WASHINGTON — The US Navy's top officer visited Egypt this weekend, meeting with the new head of the Egyptian Navy amidst a relaxation of US restrictions on operations and arms sales to the strategic Middle East nation.
"This visit was important to me to re-establish the relationship with the head of the Egyptian Navy," Adm. Jon Greenert, chief of naval operations (CNO), said Sunday in a phone interview from Alexandria. "They've been doing well out here under the circumstances given the dynamics of the country."
Asked to assess US-Egyptian military-to-military relations, Greenert declared, "It is strong, at the fleet level and below."
Greenert met with Rear Adm. Osama Mounir Rabie, appointed in April as Egypt's chief of Navy amidst a shuffle of top-level military leadership positions.
"He's new to the job, a little younger than his predecessors," Greenert observed.
While the visit marks the first time Greenert has visited Egypt as CNO, he noted that Vice Adm. John Miller, head of the Bahrain-based US Naval Forces in Central Command, has been to Egypt on a number of occasions.
"I wanted to get an agenda [from the Egyptians] that is clear and coherent," Greenert said. The visit, "says our mil-to-mil relations are ready to move ahead at a deliberate pace, at a pace that makes sense to them.
"We've had a pretty long tradition of good working relations with the Egyptian Navy," Greenert noted. "This is more of a restoration tour, restoring relations to what they were through history."
Greenert visited several US-built warships at Ras al Tin, the main Egyptian naval base in Alexandria. He saw the Perry-class frigate Alexandria — formerly the USS Copeland — and the Knox-class frigate Damyat, originally the USS Jesse L. Brown. He made a special effort to see the Mahmoud Fahmy, one of four Ambassador-class fast missile craft designed and built in the US specifically for Egypt and newly-delivered to the Egyptian Navy. The first pair of Ambassadors, built by VT Halter Marine in Pascagoula, Mississippi, was delivered last summer to Egypt, while the second pair arrived in Alexandria on June 17.
"We saw three of the four missile boats, the fourth was underway," Greenert said. The Egyptians, he said, "are happy and adjusting to the craft," which are intended to defend the Suez Canal. As such, the missile boats were exempt from arms sale restrictions put in place in recent years due to the political turmoil in Egypt, but lifted March 31 by President Obama.
Greenert spoke admirably of the Egyptian Navy's work in Operation Decisive Storm, the Saudi-led Arab coalition operating since March against Houthi Shi'aa rebels in Yemen. As part of its contribution, Egypt assigned two of its four Perry-class frigates to operations in the Red Sea. The frigate Alexandria and a sister ship returned last week from four-months on patrol.
"I was impressed [by the tempo of operations]," Greenert said. "They had two Perry-class frigates doing this job for four months, and they've just been relieved by the other two.
"They were conducting maritime interdiction operations, interdicting ships going into Aden," Greenert reported. "I asked them if they were enforcing United Nations resolutions. Admiral Osama said no, it wasn't about that.
"I asked if all the ships they intercepted were compliant, he said everybody was compliant except one ship that was just turned away.
"These are not easy operations," Greenert observed. "This time of year it's hot and dusty in the Red Sea, leading to a thick haze, so visibility was kind of low. Added to that, it's fishing season, so there are a lot of fishing boats day and night out there. And there are a ton of ships just going back and forth pretty much ferrying people – it all adds to the complication."
The Egyptian Navy operates nine frigates, including six former US Navy ships – the four Perrys, all first placed in service by 1982; and two Knox-class frigates from the early 1970s. They operate alongside two Chinese-built frigates from the early 1980s, and a virtually brand-new French-built FREMM frigate, just transferred to Egypt on June 23.
With the US Navy on the verge of decommissioning the last of its Perry-class frigates, and with a number of the ships available for foreign military sales, the Egyptians seems a natural customer to trade in their old Perrys for newer and more capable models.
"We discussed the possibility," Greenert said, "but we didn't talk details. They would like to upgrade the Perrys they have. What is unclear to me is if their intent is to modernize or replace. That's something we're going to have to work together. They outlined upgrades they need to the ships they have. I'm not sure they've figured it out yet."
Greenert noted that Egypt has been invited by the US to return to Bright Star exercises, a traditionally Egyptian-US series of combined exercises usually held in Egypt every two years. But the exercises were postponed or canceled after the 2009 maneuvers, first in 2011 because of the Egyptian Arab Spring revolution, and again in 2013 during more political upheaval.
But Egypt recently has also been working to improve ties with Russia, and in June a series of first-ever exercises, dubbed Friendship Bridge 2015, was held between the Egyptian and Russian navies. Renewed participation in Bright Star would be a sign of warming US-Egyptian relations.
"Gen.eral Lloyd Austin at Central Command sent [the Egyptians] a letter inviting them to the exercise," Greenert said. "All those restrictions are gone.
"Bright Star is planned for 2016," Greenert added, "but we need to get into the details [of Egyptian participation] — that was one of my messages. Let's get together and get on with it. Can their budget support it? Can their operations tempo support it? At what level do they want to participate?"
Greenert would not confirm exactly where the exercises would be held, noting only, "either in the Mediterranean or the Red Sea."
The CNO praised the Egyptians for their attention to US security needs in the Suez Canal, a strategic waterway that is key, among other things, to the rapid movement of US carrier strike groups and amphibious ready groups between the European and Central Command theaters.
"What they've been doing for us is keeping the US Navy safe," Greenert said. "They've been giving us priority in going through the canal with all the widening efforts going on."
The Egyptians, Greenert added, "ensure that we don't have to loiter, that we aren't put in a position of vulnerability. They have been very good at putting us at the head of the line, or moving us more expeditiously through the canal. And they've cooperated at every security level we've asked for."
After leaving Egypt, Greenert will continue on to visit Bahrain, Sweden, the United Kingdom and Iceland before returning to the US.
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