Germany’s publicly financed Deutsche Welle (DW) published an article in mid-August headlined “Eritrea, a rising power along a global shipping artery”. They rely mostly on the opinion of Abdurahman Sayed, director of the Horn of Africa Centre for Regional Integration in London, to arrive at their conclusion that’s almost entirely based on its geostrategic location astride the Red Sea across from Yemen. The problem, however, is that it’s categorically untrue since Eritrea of all countries isn’t a “rising power”.
It’s incredibly poor, notoriously difficult to do business with, diplomatically isolated for the most part, and practically doesn’t even have an air force or navy with which to project power across the Red Sea. Eritrea’s only importance to the broader international community is as a source of migrants (DW notes that around one-fifth of the population has fled due to poverty and human rights abuses by their one-party state) and a platform for others to project regional influence with their own military forces.
The country could hypothetically serve as a gateway to landlocked Ethiopia, which is Africa’s second-most-populous country with one of the world’s highest GDP growth rates at 9.2%, but its strongman that’s ruled for over three decades refuses to reach a pragmatic compromise to unlock this opportunity. In fact, “Eritrea’s Hybrid War On Ethiopia Threatens To Set The Whole Horn Ablaze” to the benefit of Egypt, which is Eritrea’s traditional patron and Ethiopia’s traditional rival.
Readers can review the above hyperlinked analysis for more insight into regional geopolitics, but it’s sufficient to know that Eritrea functions more as an object of regional affairs than as a subject despite its officials’ rhetoric, which is due to it being Egypt’s de facto protectorate. To be sure, Egypt doesn’t control Eritrea’s day-to-day policymaking, but it most definitely weaponizes Eritrea as a proxy against Ethiopia. Eritrea’s junior status vis-à-vis Egypt excludes any possibility of it ever becoming a “rising power”.
It’s therefore an excellent example of how a country’s geostrategic location doesn’t automatically translate into regional influence of the sort that DW described. Eritrea cannot influence maritime security on its own, let alone carry out air or missile strikes against the Houthis, all that it can do is undermine Ethiopia through its influence (and in some cases control) over armed anti-state groups. The absolute most that it can do in the two previously mentioned cases is host foreign forces to these ends.
Casual observers might either be unaware or forgot, but Eritrea used to host Emirati forces as part of Abu Dhabi’s anti-Houthi efforts for a little over half a decade prior to their withdrawal in 2021, so the precedent exists for it to host other countries’ forces in the future for the same purpose. That, however, doesn’t equate to Eritrea becoming a “rising power” just like neighboring Djibouti’s hosting of nearly half a dozen countries’ forces – including American and Chinese – doesn’t make it a “rising power” either.
DW probably chose its headline as clickbait since it’s difficult to believe that their editors truly think that Eritrea is a “rising power”. It’s not, and it’s far from it, in fact. Its abject poverty, the exodus of one-fifth of its population, and its lack of any modern air, drone, missile, and naval forces testify to this. Eritrea has promising potential precisely due to its geostrategic location, but so long as Isaias Afwerki remains at the helm, nothing is expected to improve and its socio-economic situation will likely continue deteriorating.
