Egypt’s Army Stayed Out of Three Wars. Ethiopia Could Force a Fourth

On September 29, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi gathered his ministers, governors and military and police commanders at the new Strategic Command headquarters in Egypt’s New Administrative Capital, the first meeting of its kind held there. He quoted the Quranic command to “prepare against them whatever force you can” and then explained it. Strength is relative, he said: Egypt’s economic, cultural and media power cannot be measured against a more advanced state’s. “I will not be judged against the more advanced country. I will be judged on the size of the effort I put into preparing. Did I give everything I had?” He also put a price on the region’s wars: Egypt, he said, has lost about $20 billion in direct Suez Canal revenue since October 7, 2023.

The same day, Steven A. Cook of the Council on Foreign Relations, one of the sharpest and most persistent Western critics of Egypt’s leadership and of Middle Eastern rulers generally, published a column in Foreign Policy asking whether Egypt’s diplomacy is clever or clumsy. His answer is that it is cleverer than it looks. Egypt’s awkward postures, he argues, come from maneuvering between contradictory demands, not from ineptitude.

Cook has put his finger on something many Egyptians see without naming. Every Egyptian president has been remembered for one domestic achievement and one foreign one. Gamal Abdel Nasser overthrew the monarchy and fought the War of Attrition that opened the road to October 1973. Anwar Sadat won that war and signed Camp David. Hosni Mubarak rebuilt the economy in his early years and joined the 1991 Gulf War coalition. At home, Sisi’s mark is plain: he broke the Muslim Brotherhood so thoroughly that it would need decades to return at its old strength. Abroad, there is no Camp David, and the Sharm el-Sheikh summit that ended the Gaza war has produced results Israel does not honor. Sisi’s foreign achievement is harder to photograph. He took Egypt through three wars without fighting any of them.

Egypt faced contradictory pressures in Gaza, the Iran war and the Red Sea, and in each case it deployed, deterred and mediated without firing a shot or losing Washington, its own public or the peace treaty with Israel.

The principle behind it is that the army’s strength lies in not using it. Egypt holds the largest army in the region in reserve by choice, not because it cannot fight.

None of the three wars is over, and the Houthi file alone has cost Egypt more than any other: at least $10 billion in Suez Canal revenue, by Sisi’s own figures.

Ethiopia is the file Egypt cannot manage from a distance. Abiy Ahmed’s offensive in Tigray, his accusations against Eritrea and his hunger for Red Sea access could force Egypt’s army to move.

The Gaza war put Egypt under pressures that pointed in opposite directions. Israel wanted Palestinians pushed into Sinai, and floated military operations on the border to make it happen. Washington’s pressure on Israel was weak: it paused one shipment of weapons while Israeli forces took the Philadelphi Corridor on Egypt’s border. Egyptian public opinion, deeply sympathetic to Gaza, wanted the army to intervene. Cairo expected Donald Trump’s return to end the displacement threat. Instead, Trump said in January 2025 that he had “a feeling” the “general in Egypt” would “open their hearts” and give “the kind of land that we need” for Gaza’s population.

Egypt answered without a war. It moved troops into Sinai, a step some Israelis called a breach of the 1979 peace treaty, which satisfied the street and sent Israel a deterrent message: a disciplined army stands on this border, and Egypt is not a collapsing state to be walked into. Egyptian intelligence kept meeting its Israeli counterparts to learn what Israel actually intended behind the public threats, because there is no working channel between the two political leaderships. Egyptian officials had already warned Israel before October 7 that Gaza was about to explode. Sisi rallied Arab states to press Trump to drop the displacement idea, the army staged exercise after exercise, and Cairo made a point of showcasing its cooperation with the United States. Its warming ties with Türkiye (Turkey) and its growing arms industry added to the message. Moving Palestinians into Sinai would be a red line, and crossing it would mean war.

The cost was real. Israeli armor sits in the Philadelphi Corridor, with Israeli flags visible from the air. But another president could easily have stepped into the trap: been dragged into a military operation or cut ties with Washington. Sisi lost none of the parties that mattered. He kept the Egyptian public, the United States and Camp David.

The war between the United States, Israel and Iran brought the same squeeze. The Gulf states wanted Egypt’s army deployed to their territory. Iran warned Egypt not to move it. Washington kept asking what Cairo intended to do. Few expected anything from Egypt except a military stance.

Egypt took a defensive one. It coordinated with Arab states, moved air-defense systems and, in May, sent a detachment of Rafale fighters to the United Arab Emirates to help intercept Iranian drones and missiles. It never declared war on Iran. At the same time, it used the channel it had quietly opened with Tehran before the war. Egypt was among the mediators behind the US-Iran memorandum of understanding signed in June, which expired in August as talks faltered. On September 20, CIA Director John Ratcliffe passed over every country on Iran’s borders and came to Cairo, where Sisi pressed for a comprehensive deal to end the Iranian crisis. Egypt’s role in this war has been large, and it has been played by its intelligence service and its diplomats.

The Houthis in Yemen presented the same dilemma. Saudi Arabia wanted Egypt in the fight. The Houthis warned that intervention would put the Suez Canal at risk. Washington again asked what Egypt would do. Egypt again played defense: forces to support Saudi Arabia and protect facilities, air defenses, and no war.

This is the file that has hurt Egypt most, more than Gaza. Sisi put the Suez Canal’s losses at $10 billion in March, and on September 29 at about $20 billion in direct revenue since October 2023. Cook estimates the Houthi attacks alone have cost Egypt $10 billion to $11 billion in tolls.

The three wars Egypt avoided are not finished. Israel is striking Gaza again despite the ceasefire, and threatens that if a single soldier is killed or captured it will empty Gaza of its people, and the only place to send them is Sinai. The Iran war has not ended: it could still become a ground campaign, with Iranian forces landing on the Gulf’s shores. The Houthis remain a threat to shipping and to the canal.

So far, Egypt’s strategy has succeeded. It has protected its economy, its army and its state. But the game is only won if it is played to the end, and Egypt must hold to the strategy that has worked. For the first time, Egyptians themselves are convinced that war is not the answer, which is remarkable for a people whose army has fought more wars than any other in the region: against Britain, France and Israel, several times over.

Egypt has shown it can outmaneuver three wars. It cannot count on circumstances to keep serving it to the end. The army it has preserved by not using it may have to move after all, and if it does, the reason will be Ethiopia’s recklessness.