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Ethiopia is a key prize in the fight for influence and power in the Horn of Africa and the wider Red Sea region. With its natural resources, a population of 110 million, and a well-equipped army, Ethiopia has become an African power. Additionally, the nation’s capital Addis Ababa is home to the headquarters of the African Union, and the country is one of the few African nations that will never be colonized. [1] Consequently, Ethiopia has long played an enormous role in African and subregional politics.
For much of the last decade, successive Ethiopian governments have navigated treacherous regional and global policies by maintaining relationships with various geopolitical actors. Globally, Ethiopia has been, and continues to be, a major ally of the United States, while China accounts for the largest volume of foreign direct investment in Ethiopia. [2] Regionally, Ethiopia has avoided becoming entangled in the bitter Gulf power politics between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates and its two main adversaries, Qatar and Turkey. However, these four countries provide Ethiopia with financial assistance and private investment in multiple areas, especially in its important agricultural sector. Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, despite being regional rivals, also maintain high-level military relations with Ethiopia.
The ongoing war in Ethiopia’s northernmost Tigray region will test Ethiopia’s strategy of balancing the interests of outside powers with its own need for national investment. At the same time, the war, which began on November 4, will present these same external powers with new opportunities to improve their relationship with Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali (East Africa, November 7). However, those and other outside powers will also have ample opportunities to create instability in Ethiopia if they so wish.
Ethiopian foreign policy from balance to entanglement
The war in Tigray pits the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) against the Ethiopian government. The TPLF, which dominated Ethiopian politics for much of the past three decades, is a formidable political and military power in its own right. While the Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF) has made rapid progress in capturing major cities in the Tigray region, this was likely due to strategic withdrawals by the TPLF (Nazret, November 19). Such a strategy aligns with the TPLF’s long history of guerrilla warfare.
Barring some agreement negotiated between the TPLF and the Ethiopian government, the war in Tigray will likely evolve into an insurgency that will spread beyond Tigray’s borders. At the same time, the war in Tigray, even if contained in the TPLF strongholds in the mountains, will attract the interest of outside powers. This is already the case in Eritrea, which has deployed troops within Ethiopia’s borders to help the ENDF suppress the TPLF. In addition to their three-decade battle for Ethiopia’s independence, Eritrea and Ethiopia fought for the disputed border towns between 1998 and 2000. Eritrea, once allied with the TPLF, now supports Abiy Ahmed, who signed an accord of peace with the President of Eritrea, Isaias Afewerki, in 2018 that ended the prolonged border conflict between the two countries (Addis Fortune, September 22, 2018).
The involvement of Eritrean forces in Ethiopia’s war in Tigray could be a harbinger of things to come. The United Arab Emirates, which maintains military bases in Eritrea, may also be helping the Abiy Ahmed government. Conflicting and unconfirmed reports, for example, indicate the possible deployment of UAE-operated drones from the UAE base in Assab, Eritrea to Tigray. [3] The UAE, which is embroiled in a cold war with Qatar and Turkey, could try to improve its relationship with Ethiopia by supporting its fight against the TPLF at the expense of Ethiopia’s relationship with Qatar and Turkey.
Turkey, however, like the United Arab Emirates, enjoys excellent military-to-military relations with Ethiopia. Due to Ethiopia’s involvement in Somalia, with which it shares a long and largely unguarded border, Turkey works closely with the Ethiopian military and intelligence services. Turkey also views Somalia, where it maintains its largest military base abroad, as the lynchpin of its strategy to preserve and increase its influence in the Horn of Africa and Red Sea region (Terrorism Monitor, 20 November). In mid-November, Ethiopia withdrew a large number of troops that it had deployed in its ethnically Somali region of Ogaden and in Somalia itself to relocate them to Tigray (Somalia Affairs, 3 November). Somalia-based al-Shabaab will therefore benefit from the gaps left by Ethiopian forces, and the relationship between Ethiopia and Turkey may deepen as Ankara seizes opportunities to help Addis Ababa reinforce security across the country. along its border with Somalia. Turkey also has a greater ability than the United Arab Emirates or Saudi Arabia to offer the Ethiopian military what it lacks and what it wants most: drone technology and the expertise to use it (Terrorism Monitor, October 13).
