Seven armed anti-government groups in Ethiopia, including some like the “Amhara Fano National Movement” and a radical faction of the “Tigray People’s Liberation Front” that were hitherto enemies, recently formed an alliance that they call the “Ethiopian People’s Forces Alliance for Survival”. It was assessed in summer that “Ethiopia’s Plea For Regional Peace Might Be The Last Chance To Avert Another War” after two top enemies-turned-allies on the government side co-authored an article at Al Jazeera.
They referenced something called “Tsimdo” at the time, which they described as the then-emerging umbrella movement of armed anti-government groups under rival Eritrea’s tutelage, and that formation has since come to fruition through the abovementioned alliance. For background, “Ethiopia Strongly Suggested That Eritrea Is Following In Ukraine’s Footsteps” late last year, and then it became apparent over the summer that “Eritrea’s Hybrid War On Ethiopia Threatens To Set The Whole Horn Ablaze”.
In brief, Eritrea acts as the frontman in implementing the plans of Ethiopia’s historical Egyptian rival, the most dangerous of which concern their joint patronage of armed anti-government groups. The geographic breadth of the seven ones that just formed an alliance represents a serious threat to Ethiopia’s national security and possibly its territorial integrity on the off-chance that they’re victorious. After all, Egypt and Eritrea want to “Balkanize” Ethiopia, which is a very diverse civilization-state.
This latest alliance is therefore Eritrea’s most dangerous Egyptian-backed power play yet. Arms can flow to their proxies from Egyptian-allied Sudan, Eritrea, and Somalia along Ethiopia’s respective western, northern, and eastern peripheries, and those three also collectively contribute to Ethiopia’s geopolitical containment through the regional machinations that Cairo coordinates. Even if landlocked Ethiopia one day obtains direct sea access, such as through Somaliland, it’ll still remain strategically vulnerable.
All that Tsimdo has to do is wage a protracted “war of attrition” on Ethiopia to erode the state’s comprehensive strength over time with the expectation that this will inevitably lead to a breakthrough of some kind that they can exploit to conquer the country under the cover of a “transitional government”. In reality, however, Ethiopia would really be controlled behind the scenes by Egypt and Eritrea. In pursuit of this regime change goal, their proxies plan to devastate the country, which will endanger millions.
The federal government might struggle to win the “war of attrition” that Tsimdo is poised to wage without “cutting off the head of the snake”, which refers to going after their Eritrean puppet master in a preemptive war. Direct involvement in Sudan on the side of the “Rapid Support Forces” fighting against the Egyptian-allied “Sudanese Armed Forces” risks a direct war with Egypt, while direct involvement in Somalia risks a quagmire, and victory on either front or even both wouldn’t end the Tsimdo threat.
Ousting Eritrea’s three-decade-long leader, severing his state’s anti-Ethiopian alliance with Egypt, and enforcing its partial demilitarization afterwards are the most effective means to this end, but their last conventional war from 1998-2000 was mutually costly, so any second round might be too. Nevertheless, Ethiopia is thought to have aerial and drone dominance that it could employ in a blitz, the timing of which might be sooner than later to preempt the existential threat posed by Tsimdo if diplomacy fails.
