- Egypt looks like a very large country on a map. Most of Egypt’s territory, however, is desert. 95 percent of Egypt’s population lives within a few miles of the Nile River. Imagine 100 million people living in an area roughly the size of the American state of Maryland (population 6 million), surrounded on all sides by desert, and astride one of the most important chokepoints for global trade in the world. That is Egypt in a nutshell.
Fans of geography will note that any kinetic dispute between Ethiopia and Egypt will necessarily go through Sudan, Djibouti or Eritrea, and may occur in waters shared with Saudi Arabia and Yemen.
I think if Egypt has learned anything from the Saudi-Yemen crisis (or the Myanmar Rohingya, etc.), it's that as long as you're attacking people who are poorer than you, the international community doesn't give a fuck. The only wrinkle is that Ethiopia has a lot of Christians, so that could be problematic for Egypt. Seems like they don't really need to fight a war, though. Send a few shiny US-built missiles at the dam and problem solved a la Israel on Iraq's nascent nuclear reactor. Not like they need territorial control. Am I missing something?
I think if Ethiopia dropped a few thousand gallons of red dye in the Blue Nile they would find that Sudan is their instantaneous ally. Right now it's a water rights crisis. As soon as it becomes control of that river, Ethiopia has the advantage of gravity. I also think you will find that if Ethiopia went "Hey China" this whole exchange will become existential.
non-aligned movements, economic development, foreign bases, yeah. That's kind of the point: if you read that article they'll point out that Turkey is building bases in Egypt, too, and Libya is in a disputed civil war. So you've got Turkey/Russia, Egypt/Whoever, Ethiopia/China, US/Saudi Arabia and I mean, nobody's talked to the Janjaweed in a few years. Plus we've got water rights, oil, coffee, shipping... the region could become a veritable 7-layer dip of instability. I mean, fuckin' al-Sisi has been in office less time than Nikki Haley was. Frankly, Ethiopia is a country. You knock it over too hard and suddenly you're dealing with warlords. Which is already the situation to Egypt's west.