Through my work I get to visit a lot of very interesting places, which includes the odd arms fair. And this is what led me to the Egypt Defense Expo, AKA EDEX 2023 Why would I go to an arms festival? Well part of my work does involve me being a high-risk travel consultant, so this is partly in my purview, but also I really like playing with guns.
What is EDEX
EDEX 2023 was as the name suggests and as explained an arms fair. Unlike its sister SOFEX, which is held in Jordan it was less about small weaponry, or logistics, but actual real death machines.And these ranged from tanks to drones, missiles, and a whole big heap of guns, at least one of which was a sexy gold color (pink was also available).
So what is it like to visit and arms fair? Well it really is quite surreal, people give out name cards, brochures, hats, pens and you could almost be at any trade fair in the world, but you really are not.
This truly is seeing how the business of war works, and particularly surreal bearing in mind Egypt is next to waring Israel, Syria and Sudan.
EDEX vs SOFEX
This is a bit like comparing apples and oranges, but I will give it a shot. Essentially EDEX and SOFEX are same same, but different, with SOFEX perhaps being more interesting to casual or small level arms dealers…And alas there was no shooting range at EDEX, unlike the firing we did at SOFEX.
And the food at EDEX 2023?
In the end I weren’t for a kofta sandwich and chips, with there being no kohasry available.
And as for booze? It wasn’t available, which is probably for the best when you consider how many weapons were there.