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Abstract
The Egyptian nuclear weapons program—started in 1960 and closed by 1973—can lend insights into today's potential proliferators. First, a number of signs indicating that Cairo was pursing a nuclear option were present, giving us insight into what type of signs we might see from countries seeking nuclear weapons today. While indicators do not necessarily connote intent, my research shows that in the Egyptian case, these signs were indeed warnings that Cairo was seeking a military nuclear capability. Second, a number of external and internal factors combined to shut down the nuclear program, and fortunately, some of these external factors are still applicable today, giving us potential tools to use in persuading other states to forgo nuclear weapons.
Notes
1. This article is based partially on the author's forthcoming book, The Power of Social Influence: Unlocking the Puzzle of Nuclear Nonproliferation, under review with a university press. In turn, the book manuscript is based on the author's Ph.D. dissertation research at George Washington University. This research was funded by dissertation grants from the Institute for the Study of World Politics and the Sigur Center for East Asian Studies at George Washington University.
2. Senior Egyptian policymaker, name withheld by request, interview by author, Cairo, March 2004.
3. Egypt ranks 30th in the world in terms of proven oil reserves. By comparison, Saudi Arabia is at the top of the rankings, the United States is number 14, and the United Kingdom is number 25. Central Intelligence Agency, 2006 World Fact Book (Washington, DC: U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, 2006), <www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/rankorder/2178rank.html>.
4. The Egyptian nuclear program began in 1954, two years after the overthrow of King Farouk, in the same year that Nasser took power as president. Senior Egyptian policymaker, interview by author, Cairo, March 2004.
5. While the potential for military applications of nuclear power was not explicitly ruled out, several Egyptian officials agreed that military purposes were not the main force behind the creation of the AEE. “The establishment of the AEE was not associated with any Israeli activity. We wanted to get on board with the new trend, nuclear power,” one senior science bureaucrat said. Senior Egyptian policymaker, interview by author, Cairo, March 2004. See Robert J. Pranger and Dale R. Tahtinen, Nuclear Threat in the Middle East, Foreign Affairs Study no. 23 (Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute, 1975), p. 19.
6. Senior Egyptian policymaker, interview by author, Cairo, March 2004. For further discussion of Egyptian and wider Arab reaction to Dimona reports, see Simha Flapan, “Nuclear Power in the Middle East: The Critical Years,” New Outlook (Oct. 1974), pp. 34–35.
7. “Nasser Threatens Israel on A-Bomb,” New York Times, Dec. 24, 1960, p. 1.
8. Steve Weissman and Herbert Krosney, The Islamic Bomb: The Nuclear Threat to Israel and the Middle East (New York: Times Books, 1981), p. 116; “Need to Reassure President Nasser on the Peaceful Nature of the Dimona Reactor,” Memorandum From the U.S. Dept. of State's Executive Secretary (Read) to the President's Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy), Feb. 11, 1964, <www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/US-Israel/frus021164.html>.
9. Michael N. Barnett, Confronting the Costs of War: Military Power, State and Society in Egypt and Israel (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992), p. 94.
10. Stephen M. Walt, Origins of Alliances (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987), p. 53.
11. Former senior military official, name withheld by request, interview by author, Cairo, March 2004.
12. Former senior military official, name withheld by request, interview by author, Cairo, March 2004.
13. Former senior science official, interview by author, Cairo, March 2004. Jim Walsh's research also complements this finding. He observes, “the AEE and its programs did not have an explicit military objective” and “no official work of the AEE was bomb related.” Jim Walsh,‘Bombs Unbuilt: Power, Ideas and Institutions in International Politics’, Ph.D. diss., MIT, 2001, p. 155.
14. Former senior military official, name withheld by request, interview by author, Cairo, March 2004. The AEE originally intended to pursue a light water reactor, which would not be suitable for military purposes. Heavy water reactors produce plutonium and thus have military applications.
15. Walsh, Bombs Unbuilt, p. 149.
16. Senior Egyptian policymaker, interview by author, Cairo, March 2004. On the spent fuel agreement with the Soviets, see Roger F. Pajak, “Nuclear Status and Policies of the Middle East Countries,” International Affairs 59 (Autumn 1983), p. 594.
17. Pranger and Tahtinen, Nuclear Threat in the Middle East, p. 19.
18. Former senior Egyptian diplomat, name withheld by request, interview by author, Cairo, March 2004.
19. Robert J. Einhorn, “Egypt: Frustrated But Still On a Non-Nuclear Course,” in Kurt Campbell, Robert J. Einhorn, and Mitchell Reiss, eds., The Nuclear Tipping Point: Why States Reconsider Their Nuclear Choices (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2004), p. 46.
20. In late 1965, an associate of Nasser's was rumored to have told a British journalist, “We would go to the Devil, if necessary, in order to get a bomb.” See Flapan, “Nuclear Power in the Middle East,” p. 39.
21. Shai Feldman, Nuclear Weapons and Arms Control in the Middle East (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1997), p. 130. A Senior Egyptian Policymaker also referenced the sabotage incident in relation to German assistance, saying, “Our cooperation with German scientists was botched by foreign intelligence.” Interview by author, Cairo, March 2004.
