After being unsuccessful in the Arab world, Egypt turns to Africa for greater military unity

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has provided a hint at his country's efforts to foster greater military cooperation with fellow African states in the face of increasing security threats across the continent.

Addressing the 7th Mid-Year Coordination Meeting of the African Union (AU) in Equatorial Guinea on July 13, the Egyptian president referred to his country's contribution to the North Africa Regional Capability (NARC), a cooperation mechanism aimed at promoting peace, stability, and security in Africa.

The NARC is part of the African Standby Force, an AU security tool for the preservation of peace and security on the continent and composed of troops from a host of North African states, such as—apart from Egypt—Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya.

Units constituting the force had last conducted a special training in Algeria in May this year, expanding operational and tactical coordination between the armies contributing to the mechanism.

Egypt's contribution to the NARC, observers in Cairo said, is a minor detail in the larger picture of the Arab country's multifaceted efforts to hammer out greater military and security cooperation with fellow states on the continent.

"Egypt has been working hard to enhance its military and security coordination with fellow African states, and the NARC is one aspect in this respect," Ibrahim al-Masri, a retired army general and the current head of the Committee on Defence and National Security in the Egyptian parliament, told The New Arab.

"This cooperation is very important for Egypt because it mainly serves Egyptian security interests," he added.

Egypt has intensified its military and security cooperation with African countries over the past decade, turning its capital into a meeting point for military officials and top brass from across the continent's militaries.

In the same decade, Egypt signed numerous defence and military cooperation agreements with other states on the continent, paving the way for coordinated military strategies and responses to intensifying security challenges.

It also attempted to establish standard defence mechanisms for the member states of continental blocs, including the Sahel and the Sahara states.

Growing threats

Deep under these Egyptian efforts, Africa is becoming the new international battleground against terrorism, with a vast number of extremist groups taking root and growing in different parts of the continent, using the fragile militaries of some of its states and the same states' deteriorating security conditions.

From the al-Shabaab movement in Somalia to Boko Haram in Nigeria and its surrounding countries and the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara region, Africa is becoming infested with such groups.

Egypt, which has a powerful military, has been warily following the escalation of the terrorist threat in Africa, especially after the defeat of the Islamic State and other terrorist organisations in Syria in March 2019 and Africa becoming the new magnet of the same organisations.

Egypt battled a branch of the Islamic State in Sinai and succeeded in uprooting it, paying dearly in the process.

However, this populous African state has been apprehensive of the prospect of terrorist organisations in eastern Africa and the Sahel region teaming up with others in North Africa, especially while Libya, where an amalgam of foreign mercenaries still operates, continues to be unstable.

Unity between such groups, political analysts in Cairo said, could pose serious threats to Egypt's security, especially with Egypt sharing vast boundaries with states that suffer unrest and military conflicts.

"This is why we always say military cooperation, especially with states that fall within the immediate range of Egypt's national security, serves this security," Ambassador Mona Omar, a former assistant to the Egyptian foreign minister for African affairs, told TNA.

"However, Egypt does not restrict its cooperation in this regard to the countries that fall within this range because it works hard to help other countries overcome their security challenges, including terrorism," she added.

This view offers an explanation for Egypt's rapid moves to intensify military and security cooperation and coordination with some of the continent's states, including Somalia, whose president visited Egypt earlier this month.

The two countries have been stepping up their defence and security cooperation in the past months, including through the deployment of Egyptian troops within an African peacekeeping mission in Somalia.

Apart from serving other Egyptian security and geostrategic goals, Egypt's security cooperation with Somalia also came at a time of a possible merger between al-Shabaab and the Houthi militia in Yemen, despite their ideological differences.

Such a merger, security analysts said, would be catastrophic for navigation in the Red Sea, one that will compound the havoc Houthi attacks on commercial ships wreak in the area and on the Suez Canal, a prime source of national income for the Egyptians.

Challenges

Military and security cooperation with Somalia contributes to coordination with other countries on the continent, as evidenced by the signing of a series of military and security cooperation agreements with these countries.

This cooperation compensates for Egypt's failure to foster closer military and security cooperation with its fellow Arab states.

Sisi has been lobbying for a joint Arab, NATO-like military force that responds to emergencies in different Arab states and helps these states get over the security threats they face.

The Egyptian president's suggestion coincided with the escalation of the terrorist threat in the Arab region, with Iraq, Syria and Libya turning into a security powder keg, threatening to destabilise other regional states.

Nevertheless, there was little enthusiasm for the force proposed by Egypt, probably because of the varying alliances—and the commitments imposed by these alliances—of Arab states.

The NARC is primarily designed to provide the North Africa contribution to the African Standby Force.

As a mechanism, the organisation has brought military officials from the States on several occasions in recent years, including the chiefs of staff in Algeria in May 2023.

A meeting was also held under the mechanism in Cairo in October of the same year. Earlier this year, the chiefs of staff of the armies constituting the force met in Cairo as well.

These meetings aimed to assess the performance of the force and propose changes to it.

Egypt holds the rotating command of the NARC this year. Nevertheless, the force faces a series of challenges on the road to achieving greater military cooperation and coordination with its member states, as well as contributing effectively to the African Standby Force.

These challenges include rampant political tensions in the region, particularly between Algeria and Morocco, as well as fear among member states getting entangled in these tensions.

Egypt, for example, refused to participate in the NARC training in Algeria in May this year due to concerns about the participation of the Algeria-backed the Polisario Front, fearing it would anger Morocco.

Algeria and Morocco are locked in a tense stand-off over the Western Sahara, where Rabat claims sovereignty and Algeria supports the Polisario movement, which is fighting for the region's independence from Morocco.

The lack of funding and funding gaps experienced by the African Standby Force is another major challenge.

In his address to the 7th Mid-Year Coordination Meeting in Equatorial Guinea, the Egyptian president called for the presence of what he referred to as "sustainable funding" for the force, enabling it to build its capabilities on the road to responding to emergencies.

The lack of the necessary funding will hinder the work of the force and incapacitate it in the face of growing security threats in the region and on the continent, observers in Cairo said.

"Security mechanisms like this one cannot carry out their missions in the absence of adequate funding," al-Masry said.

"This is why—apart from striving to expand its military and security ties with fellow states on the continent—Egypt works hard to ensure that sufficient funding is available so that joint security mechanisms can be operational," he added.