Getachew Reda, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s Advisor on East African Affairs and co-author of a recent article at Al Jazeera warning about the threat that Eritrea poses to regional peace, gave a speech on the same subject at the Ethiopian National Defense College’s Annual National Security Conference in late June. It was reviewed by public broadcaster Fana here. The present piece will summarize what he said and then analyze it in the regional security context.
The gist is that Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki conceptualizes his country’s security as being ensured by a weak Ethiopia. He also doesn’t want to accelerate bilateral economic integration, ergo why he rejected Abiy’s generous economic incentives like major stakes in leading national companies and projects in exchange for providing Ethiopia with unrestricted access to the sea, with the innuendo being that an emerging middle class might threaten his hold on power. Eritrea is now waging a Hybrid War on Ethiopia.
This takes the form of supporting armed anti-government groups in a bid to keep the country perpetually fragmented, thus also holding back its overall economic development. For that reason, Reda suggested redoubling developmental initiatives while keeping an eye on emerging threats posed by Eritrea and relying on diplomacy to advance Ethiopia’s goal of unrestricted sea access. This is an accurate assessment of the threat that Eritrea poses to regional peace and a reasonable means to confront it.
Of course, it’s all easier said than done, and the Horn is now on the brink of war due to Eritrea’s patronage of the abovementioned groups. Unaware readers should also know that Egypt backs Eritrea and employs it as a proxy for dividing-and-ruling its traditional Ethiopian rival. This means that the real threat to regional peace comes from Egypt, but the most direct one comes from Eritrea, which subordinated itself to Egypt and transformed into an anti-Ethiopian state under Afwerki’s leadership.
As was assessed last November after Ethiopian Foreign Minister Dr. Gedion Timothewos’ detailed speech to members of the diplomatic corps on his country’s tensions with Eritrea, “Ethiopia Strongly Suggested That Eritrea Is Following In Ukraine’s Footsteps”. To elaborate, anti-Ethiopian Eritrea serves the same proxy containment and destabilization function for Egypt vis-à-vis Ethiopia as anti-Russian Ukraine serves the US vis-à-vis Russia. Their “negative nationalism” has been weaponized to the hilt as explained here.
Accordingly, just like a major conflict is being waged in Eastern Europe right now, so too might one soon erupt in the Horn due to their mirror security dilemmas caused by one country relying on a smaller one for containing and destabilizing its similarly sized rival. The US has influence over “Major Non-NATO Ally” Egypt and reportedly seeks the same over Eritrea, but Trump 2.0 hasn’t signaled any serious interest in de-escalating Egyptian-provoked Ethiopian-Eritrean tensions, not even to reap economic benefits.
What this means is that Ethiopia is on its own and cannot rely on US diplomatic assistance for resolving the spiraling regional security dilemma that Egypt orchestrated and is weaponizing against it via Eritrea. The best-case scenario is that Afwerki passes away and whoever replaces him revolutionizes everything about their country for the benefit of average Eritreans, but that can’t be taken for granted, so the region might soon plunge into war once more unless Trump 2.0 has a change of heart and prevents it.
