Gamal Abdel Nasser

Gamal Abdel Nasser (1918-1970) was President of Egypt from 1956 to 1970. His role in the Suez crisis combined a state nationalisation decision, adaptation to withdrawn finance and survival under military and financial pressure. Each part had a different actor and legal basis.

Aswan and nationalisation

The United States and United Kingdom withdrew support for financing the Aswan High Dam in July 1956. On 26 July Nasser announced nationalisation of the Suez Canal Company, with canal revenue presented as a means to finance the dam. Nationalisation was an Egyptian government act. The financing withdrawal was a Western decision. Sequence alone does not prove that one was the sole cause of the other.

Britain, France and Israel then undertook military action. The United States opposed the intervention and applied diplomatic and financial pressure to Britain, addressed in United States financial pressure on Britain during the Suez Crisis (1956). That pressure, international opposition, military developments and domestic constraints jointly shaped withdrawal.

Assessment

Nasser emerged politically strengthened and Egypt retained the canal, but those outcomes should not be attributed to one instrument alone. His case combines target, sender and adapter roles. Withdrawal of Western Aswan High Dam financing (1956) shows denial of a promised resource; Expropriation and nationalisation as economic weapon shows transfer of an asset under asserted sovereign authority.

The case demonstrates that economic measures can operate inside a military crisis without being identical to war. A claim of success must identify whether the objective was dam financing, reversal of nationalisation, military withdrawal, canal control or political survival.

See also

Withdrawal of Western Aswan High Dam financing (1956) · Suez Canal Company · United States financial pressure on Britain during the Suez Crisis (1956) · Expropriation and nationalisation as economic weapon

Sources

• US Department of State, Office of the Historian, editorial note and record concerning the Suez Canal nationalisation decree.
• US Department of State, Office of the Historian, "The Suez Crisis, 1956".
• Diane B. Kunz, The Economic Diplomacy of the Suez Crisis (University of North Carolina Press, 1991).
• Egypt, Law No. 285 of 1956 nationalising the Universal Company of the Maritime Canal of Suez.