need Fighter Jets, But The U.S. Keeps Sending Them Anyway : Planet Money : NPR
▻http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/08/08/209878158/egypt-may-not-need-fighter-jets-but-u-s-keeps-sending-them-anyway

Every year, the U.S. Congress appropriates more than $1 billion in military aid to Egypt. But that money never gets to Egypt. It goes to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, then to a trust fund at the Treasury and, finally, out to U.S. military contractors that make the tanks and fighter jets that ultimately get sent to Egypt.

The U.S. started sending M1A1 Abrams tanks to Egypt in the late ’80s. In all, the U.S. sent more than 1,000 tanks to Egypt since then — valued at some $3.9 billion — which Egypt maintains along with several thousand Soviet-era tanks.

“There’s no conceivable scenario in which they’d need all those tanks short of an alien invasion,” Shana Marshall of the Institute of Middle East Studies at George Washington University, told me.

A thousand tanks would be helpful for large land battles, but not for the threats facing Egypt today, such as terrorism and border security in the Sinai Peninsula, according to Robert Springborg, an expert on the Egyptian military at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif. In fact, he said, at least 200 of the tanks the U.S. has sent to Egypt have never been used.

“They are crated up and then they sit in deep storage, and that’s where they remain,” he told me.

The story with F-16 fighter jets is similar. Since 1980, we’ve sent Egypt 221 fighter jets, valued at $8 billion. “Our American military advisers in Cairo have for many years been advising against further acquisitions of F-16s,” Springborg said. Egypt already has more F-16s than it needs, he said.

(...)

The U.S. wants Egypt to have them in part because of people like Bruce Baron, president of Baron Industries, a small business in Oxford, Mich. “The aid that we give to Egypt is coming back to the U.S. and keeping 30 of my people working,” Baron told me. Specifically, he said, 30 of his 57 employees are working on parts for the M1A1 Abrams tanks that we give to Egypt.

Every March for the past few years, Baron says, he and other small-business owners have gone to Capitol Hill at the invitation of General Dynamics, a big contractor. They visit their congressmen and “let them know of our support for these programs and also the impact that these programs have on employment,” he says.

(...)

(...) the State Department doesn’t want to upset the status quo, the Defense Department doesn’t want to upset a valuable ally in the region, and, of course, defense contractors want to keep their contracts.

Sisi’s Islamist Agenda for Egypt |
Foreign Affairs
Robert Springborg

Paradoxe, selon l’auteur, Sissi en se débarrassant des Frères musulmans préparerait un régime sur le modèle pakistanais islamo-militaire

▻http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/139605/robert-springborg/sisis-islamist-agenda-for-egypt#cid=soc-twitter-at-snapshot-sisi_s_i

Sisi’s speech was only the latest suggestion that he will not be content to simply serve as the leader of Egypt’s military. Although he has vowed to lead Egypt through a democratic transition, there are plenty of indications that he is less than enthusiastic about democracy and that he intends to hold on to political power himself. But that’s not to say that he envisions a return to the secular authoritarianism of Egypt’s recent past. Given the details of Sisi’s biography and the content of his only published work, a thesis he wrote in 2006 while studying at the U.S. Army War College in Pennsylvania, it seems possible that he might have something altogether different in mind: a hybrid regime that would combine Islamism with militarism. To judge from the ideas about governance that he put forward in his thesis, Sisi might see himself less as a custodian of Egypt’s democratic future than as an Egyptian version of Muhammed Zia ul-Haq, the Pakistani general who seized power in 1977 and set about to “Islamicize” state and society in Pakistan.

Last summer, when Morsi tapped Sisi to replace Minister of Defense Muhammad Tantawi, Morsi clearly believed that he had chosen someone who was willing to subordinate himself to an elected government. Foreign observers also interpreted Sisi’s promotion as a signal that the military would finally be professionalized, beginning with a reduction of its role in politics and then, possibly, the economy. Sisi’s initial moves as defense minister reinforced this optimism. He immediately removed scores of older officers closely associated with his corrupt and unpopular predecessor. And he implicitly criticized the military’s involvement in politics after the ouster of Hosni Mubarak in 2011, warning that such “dangerous” interventions could turn Egypt into Afghanistan or Somalia and would not recur.