At this point, no foreign power would be capable of, or interested in, supporting the Egyptian military should Cairo experience regime change and a break with the United States. And a breach of the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty alone would not generate a threat to Israel. The United States would act as a brake on Egyptian military capabilities, and no new source would step in. Even if a new source did emerge, it would take a generation for the Egyptians to become militarily effective using new weapon systems. In the long run, however, Egypt will remain Israel's problem.
I've mentioned that it would take a long time for Egypt's military to recover from a break with America just as it took a long time to recover from the break with the Soviet Union. So I won't quibble with their judgment on that technical issue.
But that doesn't mean Egypt won't break with America if Islamists gain power. And in the short run, Egypt would have the military provided by America. It may not be wise for Egypt to break relations with America and use their then-cut off military to attack Israel rather than husband their soon-to-dwindle military power until they can get new suppliers, but that doesn't mean they won't do it. Lots of leaders (or people in general) do dumb things that seemed like a good idea at the time.
And if Egypt does break with America despite the problems it would cause Egypt, I don't think we should comfort ourselves that no new source of weapons or money would step in. As a signal for China's rise to great power status with influence beyond their border regions, taking on the rearmament of Egypt would be an opportunity in that crisis. And China has the money to afford subsidizing and arming Egypt--for a price.
Consider that China's current friends are really rather sad: North Korea, Burma (Myanmar), Iran, Sudan, and Zimbabwe. China can boast of their rise--and they are rising. But they remain an east Asian power that faces tremendous points of resistance even in that neighborhood. Gaining Egypt as a client would catapult China's influence into the heart of the Middle East, which due to its energy and religious divisions has been a crucial point for the world's attention.
For the price of rearming Egypt over a generation with weapons that are getting better every year, China becomes a power of consequence on the world stage. Chinese weapons would get a showing and potentially attract buyers just because Egypt will use them. Egypt's size and location means it is a player in the Moslem world, the Arab world, the eastern Mediterranean, the Horn of Africa, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and--as a bonus--the owner of the Suez Canal that would give China counter-leverage against Europe and America in potentially complicating energy traffic from the Middle East to Europe and American fleet movements between our east coast and the Indian Ocean and Strait of Hormuz region. And if China can restrain their client from attacking Israel or embarking on Islamist foreign policies, China would actually have a non-rogue friend in the world.
Egypt has options and China has an opportunity. Which means we have to work hard to keep Egypt in our camp until the fever of Islamism passes inside Egypt. I hope that the bad reputation that Islamists earned in their bloody terror campaign in Iraq has discredited the most violent aspects of Islamism in Egypt. I'm hoping that we can support democratic institutions inside Egypt to make sure that reasonably free elections allow Egyptians to review the performance of Islamists in government and pass judgment at the polls to punish them if they screw things up and make Egypt less secure and poorer. Yes, we've been buying peace between Egypt and Israel since Camp David. I consider that a good deal for preventing war in a crucial area of the world.
And for Hu Jintao, China's ruler, a signal victory like gaining Egypt as a client (bonus for getting it at our expense) would do much to consolidate political power as China prepares for leadership transitions.
Don't assume that we won't lose Egypt and that it won't matter if we do. China stands to gain quite the trophy signaling the rise of China to great power status if they step in to fill the void of our loss. If we pivot to Asia and let China trip us up from this area we are clearly pivoting away from, we'll lose in the Middle East and make our job in Asia and the Pacific more difficult. It will be a painful lesson in actual smart diplomacy.
UPDATE: China has reason to distract their people:
Pervasive corruption, lawlessness among the ruling elites, and a sense of a loss of direction permeating all levels of Chinese society. The conditions for another Tiananmen may be there.
And really, a foreign policy triumph in a distant land is far safer than risking a war--and losing it--around China's periphery.
