Aswan Dam the water saved is lost due to evaporation in Lake Nasser, the amount of water available for irrigation still increased by 22 km. Other estimates put evaporation from Lake Nasser at between 10 and 16 cubic km per year. The dam powers twelve generators each rated at , with a total of . Power generation began in 1967. When the High Dam first reached peak output it produced around half of Egypt's production of electric power (about 15 percent by 1998), and it gave most Egyptian villages the use of electricity for the first time. The High Dam has also
Aswan Dam realized that he could not legitimately portray himself as the leader of pan-Arab nationalism if he could not defend his country militarily against Israel. In addition to his development plans, he looked to quickly modernize his military, and he turned first to the U.S. The American Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and the American President Dwight Eisenhower told Nasser that the U.S. would supply him with weapons only if they were used for defensive purposes and accompanied by American military personnel for supervision and training. Nasser did not accept these conditions, but then he looked to the USSR for