Egypt literally dies as a nation without Nile water.
Uganda purchasing SU27 advanced long range fighter bombers and Egypt recently placing increased emphasis and resources on training military units(including western training efforts) responsible for upstream Nile force projection is not a coincidence.
Nile resource sharing is a massive flash point.
I recall glancing at an engineering report that indicated clearing/dredging swamps in Sudan could significantly reduce mile water evaporation and increase downstream flow.
But at massive environmental and financial cost.
Perhaps it’s time to stock up on Egyptian cotton sheets now, since the future of Egyptian cotton may seriously be in doubt.
Tough choices to be made amplified by the need for them to be across sovereign borders.
I have talked with a few Egyptians on the subject. Unfortunately most think a military solution would be simple and straightforward. "Egypt has hundreds of fighter jets. Ethiopia has 20, We can turn the dam into dust".
They probably can. But then what? History is not over yet.
Egypt thinks of Ethiopia as enemy state. A lot of Ethiopians believe Egypt supports every rebel group in Ethiopia. But Ethiopians still don't view Egypt as an enemy, more like a thorn on the side. For thousands of years the Nile has been flowing toward Egypt without much objection. Bombing the dam will change that. It is the equivalent to creating a monster at your water source. Ethiopia will not try to block the water or anything like that. But it can and probably will start small irrigation projects everywhere. And it will stop consulting with Egypt. In the end, this will be much more devastating to Egypt than a hydro-electric dam which isn't even used for irrigation.
What baffles me about the Egyptian stance is, climate change is coming. Projections for fresh water in Africa in the coming decades don't look rosy. Mitigation for this is, fresh water sources should be developed and protected from environmental degradation. And you need the cooperation of upstream countries to do that. Being source of 85% of the Nile, Ethiopia's support is needed to do that.
Even if Ethiopia stops constructing the dam right now, in 50 years, at a time Egypt is sporting 200 million souls, there is potential that water levels on the Nile are probably going to decrease purely from climate change.
The talk of war is stupid. Playing zero sum game of "Only Egypt" is a bad idea.
| I have talked with a few Egyptians on the subject. Unfortunately most think a military solution would be simple and straightforward
Egyptian here .. i dont think most of Egyptian believe in the military solution and even our government Led by a military Experienced person doesn't believe in that
we have been in negotiations for multiple years and eventually will involve European Union or the US to make sure agreement is fair to both parties
Something similar is happening in South Asia, where China has repeatedly proposed plans to dam rivers in Tibet. This has led to the possibility of war (https://asiatimes.com/2021/01/china-risks-a-himalayan-water-...) with India because rivers fed by the Himalayas supply a lot of India’s fresh water, and any alteration would dramatically affect its environment, agriculture, etc. This is a modern issue both because Tibet was historically it’s own sovereign territory and because the world didn’t face such overpopulation or resource strains.
I'm really curious on how they ignored their mexican counterparts, and really astonished that the US use all the caudal from the river leaving nothing to flow through the border. How they even manage to justify that decision is incredible to me.
The old colonial treaty split the waters 85-15 between Egypt and Sudan ignoring all the other African countries. This is completely unsustainable, the poor uptream countries must have their share.
Egypt just needs to use desalinization and water saving methods like other ME states.
It is surprising how most of the responses here seem so sympathetic to Egypt whilst forgetting the Nile countries who have had less benefit from a river originating in their territories.
The Black African countries have as much right to benefit from the river as Egypt and the idea that they must submit to some agreement created by the British who ignored the needs of Nile countries is simply absurd.
If any people "own" it is the Ethiopians, the Kenyans and the Ugandans in whose countries the Nile originates not Egypt, and they have as much right to it as anyone else. Instead of having proper negotiations on how the Nile should be shared they bringing up colonial agreements which none of the African countries were parties to. This is simply absurd and as racist as anything else.
Gadaffi created huge pipelines to draw water from aquifers, a resource which is way more valuable than oil, and offered to supply a substantial portion of Egypt's water needs and these fools supported his overthrow and turned the whole country into a scene of chaos, and now they are making silly noises about war with Ethiopia and other crap.
> While most rivers flow south, the Nile flows north
I've heard this before, but it doesn't sound right, unless you get a weird bias because of weather patterns and lots of landmass that would drain into the arctic ocean.
I have a hard time conceiving of any reason that North and South would be different in this regard, but maybe it's possible if there is a tendency for rivers to flow towards the equator for some reason, since most of the world's landmass happens to be in the northern hemisphere.
