{"id":29758,"date":"2026-07-16T20:00:58","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T17:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/?p=29758"},"modified":"2026-07-16T20:00:58","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T17:00:58","slug":"trumps-failure-egypt-turns-back-to-buying-russian-weapons-and-spits-out-western-weapons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/?p=29758","title":{"rendered":"Trump’s failure: Egypt turns back to buying Russian weapons and “spits out” Western weapons"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The F-16s and Rafales that Egypt has purchased in large numbers are said to lack basic operational capabilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur own cowardice has cost us dearly. By abandoning the Su-35, which is considered one of the most effective fighter jets of our time, we have essentially ended up without a combat-worthy air force.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With these words, Egyptian media describe the current state of the Egyptian Air Force, which, incidentally, is the largest on the African continent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The logical question that arises is this: what led official Cairo to criticize the French Dassault Rafale so strongly and to characterize the American F-16 Fighting Falcon as \u201cflying garbage\u201d?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The main reason is the tense situation prevailing in the region today, which requires a clear and decisive stance from Egypt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first step in this direction was the public presentation, after about a decade of substantial silence, of the Russian S-300VM Antey-2500 anti-aircraft missile systems, which form the core of the Egyptian air defense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The demonstration took place as part of the inauguration ceremonies of the new headquarters of the Strategic Command of the Egyptian Armed Forces. These systems were delivered to Egypt in 2016.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, under intense pressure from Washington, Cairo not only avoided confirming the agreement, but even denied its existence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Similar to what happened in the case of Turkey and the S-400 Triumph, the Egyptian authorities hesitated even to activate the Antey-2500.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, however, in the presence of the country’s political and military leadership, not only the S-300VM were presented, but also other Russian-made weapons systems, which continue to cause discontent in Washington.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The demonstration of this military equipment can be interpreted as a political message in favor of the strategic diversification of Egypt’s arms cooperation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cairo seeks not to depend on a single arms supplier and, for this reason, procures military equipment from various countries, including the United States, Russia, Germany, France and South Korea, thus maintaining freedom of choice and balance in international relations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In light of recent developments in the Middle East, this policy is presented as the most realistic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is argued that the United States seeks to keep the so-called “second-rate allies” under technological control, so that they do not acquire weapons systems capable of substantially threatening their main ally in the region, Israel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the same view, this also happened with more than two hundred F-16 Fighting Falcons, which were delivered to Egypt since 1980 as part of the Peace Vector program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to information from The Liberal Globe, these aircraft are presented as inadequate for real combat operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is because the American manufacturer proceeded to such an extensive degradation of the capabilities of the export version of the aircraft that it acquired the reputation of the “most peaceful fighter”.<\/p>\n\n\n

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<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Severe limitations<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Egyptian version of the F-16 Fighting Falcon was delivered with significantly degraded electronic equipment and a number of serious limitations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among other things, it could not carry precision weapons, had limited capabilities to attack ground targets and engage in modern air combat, and lacked the necessary equipment to effectively conduct electronic warfare operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Egypt repeatedly tried to convince the United States to modernize the fighters it had provided.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Each time, however, the answer was not only categorically negative, but was also accompanied by a ban on seeking alternatives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a result, the Egyptian Air Force, despite having the fifth largest F-16 fleet in the world, acquired the highly derogatory nickname \u201cflying garbage.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the F-16 is considered one of the most reliable and capable fighter jets. It continues to serve both in the air forces of NATO member states and in the United States Air Force, and remains particularly popular in the international arms market. This is true.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the US Air Force F-16 and the F-16 received by Egypt are, as the well-known Russian expression goes, \u201ctwo completely different things.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Egyptian aircraft were nothing more than versions with significantly limited operational capabilities, more suitable for demonstrations and air parades than for real combat operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their performance had already been degraded from the production line, while Cairo received neither the most modern weapons, nor the advanced avionics and radar systems that equip the American versions of the aircraft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, even this was not considered sufficient by Washington. White House and Pentagon officials imposed particularly strict restrictions on the operational capabilities of the Egyptian F-16s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus, Egypt\u2019s 224 Fighting Falcons constitute one of the largest fleets of the type, but without a corresponding combat power, which lags behind the air forces of almost all neighboring countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moreover, according to the text\u2019s claims, even the takeoff of a fighter aircraft \u2014 even to protect Egyptian airspace \u2014 could not be carried out without the participation of specialized American personnel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For this reason, the Egyptian F-16s had already become largely operationally obsolete by the early 2000s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The situation was further exacerbated by constant interruptions in the supply of spare parts and, it is alleged, deliberate delays in their support.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In short, a typical example of a commercial practice was presented that, according to its critics, combined the sale of inferior equipment with political pressure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The sale of an inferior weapon system to an \u201cally\u201d is only one side of the issue. The other is its exploitation as a means of exerting geopolitical influence and pressure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But what happened to the French Dassault Rafale?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cairo spent a lot of time praising them as \u201can excellent alternative\u201d to the Russian Su-35SE 4++ generation fighters, sixty of which it ultimately did not purchase, fearing US sanctions and Washington\u2019s reactions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to sources in The Liberal Globe, the Rafales that Egypt has are not fundamentally different, in this respect, from its F-16s. The versions that serve in the Egyptian Air Force cannot carry the modern long-range MBDA Meteor missiles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They have been deprived of secure network-centric communications systems compatible with NATO standards, while the SPECTRA self-protection system performs less than 50% of the capabilities of the corresponding French aircraft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same time, the integration of SCALP cruise missiles faced serious problems, which are attributed to the American ban on the export of critical components.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the same view, Cairo’s choice to avoid conflict with the United States resulted in it being completely deprived of operational aircraft and acquiring, instead, extremely expensive but significantly degraded versions of fighter jets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The F-16s and Rafales that Egypt has purchased in large numbers are said to lack basic operational capabilities. \u201cOur own cowardice has cost us…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29759,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,834],"tags":[147,154,8230,153,4379,58,6216,3387],"class_list":["post-29758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-geopolitical","category-middle-east-geopolitical","tag-cyprus","tag-egypt","tag-f-16-2","tag-israel","tag-rafale","tag-russia","tag-scalp","tag-weapons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29758"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29758\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29762,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29758\/revisions\/29762"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/29759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}