Any Egyptian brothers on here that can explain how Egypt can keep affording all these expenisve toys? I mean they have bought a SU-35, Mig-35, Rafale and even have ordered Eurofighter Typhoon. As well as 500 T-90 tanks, Type 209 Submarine, MEKO A-200 stealth frigate in the Egyptian navy alongside the French FREMM. They also bought 50 KA-52 attack helicopters from Russia.
I am just wondering where Egypt gets the money from and how these purchases are made possible despite the economic crisis? Their GDP is similar to that of Pakistan and their defence budget is actually a little smaller.
No Typhoons, yet anyway. I think the next purchase after the 30 Su-35SEs will be the Su-57. But here's the more important aspect about the financing abilities for all of this is that most forget that Egypt has secured the largest gas fields in the Mediterranean Sea in Zohr. That buys you A LOT of credit and once the Rafale purchase was made using French loans, that opened the door wide open. Even though India was the first to actually agree to purchase the Rafale, it was Egypt that was the first customer. Then Sisi and Putin spoke at great lengths about essentially moving out of the US' sphere in particularly military aircraft. Once that was decided along with the deal to take the 2 Mistrals off of Russia's hands, that helped ink the deal for the 46 Ka-52 Nile Alligators and then the MiG-29/35 and of course the Su-35.
Also, most of the modernization is naval because of the gas fields as well as many of the new cities and tourist projects in the Red Sea which are associated with Suadi NEOM project.
Now to clear up the silly rumors, the money that Saudiya and the UAE gave Egypt was to help it not fall into a failed state after the revolution and the economic stagnation and high inflation that could've easily destroyed the country, or at least put it in a very desperate situation. But it was not associated with any weapons purchase loool. It was to help create collateral for IMF loans and to help boost the economy, help create the only two gas liquification plants in the Mediterranean as well as help build a lot of this new infrastructure. People like to rag on Sisi and rightfully so in some cases, but for the most part, he's been brilliant in essentially not only saving Egypt, but fixing a lot of it which was no easy task.