There's generally been a long-standing division between two polities, one controlling the upper Nile (modern-day Sudan/South Sudan) and one controlling the lower Nile (modern-day Egypt), although note the boundary between the two of them has shifted over the millennia.
The Islamic caliphate conquered the lower Nile from the Byzantines in their initial expansion, but failed to make progress on the upper Nile, leading the region to remain Christian. The Ottomans eventually displaced the rump states of the caliphate as the rulers of Egypt, but made essentially no progress again pushing south into Sudan. However, the governor of Egypt eventually went on a campaign and actually managed to conquer Sudan and it held for a couple of decades later. But then Sudan had a successful rebellion against Egyptian rule, so the Egyptian governor asked the British (who had by that time invaded and colonized Egypt, even though it was still legally part of the Ottoman Empire) to help him reconquering Sudan. This was successful, leading to Sudan becoming effectively a British colony under nominal Egyptian (but not nominally Ottoman, unlike actual Egypt) sovereignty [1].
That's how Britain acquired Egypt and Sudan. By the time of the first treaty, of course, the Ottoman Empire was carved up for good and Egypt became a clear British protectorate and Sudan a clear joint-British/English condominium. That's why Britain was involved. One of Britain's goals in ruling Sudan was to prevent it from becoming an extension of the Egyptian state, and the first treaty was an instrument to that end (by requiring Sudan to provide Egypt with a reliable supply of water, it's less necessary for Egypt to actually physically control Sudan).
[1] Yes, trying to figure out the actual boundaries of the Ottoman Empire were in its last century of existence is an exercise in frustration.
Is it? I think you'll find similar "involvement" around the world. The Great Partition of Pakistan and India, and Pakistan and Bangladesh/East-Pakistan spring to mind.
This is perhaps the most American thing I've ever read.
(No offence to any Americans reading this - there's simply no other country that's as insulated from the consequences of its military complex by sheer geography.)
This is stupid. If Ethiopia decides to hurt Egypt, it won't need to build a massive dam. Wasting water has never been too difficult. Egypt would do well to not create such an enemy at their water source.
I know how it will work. Most likely nothing will happen. Egyptian regime is very fragile, and will not risk a foreign intervention while having to suppress monthly uprisings back home.
The difference is, regardless of political divisions, everyone in Egypt totally understands that they are doomed without water. so the mentality there is slowly shifting towards "well, if we are dying anyway...."
I think a war with Ethiopia would help the Egyptian regime, assuming it went well. And it probably would because Egypt's military is the strongest in the region minus Israel.
The real question is what Sudan would do (probably lie down for the Egyptians).
I see several persons claiming a lot of what is being said over the last few years as a propaganda from the Ethiopians as people or as a Government.
Egypt only receives 55.5 billion cubic of water.
Do you know how much the Nile rover represent for Egypt as a source of water? ONLY 83.1% of the FRESH WATER.
https://water.fanack.com/egypt/water-resources/
Egypt has NO other water resources except the Nile river.
How about Ethiopia? AT LESAT 936.4 BILLION Cubic meters and we don’t count underground water here (16.9 times as the Egyptians).
https://www.worldometers.info/water/ethiopia-water/
Simply speaking: what does Ethiopia need?
Ethiopia wants to SELL the water to Egypt.
Ethiopia is being used as a dirty hand to get Egypt down in any debate with major forces especially Israel.
Water MUST NOT be sold.
You CAN NOT trade lives of millions by money.
This problem should be finished once and for ever.
All the Nile river African countries have ZERO problem of water supplies EXCEPT Egypt.
Egypt is already suffering from extreme water deficiency.
Ethiopians always claim that they don’t get any benefit from the Blue Nile. Well, the answer is so simple, it is the civil wars that got your country sunk in bloodsheds of killing, it is your divided ethnic groups, it is your inadequate capability of using the huge water resources that you already have.
I am not sure who supports negotiating about the lives of millions of people by trading their lives with money.
You guys don’t imagine the consequences. It is not about war only, it is about uncontrolled anger which will reach a lot of places in the Ethiopian country.
Last, if you don’t have enough information about this debate, do not place meaningless comment. This is not your daily sh* you post on social media. Numbers talk. That what we all know. Without number, what we say is just garbage.
Grow up and have the info. Do not place your fail as a country or people on another nation
Egypt is not a "proper" country. It is simply a string of settlements along the banks of Nile river and its delta.
Don't let the large trapezoid shape fool you. Most of that is the result of a line on the ground drawn by colonialists.
