Egypt: The Overlooked Powder Keg
Recent events in the Middle East have focused on the US’s response to the Yemeni Houthis turmoil in Syria and Israeli operations in Gaza. Meanwhile, Egypt remains the ever-present yet often overlooked powder keg ready to explode.
Long-Term Structural Challenges
The main structural challenge that Egypt faces is that of a large, concentrated population which resides along the banks of the River Nile and the Nile Delta in Lower Egypt. The current estimated population in this area is around 114 million, which has increased by around 50% from 2000.
This massive population is also concentrated around dense urban centres. Around 95% of the population lives on 5% of the territory, while only around 10.5% of the total territory is inhabited.
A larger population naturally requires a larger food supply, which has become Egypt’s second structural challenge. Once the breadbasket of the ancient world, up until the 1970/80s, Egypt produced enough foodstuff domestically to provide for its population (Al-Riffai, 2015). However, since then, Egypt has become a net food importer, and by 2021, it became the world’s largest wheat importer, accounting for 8.3% of global wheat imports (African Development Bank, 2023). Consequently, with the import of cheaper grain from Ukraine and Russia, Egypt began to shift its focus to producing higher-value crops which it could export (Pautsch and Abdelrahman, 1998).
These structural challenges create a powder keg, where the potential for large-scale, concentrated riots which could develop into a revolution over the affordability or supply of foodstuffs remains high. Therefore, the Arab Spring (2010-12) and its causes remain a recent and potent example of the potential for such an occurrence under the current circumstances.
The attempted solution to these structural challenges is part of the Egypt Vision 2030 agenda. Firstly, a new program is underway to build new housing developments to help redistribute the population. As a result, Egypt’s New Administrative Capital has grabbed the headlines regarding this program (Lewis, 2024; Ravenscroft, 2025), and there are other additional projects underway (Aly, 2024). Secondly, under Vision 2030, Egypt will make greater investments in domestic food production through new agro-industrial communities and focus on increasing employment in the agricultural sector (African Development Bank, 2023).
A Spark or a Long Fuse
The Egypt Vision 2030 project and its associated programs are, however, a long-term effort. Meanwhile, the potential for an unexpected spark to set off this powder keg remains high.
Firstly, the Trump administration has repeatedly proposed the displacement of the Gazaan population to Egypt and Jordan for a considerable period of time, during which the area could be reconstructed (Al-Arabiya, 2025). This displaced population would be in addition to the almost 1.2 million asylum seekers and around 270,000 refugees presently hosted by Egypt (UNHCR, 2025). Thus, additional refugees would put immense pressure on food and energy supplies and the government’s ability to pay for these resources. Other regions such as Syria, Sudan, and Libya, have somewhat stabilised. Nevertheless, new sparks in these regional conflicts may send new waves of refugees to Egypt. These may be the beginning of a new wave of intrastate and interstate conflict in the region.
Secondly, the Houthi attacks along the vitally important Bab El-Mandeb strait have led to a massive decrease in commercial traffic through the Suez Canal. As a result, the crossings of all ships have decreased from around 2307 ships in October 2023 to around 705 in April 2024. In 2024, this cost the Egyptian treasury an estimated $7 billion. The Egyptian President officially estimates losses from the activity of the Houthis to be around $800 million a month (Reuters, 2025). Despite the renewed $1 billion US effort to extinguish the Houthis (Schmitt, Wong & Ismay, 2025), they remain a problem for maritime traffic and, therefore, for the Egyptian treasury. If revenue from the Suez Canal remains low, the government will have to increasingly rely on foreign aid and may consequently have to delay its Vision 2030 efforts. This would increase the probability of instability in Egypt. However, this is currently a long fuse rather than a spark.
Strategic Aftershocks
Should one of these sparks or the long fuse set off the Egyptian powder keg, it would have consequences for states both regionally and internationally.
In both Libya and Sudan, Egypt has intervened by supporting General Haftar and Abdel Fattah al-Burhan. Therefore, if Egypt becomes unstable, these conflicts may become more kinetic.
Similarly, Israel has been waging a multi-frontal war and instability in Egypt could very quickly become the greatest threat to its security (Abdeen & Masarwa, 2025; Stein, 2025).
Meanwhile, on the economic front, Jordan and Saudi Arabia have the greatest interest in Egyptian stability. Jordan uses the Straits of Tiran and the Suez Canal to export and import goods. Whereas Saudi Arabia, recognising the danger of relying on export hubs along the Persian Gulf, rerouted their pipelines to the King Fahd terminal in Yanbu, from where crude oil is exported through the Suez Canal and the Bab El-Mandeb strait. Thus, instability in Egypt would endanger both of these efforts.
Simultaneously, for Europe, Egyptian instability would increase migration to Greece and Italy. Additionally, local unrest may lead to a complete shutdown of the Suez Canal. This would push import costs higher, further damaging Europe’s economy.
Similarly, for China, it would be economically disastrous as not only do the Chinese use the Suez Canal to export goods to Europe, but regional instability would lead to potentially disastrous energy shocks in China as well (Sun, 2024).
Conclusion
Instability in Egypt is very much a possibility, and until it can resolve the underlying structural challenges, Egypt will remain a powder keg. Therefore, its aftershocks, should it explode, would set off numerous other regional conflicts.
Bibliography
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