Further, China, which has invested billions of dollars in almost every economic sector in Ethiopia, will act to protect those investments. China will do everything possible to support stability in Ethiopia. Given China’s pragmatic foreign policy in Africa and Ethiopia in particular, this support will be profitable and possibly covert. There is little doubt that China will help Abiy Ahmed contain and defeat the TPLF. However, such aid, as is customary in Chinese foreign policy, will come with strings attached. [4]
Wars and water instability
On the other side of the equation, Ethiopia’s regional rivals will see limited instability in Ethiopia as a benefit. Ethiopia completed its Great Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) and, starting in July 2020, began filling the immense reservoir of the dam (Nazret, July 16). Egypt views the dam, which prevents the flow of water into the Nile’s main tributary, the Blue Nile, as an existential threat. [5] So far, the two governments have failed to agree on how they will share the Nile’s water resources.
During this summer, Egypt reportedly proposed to build a base in the unrecognized Republic of Somaliland (The East African, July 28). The Somaliland government is unlikely to accept the proposal. However, it reflects Egypt’s interest in improving its relations with other nations in the Horn of Africa and expanding the regional reach of its armed forces as a way to control what it sees as growing Ethiopian power.
For its part, Sudan, which will benefit from cheap electricity and flood control provided by GERD, has been more willing to negotiate with Ethiopia over the dam. However, Egypt exercises considerable influence in Sudan. The war in Tigray, especially if it drags on, may undermine the Ethiopian government’s ability to go ahead with what Egypt sees as an intransigent deal on GERD and hamper Sudan’s potential deal with Ethiopia on the dam.
Ethiopia outlook
Ethiopia’s successful foreign policy, which is based on balancing rival countries’ interests in their natural resources and strategic position in exchange for access and investment, could be compromised by a sustained war in Tigray. The TPLF is a sophisticated political and military organization that possesses the knowledge and institutional memory that will enable it to engage rival internal and external powers. The Abiy Ahmed government will find that it needs more and new kinds of assistance to meet the challenges posed by the TPLF. Receiving this aid, be it military or financial, will limit Ethiopia’s agile and independent foreign policy.
Notes
[1] Ethiopia was occupied by the Italians between 1936 and 1941. See Jeff Pearce, Prevail: The inspiring story of Ethiopia’s victory over Mussolini’s invasion (Editorial Skyhorse, 2014). [2] In 2019, China accounted for the largest volume of foreign direct investment (FDI) in Ethiopia, followed by Saudi Arabia and Turkey. [3] There are conflicting and unconfirmed reports in the western media about the possible deployment of UAE-operated drones from the UAE base in Assab, Eritrea, to Tigray. See, for example: https://www.voanews.com/africa/expert-no-evidence-uae-drones-are-being-used-ethiopias-tigray-conflict; https://www.bellingcat.com/news/rest-of-world/2020/11/19/are-emirati-armed-drones-supporting-ethiopia-from-an-eritrean-air-base/; and https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ethiopia-conflict-idUSKBN27V05M. While the deployment of UAE-operated Wing Loong II drones made in China would be consistent with UAE drone deployment over Yemen and Libya, it is unlikely at this stage. Most likely, the UAE is using surveillance drones within Eritrean territory to monitor incursions into Eritrean territory by TPLF forces. [4] This is not to say that other countries that provide aid, such as the United States, do not also expect some kind of benefit in return. However, China is particularly adept at bringing countries into its financial and political network with relatively minimal spending for the Chinese treasury. See Tom Burgis, The looting machine: warlords, oligarchs, corporations, smugglers and the theft of Africa’s wealth (Public Affairs, 2016). [5] For an overview of the complexity surrounding GERD and downstream riparian environments, see: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-19089-x