If you want see a country like Egypt look at the Gambia, another country drawn along the eponymous river wholly surrounded by Senegal, another product of colonial machinations.
Roughly 70% of the world population lives within 5 km of a body of water [0]. By this definition, every country is a string of settlements along water.
Over 90 million people live on that insignificant river! Egypt was the center of the Mughal Sultanate that beat the Crusaders and the Mongols. They went into decline under the Ottomans and never really recovered — infamously, they faced the Ottoman guns with swords and bows in 1517 and were unceremoniously trounced.
You know, if the land near the nile is so valuable and the land far away from it is not, then why would you be jealous over it? No country can do anything with it.
[+] [-] chriselles|5 years ago|reply
Uganda purchasing SU27 advanced long range fighter bombers and Egypt recently placing increased emphasis and resources on training military units(including western training efforts) responsible for upstream Nile force projection is not a coincidence.
Nile resource sharing is a massive flash point.
I recall glancing at an engineering report that indicated clearing/dredging swamps in Sudan could significantly reduce mile water evaporation and increase downstream flow.
But at massive environmental and financial cost.
Perhaps it’s time to stock up on Egyptian cotton sheets now, since the future of Egyptian cotton may seriously be in doubt.
Tough choices to be made amplified by the need for them to be across sovereign borders.
[+] [-] DeRock|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] medium_burrito|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] p1mrx|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ilstormcloud|5 years ago|reply
They probably can. But then what? History is not over yet.
Egypt thinks of Ethiopia as enemy state. A lot of Ethiopians believe Egypt supports every rebel group in Ethiopia. But Ethiopians still don't view Egypt as an enemy, more like a thorn on the side. For thousands of years the Nile has been flowing toward Egypt without much objection. Bombing the dam will change that. It is the equivalent to creating a monster at your water source. Ethiopia will not try to block the water or anything like that. But it can and probably will start small irrigation projects everywhere. And it will stop consulting with Egypt. In the end, this will be much more devastating to Egypt than a hydro-electric dam which isn't even used for irrigation.
What baffles me about the Egyptian stance is, climate change is coming. Projections for fresh water in Africa in the coming decades don't look rosy. Mitigation for this is, fresh water sources should be developed and protected from environmental degradation. And you need the cooperation of upstream countries to do that. Being source of 85% of the Nile, Ethiopia's support is needed to do that.
Even if Ethiopia stops constructing the dam right now, in 50 years, at a time Egypt is sporting 200 million souls, there is potential that water levels on the Nile are probably going to decrease purely from climate change.
The talk of war is stupid. Playing zero sum game of "Only Egypt" is a bad idea.
[+] [-] masoeg|5 years ago|reply
Egyptian here .. i dont think most of Egyptian believe in the military solution and even our government Led by a military Experienced person doesn't believe in that
we have been in negotiations for multiple years and eventually will involve European Union or the US to make sure agreement is fair to both parties
[+] [-] herodoturtle|5 years ago|reply
For those that are interested, here is some more context on official cooperation between countries that surround (and are dependent on) the Nile:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nile_Basin_Initiative
[+] [-] throwawaysea|5 years ago|reply
The southwest of the US addressed this via an interstate compact that lays out shared allocation of river flows: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_River_Compact
[+] [-] joking|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yyyk|5 years ago|reply
Egypt just needs to use desalinization and water saving methods like other ME states.
[+] [-] HorkHunter|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gorkemyurt|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vfclists|5 years ago|reply
The Black African countries have as much right to benefit from the river as Egypt and the idea that they must submit to some agreement created by the British who ignored the needs of Nile countries is simply absurd.
If any people "own" it is the Ethiopians, the Kenyans and the Ugandans in whose countries the Nile originates not Egypt, and they have as much right to it as anyone else. Instead of having proper negotiations on how the Nile should be shared they bringing up colonial agreements which none of the African countries were parties to. This is simply absurd and as racist as anything else.
Gadaffi created huge pipelines to draw water from aquifers, a resource which is way more valuable than oil, and offered to supply a substantial portion of Egypt's water needs and these fools supported his overthrow and turned the whole country into a scene of chaos, and now they are making silly noises about war with Ethiopia and other crap.
[+] [-] danmaz74|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] dehrmann|5 years ago|reply
I've heard this before, but it doesn't sound right, unless you get a weird bias because of weather patterns and lots of landmass that would drain into the arctic ocean.
[+] [-] bourgoin|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lizknope|5 years ago|reply
If I lived in Siberia I would probably think that most rivers flow north to the Arctic Ocean.
