Chapter 16 Middle East War

What Mu Haoyang wants to emphasize is not the importance of Israel, but the combat intentions of the US fleet can be judged through Israel's position.

To put it bluntly, if Israel participates in the war, the United States must do two things: one is to support Israel, and the other is to prevent China from supporting Arab countries. The former can be achieved by sending troops to participate in the war, while the latter needs to firmly grasp the control of the Indian Ocean. That is to say, if Israel participates in the war, the US Navy will fight in the Indian Ocean and actively seek the decisive battle of the Chinese fleet.

In fact, this also indirectly proves that Israel is likely to join the war immediately.

The reason is simple. If the information provided by Li Mingyang is correct, the US military sent six aircraft carrier battle groups to the Indian Ocean, all from the Atlantic Fleet, then the US Navy will be confident enough to seize the control of the Indian Ocean and will not shake its dominance in the Pacific. As long as the US military seizes the control of the Indian Ocean and cuts off China's route to the Middle East, Israel will take action.

Not long after, Mu Haoyang's guess became reality.

At 10 o'clock on the night of the 22nd Beijing time, that is, at around 5:30 pm Israel time, the Israeli Prime Minister officially declared war on Egypt and Syria.

Half an hour later, the Israeli Defense Force crossed the Egyptian-Israel border and invaded the Sinai Peninsula.

In history, some people called this war the "Sixth Middle East War", but as part of the Third World War, it is generally called the "Middle East War".

When the news came, Mu Haoyang was reporting the naval situation to Huang Hanlin.

"It has been confirmed that the Israeli army crossed the border and the Egyptian Wehrmacht is retreating, and it is very likely to retreat to the west bank of the Suez Canal in one breath."

"The Egyptian Wehrmacht is so vulnerable?"

Mu Haoyang smiled and answered.

Huang Hanlin seemed a little surprised because in his opinion, the Egyptian Defense Force, which was proud of the fifth Middle East War, should not be so fragile. You should know that in the fifth Middle East War, if the United States had not threatened to join the war, China would not want to fight the United States in the Middle East, the Egyptian Defense Force would likely capture most of Israel, help Palestine restore its country, and even erase Israel from the earth.

It only took fifteen years and the situation completely changed.

As for the reason, Mu Haoyang knew about it, but it was difficult to tell it.

After the Fifth Middle East War, Najaf became the supreme spiritual leader of the Arab nation and had a supreme position in the Arab League. The performance of the Egyptian National Defense Forces was enough to make people admire him, and Egypt became the most powerful country in the Arab world.

These brilliances obscured a cruel fact: Egypt is still a relatively backward country.

Although Egypt ranks among the forefront of economic, military, diplomatic and other strengths in the Arab world, in essence, Egypt is still a developing country that is highly dependent on the outside world, especially trade with China, and has not even fully realized industrialization.

Compared with basic strength, Egypt's national defense power is obviously too far.

It's like a person has two big enough fists but not a strong body.

In a war of more than ten days, the Egyptian army was able to perform normally, but in the protracted arms race, the problems were fully exposed.

After the Fifth Middle East War, Egypt's defense strength did not increase substantially and was basically relying on its old capital.

Not to mention, after 2037, Egypt only purchased the second batch of 24 J-30i from China, and did not replace one-third of the active fighter jets with J-30i according to the original plan. Even the improvement of the J-22m was delayed again and again. The Army's dressing plan was delayed three times in a row. It was not until 2050 that the modification plan of the Type 24 main battle tank was launched, and it was planned to introduce a ground warfare platform in 2055.

There are two main reasons for this situation, one is Egypt's economic strength, and the other is China-Egypt relations.

In terms of economic strength, after the Fifth Middle East War, Najaf no longer regarded Israel as a huge threat and began to improve Egypt's status in the Arab world according to his vision, such as uniting with Syria, encouraging Jordan and other countries to jointly help Palestine restore its country, and also providing economic assistance to other poorer Arab countries. As a result, Egypt spent a lot of resources on foreign aid, but did not concentrate on consolidating its own strength, nor investing a large amount of money in national defense construction, resulting in slow growth of national defense power.

Of course, the impact of the latter is even more important.

In essence, China does not want a pan-Arab alliance, nor does it want the Arab world to be unified under one government. To put it simply, there is no substantial difference between China's Middle East policy and the United States' Middle East policy. They both use contradictions between Middle Eastern countries to control the Middle East, but they only start to differently from the United States, that is, the United States supports Israel and China supports Arab countries.

Against this backdrop, Najaf's policies naturally run contrary to China's interests.

