NASAMS Order Egypt's Latest Step To Diversify Air Defense
In another significant acquisition, Egypt has requested a foreign military sale of the medium-range National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System from the United States, in a deal with an estimated value of $4.67 billion. Coming shortly after it reportedly received the strategic HQ-9B system from China, the order is the latest example of Egypt building a highly diverse air defense arsenal.
The State Department's Defense Security Cooperation Agency revealed the order in a press release on Thursday. The statement noted that the package includes four AN/MPQ-64F1 Sentinel radar systems and hundreds of surface-launched AIM-120 Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missiles that the system fires. The provision of these particular missiles is noteworthy, as Egypt had attempted for decades to acquire the AIM-120 for its F-16 fighter jets. The lack of AIM-120s severely curtailed the air defense capability of those aircraft, which is why Egypt sought fighter jets elsewhere, including the Su-35 from Russia.
Thursday's DSCA release also noted that the NASAMS 'will improve Egypt's capability to meet current and future threats by improving its ability to detect various air threats.'
NASAMS would reinforce the mid-tier of Egypt's air defense. The proposed sale comes less than a year after Cairo displayed the IRIS-T, specifically IRIS-T SL and IRIS-T SLEX, systems it acquired from Germany for the first time. These systems could significantly enhance Egypt's capability to detect and intercept various short- to medium-range aerial threats.
Another significant aspect of the NASAMS sale is its timing, as it may mark the first significant air defense acquisition Cairo requested from the United States in approximately 15 years. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute's extensive arms transfers database, the last air defense systems Cairo received from Washington were short-range AN/TWQ-1 Avenger systems, which fire FIM-92 Stinger missiles, in 2008. Valued at $50 million, that deal was insignificant compared to the estimated $4.67 billion Egypt is expected to pay for these much more sophisticated NASAMS.
In the past, the U.S. also sold Egypt secondhand, modernized medium-range MIM-23 Hawks, also known as the I-HAWK 'Improved HAWK' system, and short-range M48 Chaparrals, which fire a surface-launched variant of the short-range AIM-9 Sidewinder known as the MIM-72.
Notably, these provisions all consisted of short- to medium-range systems and lacked any strategic systems. Interestingly, in 1999, U.S. Secretary of Defense William Cohen announced several multi-billion-dollar arms deals to the Middle East, which included a Patriot PAC-3 missile system, then still under development, for Egypt. There's no indication Cairo received that advanced variant of the Patriot, which incorporates hit-to-kill technology against ballistic missiles.
Three years after Cohen's announcement, the U.S. reportedly reached an understanding with Israel not to supply Egypt with F-15 fighter jets to ensure Israel's qualitative military edge wasn't challenged. Therefore, Patriot systems, especially the cutting-edge PAC-3s, were probably off the table by then as well.
Following the July 2013 coup against a short-lived Muslim Brotherhood government and the rise to power of incumbent President Abdel Fatah el-Sisi, the U.S. occasionally withheld military aid and arms sales over human rights violations in Egypt. Consequently, in the 2010s, Egypt turned to other suppliers for weapons, purchasing Dassault Rafale fighter jets from France and MiG-29M/M2s from Russia.
During the 2010s, Egypt also received more Russian air defense systems than at any other time since it was a major Soviet arms buyer from the 1950s until the early 1970s, including strategic air defenses. It began with orders for short-range S-125 Pechora-2M, Tor-M1, and Buk-M2 systems, all of which Cairo received by the middle of the decade. Then, in 2014-15, Cairo went a step further with a multi-million-dollar deal for three advanced long-range Russian S-300VM strategic air defense missile systems, the Russian equivalent of the Patriot.
While the 2010s arguably marked a brief honeymoon period for Russia-Egypt arms sales, the 2020s already look a lot different. Egypt is widely believed to have recently purchased the HQ-9B or FD-2000B as its export variant is known, from China. The system is Beijing's equivalent of the S-300. Coupled with the S-300VM, the reported acquisition of the HQ-9B/FD-2000B gives Egypt two air defense systems that are among the most advanced non-Western strategic systems currently available on the global arms export market. However, unlike the Patriot PAC-3 and S-300, the latter of which recently suffered devastating losses during Israeli airstrikes on Iran, that Chinese system hasn't been combat-tested.
Such an acquisition is consistent with Cairo's tradition of diversifying its military arsenal. And air defenses are certainly no exception to that tradition. If anything, ordering NASAMS so soon after the HQ-9B/FD-2000B could signal Egypt seeks to remain an American arms client, once that doesn't preclude it buying weapons elsewhere. After all, aside from fulfilling its diversification policy, one reason Egypt has turned to China and Russia was to acquire the types of systems Washington refuses to sell it.
Egypt's growing military ties with China have already raised eyebrows in Washington, particularly the unprecedented joint air force exercise hosted on Egyptian soil in April and May 2025. Consequently, there have been renewed calls to reassess annual American military aid to Cairo. It's conceivable that Cairo may have requested NASAMS now in an attempt to mitigate growing concerns over its military ties with Beijing.
Of course, whether or not that will work is anybody's guess.
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