raharris1973
Well-known member
What if Egyptian dictator Gamal Abdel Nasser, who died of a heart attack in September 1970, woke up as the Khedive Ismail of Egypt in September 1870, months after the lavishly celebrated opening of the Suez Canal, and a dozen years before OTL's British occcupation?
Nasser-in-Ismail has all of Ismail's memories and language skills, but it's Nasser's consciousness and Nasser in charge.
Nasser is thrown into a position to face a challenge it was his destiny to overcome, prevent the foreign domination of Egypt. How would Nasser try to steer Egypt out of the debt and colonization trap?
Fiscal austerity & court/elite simplicity?
Peacefulness on the frontier to cut costs?
Debt repudiation?
Debt diversification?
Trying to recall anything he might remember of 19th century macroeconomic trends to make better performing investments to fund military and pay off debts?
Declare war on France during the Franco-Prussian war as an excuse to repudiate the debts to the Suez canal company?
Try to manipulate Europeans indirectly into a self-destructive Europe-wide internecine war to by time for Egypt (and others) before they need to face the European push for "new colonialism" that happened in OTL's 1880s?
On "dropping in" to Khedive Ismail's mind, body and court in 1870, I see Nasser's priority goals for Egypt as: avoiding the British occupation of 1882, avoiding the system of European-Egyptian mixed courts that was set up during the decade beforehand. His challenge is that at his starting point of 1870, his state budget is already highly leveraged from public works in the capital, wars of expansion in Africa, and the Suez Canal project.
Nasser-in-Ismail has all of Ismail's memories and language skills, but it's Nasser's consciousness and Nasser in charge.
Nasser is thrown into a position to face a challenge it was his destiny to overcome, prevent the foreign domination of Egypt. How would Nasser try to steer Egypt out of the debt and colonization trap?
Fiscal austerity & court/elite simplicity?
Peacefulness on the frontier to cut costs?
Debt repudiation?
Debt diversification?
Trying to recall anything he might remember of 19th century macroeconomic trends to make better performing investments to fund military and pay off debts?
Declare war on France during the Franco-Prussian war as an excuse to repudiate the debts to the Suez canal company?
Try to manipulate Europeans indirectly into a self-destructive Europe-wide internecine war to by time for Egypt (and others) before they need to face the European push for "new colonialism" that happened in OTL's 1880s?
On "dropping in" to Khedive Ismail's mind, body and court in 1870, I see Nasser's priority goals for Egypt as: avoiding the British occupation of 1882, avoiding the system of European-Egyptian mixed courts that was set up during the decade beforehand. His challenge is that at his starting point of 1870, his state budget is already highly leveraged from public works in the capital, wars of expansion in Africa, and the Suez Canal project.