[+] [-] didibus|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jcranmer|5 years ago|reply
The Islamic caliphate conquered the lower Nile from the Byzantines in their initial expansion, but failed to make progress on the upper Nile, leading the region to remain Christian. The Ottomans eventually displaced the rump states of the caliphate as the rulers of Egypt, but made essentially no progress again pushing south into Sudan. However, the governor of Egypt eventually went on a campaign and actually managed to conquer Sudan and it held for a couple of decades later. But then Sudan had a successful rebellion against Egyptian rule, so the Egyptian governor asked the British (who had by that time invaded and colonized Egypt, even though it was still legally part of the Ottoman Empire) to help him reconquering Sudan. This was successful, leading to Sudan becoming effectively a British colony under nominal Egyptian (but not nominally Ottoman, unlike actual Egypt) sovereignty [1].
That's how Britain acquired Egypt and Sudan. By the time of the first treaty, of course, the Ottoman Empire was carved up for good and Egypt became a clear British protectorate and Sudan a clear joint-British/English condominium. That's why Britain was involved. One of Britain's goals in ruling Sudan was to prevent it from becoming an extension of the Egyptian state, and the first treaty was an instrument to that end (by requiring Sudan to provide Egypt with a reliable supply of water, it's less necessary for Egypt to actually physically control Sudan).
[1] Yes, trying to figure out the actual boundaries of the Ottoman Empire were in its last century of existence is an exercise in frustration.
[+] [-] ampdepolymerase|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wavefunction|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] onetimemanytime|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] csense|5 years ago|reply
If the dam's an existential threat to Egypt, why don't the Egyptians simply launch a military strike to blow it up?
[+] [-] filleduchaos|5 years ago|reply
(No offence to any Americans reading this - there's simply no other country that's as insulated from the consequences of its military complex by sheer geography.)
[+] [-] ilstormcloud|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hutzlibu|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sudosysgen|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] newdude116|5 years ago|reply
The Track record of the Egyptians against Ethiopia is also not very good https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethiopian%E2%80%93Egyptian_War
[+] [-] baybal2|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sremani|5 years ago|reply
Egypt more than one occasion came close to doing something like that. Long story short. Who ever has better military capabilities will own the Nile.
Egypt can use Suez as another piece to get Europe to accept its bombing campaign.
[+] [-] HorkHunter|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] slibhb|5 years ago|reply
The real question is what Sudan would do (probably lie down for the Egyptians).
[+] [-] kevin_b_er|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] medium_burrito|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] onetimemanytime|5 years ago|reply
Go block oil extraction in the Arab world and USA will be all over you...national interest.
[+] [-] AnotherMan80|5 years ago|reply
Egypt has NO other water resources except the Nile river. How about Ethiopia? AT LESAT 936.4 BILLION Cubic meters and we don’t count underground water here (16.9 times as the Egyptians). https://www.worldometers.info/water/ethiopia-water/ Simply speaking: what does Ethiopia need? Ethiopia wants to SELL the water to Egypt. Ethiopia is being used as a dirty hand to get Egypt down in any debate with major forces especially Israel.
Water MUST NOT be sold. You CAN NOT trade lives of millions by money. This problem should be finished once and for ever. All the Nile river African countries have ZERO problem of water supplies EXCEPT Egypt. Egypt is already suffering from extreme water deficiency. Ethiopians always claim that they don’t get any benefit from the Blue Nile. Well, the answer is so simple, it is the civil wars that got your country sunk in bloodsheds of killing, it is your divided ethnic groups, it is your inadequate capability of using the huge water resources that you already have. I am not sure who supports negotiating about the lives of millions of people by trading their lives with money. You guys don’t imagine the consequences. It is not about war only, it is about uncontrolled anger which will reach a lot of places in the Ethiopian country. Last, if you don’t have enough information about this debate, do not place meaningless comment. This is not your daily sh* you post on social media. Numbers talk. That what we all know. Without number, what we say is just garbage. Grow up and have the info. Do not place your fail as a country or people on another nation
[+] [-] vfclists|5 years ago|reply
Don't let the large trapezoid shape fool you. Most of that is the result of a line on the ground drawn by colonialists.
If you want see a country like Egypt look at the Gambia, another country drawn along the eponymous river wholly surrounded by Senegal, another product of colonial machinations.
[+] [-] Etheryte|5 years ago|reply
[0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3110782/
[+] [-] scythe|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] BiteCode_dev|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] imtringued|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 8note|5 years ago|reply
See also: Nevada
[+] [-] oblio|5 years ago|reply