The result is that China no longer provides free military aid to Egypt, and also lowers the level of military aid. Even if it is not prohibited from exporting advanced weapons and equipment to Egypt, it has adopted the basic trade principle, that is, Egypt must purchase arms from China at market prices.

Obviously, with Egypt's strength, we can't afford advanced weapons and equipment at all.

You should know that the market price of j-30i is 2.7 billion yuan per aircraft, which exceeds 3 billion yuan if it is included in personnel training costs. In 2050, Egypt's defense budget was 570 billion Egyptian pounds, about 440 billion yuan, and only more than 100 j-30i can be purchased.

In a sense, Egypt's defense power has grown slowly and has been most affected by China.

For example, before the Fifth Middle East War, the unit price of the j-30i sold to Egypt by China was only 1.8 billion yuan, which was 15% lower than the purchase price of the Chinese Air Force, and forty percent of the payment was paid through barter trade, that is, Egypt used resources.

According to China's Middle East policy, Egypt's defense power must be limited and only needs to maintain a relative strategic balance with Israel.

It can be said that this is also the most prominent point in China's Egypt policy in the past decade.

Mu Haoyang did not say it, not saying that Huang Hanlin was not clear. In fact, as China's supreme leader, he was the Premier of the State Council before that, and Huang Hanlin could not be unclear about the situation in Egypt.

As for how much combat effectiveness the Egyptian army has, Mu Haoyang is relatively clear, because after the Fifth Middle East War, he visited Egypt three times, had close contact with senior Egyptian military generals, and inspected the situation. His most recent visit was in 2049, when he talked with the Egyptian Chief of Staff, and it was this visit that led to Egypt's determination of the improvement plan for the Type 24 main battle tank the following year.

It is undeniable that the Egyptian army still has strong enough combat power, but there is still a big gap compared to Israel.

You should know that over the past fifteen years, Israel’s basic policy has been to strengthen its national defense and has received full assistance from the United States.

For example, the Israeli Air Force replaced all fighter jets with F-44 before 2045, and gave priority to improving the F-44. If the United States did not agree, the Israeli Air Force would purchase bombers in 2044 and obtain long-range strike capabilities.

In the Army, the Israel Defense Forces had a greater action. Before 2040, they replaced all main battle tanks with m27a1, upgraded m27a1 to a3 standard from 2044, launched the seventh generation of "Mekawa" main battle tanks in 2045, and started the development of the ground warfare system separately in 2048. Two years later, it was incorporated into the US Army's "Future Ground Operation System" and obtained limited procurement rights. By the time the war broke out, the Israeli Army had nearly 5,000 m27a3 and "Mekawa 7" main battle tanks, and the "Future Ground Operation System" developed by the United States had completed the first phase of testing.

It can be said that Israel is spared no effort to strengthen its arms, and the United States is also helping Israel at any cost.

Not to mention, between the fourteen years from 2038 to 2051, overseas Jewish societies alone donated $47,000 billion to Israel. At the end of 2039, the third-ranked richest man in the world, Jewish Bharat, donated all his assets to Israel before his death, and it was clearly stipulated that these assets could only be used for Israel's national defense construction. Influenced by Bharat, Jewish richest man from all over the world donated nearly $3 trillion to Israel in the following five years.

You should know that the Jews are one of the richest nations in the world.

Conservatively estimated that 60% of the wealth in Western countries is in the hands of the Jews, and as long as one percent of the Jews are willing to donate their property after their death, it is enough to help Israel prepare with the most advanced weapons to build a modern army of more than one million.

Obviously, the Arab countries are not so united.

As early as 2044, after Mu Haoyang visited Egypt for the second time after the Fifth Middle East War, he proposed to Huang Hanlin, then head of state that the level of aid to Egypt and Syria should be appropriately increased to ensure that the defense forces of Egypt and Syria can develop normally.

Unfortunately, this suggestion was not taken seriously because of the Second Indian Ocean War.

After this, China itself was busy expanding its military facilities and did not take matters into the Middle East to heart.

With one decline and the other rising, the military balance between Egypt and Israel has long disappeared.

Although in a sense, the modernization of the Israel Defense Forces is still very incomplete. For example, the main combat equipment of the Israeli Army is still the fourth-generation main combat tank, and the fighter jets of the Israeli Air Force are only at the fifth-generation level, but they are definitely much more advanced than the Egyptian Defense Forces.

Mu Haoyang could guess what the situation in the Middle East was without thinking.

Chapter 16 Middle East War
Chapter completed!