"The United States has sought to interest the Egyptian military into expanding their mission in ways that reflect new regional and transnational security threats, such as piracy, border security, and counterterrorism," said a memo dated Dec. 21, 2008, released by WikiLeaks.
"But the aging leadership, however, has resisted our efforts and remained satisfied with continuing to do what they have done for years: train for force-on-force warfare with a premium on grounds forces and armor."
They are satisfied because the rulers of Egypt have completely different objectives for their military than we do. It's all about power protection and not power projection. Egypt's government wants happy generals who aren't a threat to the government; a military that looks like it could take on Israel to make their people feel good; make Egypt look like the natural leader of the Arab world against Israel; and still have enough mass to steamroller weaker militaries in Libya and Sudan.
Although I'd think that Egypt could shake some ground forces loose for a counter-pirate operation ashore in Somalia since they have a number of light infantry brigades like paratroopers, air mobile, special forces, and commandos (I'm surprised they don't actually have a marine component, after checking my IISS The Military Balance 2008). Egypt did commit tens of thousands of troops to a long fight in Yemen in the 1960s, after all.
