by no means assured, one might be tempted to say "that's your own problem."
It is, and I responded to your statement from my own perspective, since I have nor concerned myself with scenarios where I am annexed.
notoriously poor in navigable waterways...Nile river delta not exactly brimming with coal.
Say huh? The continents civilizations have had plenty of waterways. The majority of the continents exploitable mineral deposits are located around the Congo, Limpopo and Zambezi rivers. With a fair amount of resources in adition to be found around the Niger, Senegal and Volta rivers. In fact the Nile is somewhat of an anomoly in its lack of resources.
Anyway I have created a thread on ederon if we wish to debate the point further.