Why, in the era of the Ancient World, Egypt is a prosperous powerful state, and today the state is economically and politically weak?

In the era of the ancient world, there were not so many states, thus, Egypt was to some extent out of competition with one of the typical eastern despotisms, the location of which was associated with the most ancient centers for the development of agriculture and cattle breeding in the valleys of large rivers (it is also worth noting the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates, Indus, Ganges, Huanghe).

Now Egypt is a country that is a former colony and part of the Arab world, and its historical feature is as follows – the Arab countries essentially missed the industrial period of the 19th-20th centuries because of their colonial position, and the colonialists were the leading industrial countries of the modern era – England, France, Italy.

Plus, the overpopulation factor also plays a role. Industry and science in Egypt are relatively poorly developed, better than their southern neighbor Sudan, but worse than Israel or Turkey.