Not by chance, Khalid bin Salman Al Saud, the Saudi Deputy Minister of Defense Affairs, and the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, both attended Berenice’s opening ceremony.
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In this context, Egypt is no longer able to go it alone in the Red Sea, while Cairo and Riyadh – although allies – still differ on how to build, and govern, security in the Red Sea.Įgypt and Saudi Arabia Strengthen Naval CooperationĮgypt’s increasing naval projection in the Red Sea combines with a tightened political and maritime cooperation with Saudi Arabia: Berenice is likely to become a cooperation hub for Red Sea security. This strategic linchpin at the crossroads between the Gulf and the Horn could serve diverse, if not dis-aligned, goals depending on who drives the agenda. In such a mosaic, Berenice is now the military focal point in the northern Red Sea. This occurs for instance on Yemen, Red Sea security and, most of all, Iran. But Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE are not always on the same page in foreign policy: despite strong economic ties and a compatible approach to leadership style and state-society relations, their regional priorities are aligned, not overlapped. Saudi Arabia and, to a lesser extent, the UAE (which doesn’t have borders on the Red Sea) have quickly entered the game, multiplying commercial and military interests along these coasts. Rather, Egypt needs regional allies and shared strategic goals to preserve, and enhance, its influence in the sub-region. But Egypt alone is no longer able to play the king-maker role in the Red Sea: this has turned into the arena of a big geopolitical struggle for commercial and military influence involving Middle Eastern and global powers. Stretched between its national agenda and Gulf allies’ agendas, Cairo has still to define a role for Berenice.Įgypt and the Gulf Allies: Aligned, Not Overlapped in Foreign Policyįor Egypt, the Red Sea is a historical backyard: a natural bridge linking Africa (both Mediterranean and Eastern), to the sands of the Arabian Peninsula. Surely, Egypt receives now less direct financial support from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait with respect to 2013-2016: but economies are widely interconnected. It is still unclear whether or not Cairo will be able to balance its national interests with the regional priority of its main ally, Saudi Arabia: countering Iran. The Berenice outpost, geographically placed between Egyptian and Saudi mega-projects, should support Egypt’s maritime projection amidst the Suez Canal and the Bab el-Mandeb choke-points.
In fact, Cairo is mostly investing in blue-water capabilities (deep sea) to support national prestige with the modernization of its Soviet-era fleet, and less on brown-water capabilities (littoral areas), despite asymmetric threats are on the rise. As the Egyptian navy intensifies joint naval exercises in the Red Sea with Arab and European partners, the Berenice (Ras Banas) interforce military base, expanded and then opened in January 2020, reflects bold goals. Moreover, the governor of the Red Sea governorate is a military general, as most of the provincial governors. In fact, the military declared “strategic zones of military importance”, areas where infrastructural, mining and tourism-related projects are flourishing. Since 2013, Egypt has been strengthening its naval power: this particularly regards the strategic direction of the Red Sea.