From 1952 until 1967, the Egyptian regime cooperated with the United States. After Israel devastated the Egyptian military in the 1967 War, however, Cairo severed diplomatic ties with Washington. Seven years later, the two governments reconciled. While Anwar Sadat sought territory and foreign investment, the White House wanted a strategic advantage over the Soviet Union. The mutual benefits of a U.S.-Egyptian alliance only became clear to both sides, though, after Sadat took Egypt to war. What followed was one of the most tectonic shifts of the Cold War: the complete return of the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt; a lasting peace between Israel and Egypt; and a strategic pact between the United States and Egypt, previously a key client of the Soviet Union. By the end of the decade, Egypt was integral to U.S. preparedness to intervene in the Persian Gulf.

Bold diplomacy required fierce autocracy. Sadat's foreign peers understood that the Egyptian regime could handle terms that would be untenable in a truly democratic polity. If needed, Sadat could impose consensus from above rather than sway the public through open debate. The Egyptian president confirmed these expectations. After signing the Egyptian-Israeli Peace Treaty he aggressively policed the Egyptian public. But neither internal violence nor foreign assistance could rescue his presidency. Sadat slipped into a vicious spiral of fiscal desperation, diplomatic overextension, and mass detentions. This maelstrom claimed Sadat's life. His successor, Hosni Mubarak, would continue the heavy-handed tactics that protected Egypt's alignment while repressing its people.