22. Frank Barnaby, The Invisible Bomb: The Nuclear Arms Race in the Middle East (London: I.B. Tauris, 1989), p. 86.
23. Barbara M. Gregory, “Egypt's Nuclear Program: Assessing Supplier-Based and Other Developmental Constraints,” Nonproliferation Review 2 (Fall 1995), p. 21. It is rumored that the Soviets also offered to either provide a nuclear guarantee or transfer nuclear weapons to Egyptian soil (under Soviet control), should Israel threaten Egypt with nuclear weapons. However, this rumor cannot be confirmed, and my sources denied knowledge of it. In addition, it is questionable as to whether Nasser would ask the Chinese for a nuclear device after already receiving such a pledge from the Soviets. If so, then he likely did not place much trust in the Soviet pledge.
24. [: DIPLOMAT OR POLICYMAKER?] Interview by author, Cairo, March 2004. On the Egyptian visit to China after their atomic detonation, see Mohammed El-Sayed Selim, “Egypt,” in James Everett Katz and Onkar S. Marwah, eds., Nuclear Power in Developing Countries (Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath , 1982), pp. 138–139.
25. Former Senior Egyptian Science Official, name withheld by request, interview by author, Washington, DC, Feb. 2004.
26. Walsh, Bombs Unbuilt, pp. 144–145.
27. Senior Egyptian diplomat, interview by author, Washington, DC, Feb. 2004.
28. See, for example, George Perkovich, Jessica Mathews, Joseph Cirincione, Rose Gottemoeller, and Jon Wolfsthal, Universal Compliance: A Strategy for Nuclear Security (Washington, DC: Carnegie, 2005). See also Judith S. Yaphe and Charles D. Lutes, Reassessing the Implications of a Nuclear-Armed Iran, McNair Paper 69, (Washington, DC; Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University, 2005), <www.ndu.edu/inss/mcnair/mcnair69/McNairPDF.pdf>.
29. Sadat's reframing of acceptable ways to deal with enemies eventually spilled over to other Arab nations. Michael Weir notes, “It may be that Sadat's most enduring legacy is to have established almost unanimous acceptance among both Arabs and Israelis of the principle that a settlement of the Palestine problem should be sought through negotiation,” p. 86. Michael Wier, “External Relations,” in Lillian Craig Harris, ed., Egypt: Internal Challenges and Regional Stability (London: Routledge, 1988), pp. 79–99.
30. Senior diplomat, interview by author, Cairo, March 2004.
31. Former senior diplomat, name withheld by request, interview by author, Cairo, March 2004.
32. Technical denial, however, is not an adequate explanation of why Egypt failed to acquire a nuclear weapons capacity. Walsh adds, “On the other hand, denial polices did not prevent Egypt from becoming a nuclear weapon state. Egypt was a country with sufficient financial and scientific resources for pursuing the bomb and had other options it did not exercise. Its nuclear program did not progress even as other countries, subject to the same kinds of denial policies, pushed on towards nuclear weapons. Denial, itself, cannot explain Egypt's non-nuclear status.” Walsh, Bombs Unbuilt, p. 230.
33. For an extensive discussion of the Kennedy–Nasser correspondence, see Mohammed Hassanein Heikal, The Cairo Documents (Garden City, NJ: Doubleday, 1973), pp. 187–224. On Kennedy's requests that Egypt remain non-nuclear, see ibid., p. 208, and Yair Evron, “A Nuclear Balance of Deterrence in the Middle East,” New Outlook 18 (July–Aug. 1975), p. 27.
34. Walsh, Bombs Unbuilt, p. 171.
35. Former senior science official, interview by author, Cairo, March 2004.
36. See, for example, Peter R. Lavoy, “Nuclear Myths and the Causes of Nuclear Proliferation,” in Zachary S. Davis and Benjamin Frankel, eds., The Proliferation Puzzle: Why Nuclear Weapons Spread and What Results (London: Frank Cass, 1993), pp. 192–212.
37. Shyam Bhatia, Nuclear Rivals in the Middle East (New York: Routledge, 1988), p. 57.
38. “All The Revolution's Men,” Al-Ahram Weekly, no. 595 (July 18, 2002), p. 1.
39. Kirk Beattie, Egypt During the Nasser Years: Ideology, Politics, and Civil Society (Boulder: Westview Press, 1994), pp. 160–162. Beattie says, “From late 1962 on, Nasser and Amer maintained their own, independent power bases of power. Then, from 1962 forward, Nasser—supreme commander of the armed forces—was forbidden oversight of military affairs, and Amer was able to ignore Nasser's orders.” For a lengthy discussion of the Nasser-Amer conflict, see Anwar el-Sadat, In Search of Identity (New York: Harper & Row, 1977), pp. 157–171. Beattie notes that the former minister of war, Amin Huweidi, said, “Nasser wanted to get rid of Amer, but he couldn't; Amer was the strongest man in Egypt” (p. 161). Raymond Hinnebusch reports that other Free Officers believed Amer was trying to “turn the army into a personal fiefdom and expand his influence into civilian domains.” Raymond A. Hinnebusch Jr., Egyptian Politics Under Sadat: The Post-Populist Development of an Authoritarian-Modernizing State (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), p. 16.
40. Former senior military official, name withheld by request, interview by author, Cairo, March 2004.