For more than a year, another catastrophic war between Eritrea and Ethiopia has appeared imminent. Seasoned experts and some political figures have repeatedly raised the alarm, citing the seemingly irreconcilable differences between the leaders of the two states, escalating rhetoric, and military mobilizations as the most ominous signs.
So far, mutual uncertainty has helped keep the peace. But recent developments in Ethiopia’s Tigray region may further erode this fragile balance and trigger a conflict.
Although Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki had been close political allies between 2018 and 2022, the fallout of the war in Tigray and Ethiopia’s subsequent push for sea access have created a wide chasm. Ethiopian leaders have also openly questioned the legitimacy of Eritrea’s 1993 independence, and both sides have traded public allegations of ill intent and belligerence. Rumors of arms purchases and military deployments to the area of Assab—an Eritrean Red Sea port Ethiopian authorities covet—seem increasingly likely to be closer to fact than fiction.
Yet Eritrea and Ethiopia have not gone to war. This restraint has been undergirded by the fact that both Addis Ababa and Asmara lack confidence that they would prevail in a conflict. The trajectory of wars is always difficult to predict ex ante, but this is doubly so along the 620-mile Eritrea-Ethiopia frontier. Both sides have waged wars in recent memory that have not gone according to plan. The responses of critical international actors including the United States and the Gulf remain hard to forecast, and political flux in Tigray has made it impossible to assess how this critical swing actor might position itself when the shooting starts.
Now, new dynamics are increasing the risk of war. The growing proximity between Tigray’s governing class and Eritrean authorities is accelerating a major confrontation. Only de-escalating tension between Addis Ababa and Tigray, and finding mutually agreeable pathways to enhance Ethiopian port access, can sustainably reduce the risks of war.
The outcome of a potential war between Eritrea and Ethiopia is wildly uncertain. This reality is not lost on leaders in Addis Ababa and Asmara, even as they project confidence. Within living memory, key decision-makers on both sides of the border have embraced wars that took unexpected turns and ultimately proved disastrous.
Amid limited border clashes with Ethiopia in 1998, Eritrean officials surmised that they could deter and even defeat an Ethiopian military escalation. The resulting two years of total war culminated in Ethiopian troops breaking Eritrean defensive lines, occupying much of the western portion of the country, and forcing Asmara to accept unfavorable terms for peace. Similarly, Ethiopia’s 2020 attempt to put down an armed rebellion in Tigray—with active support from the Eritrean government—quickly turned into a quagmire: By the summer of 2021, Addis Ababa had lost control of Tigray, and Tigrayan forces were racing southward into government-held territory. Parallel counterinsurgency wars in the Amhara and Oromia regions have also gone awry, although perhaps not as spectacularly as in Tigray.
The international context adds to the uncertainty. In an era of dramatic global reordering, neither Addis Ababa nor Asmara can be sure of where the balance of international support—diplomatic and material—will ultimately fall.
Both sides are also nursing specific vulnerabilities that add to the haziness. Consider first the United States. Ethiopian and Eritrean leaders are racing, with some initial success, to reach out to the Trump administration and rehabilitate frayed bilateral ties. For Ethiopia, the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam remains a potential stumbling block, as U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent comments on the issue suggest he continues to see the matter through an Egyptian lens.
Eritrea, meanwhile, has a much deeper diplomatic hole to dig itself out of, as decades of anti-U.S. posturing have left it with few friends in Washington. Relative to Ethiopia, Eritrea may also have less to offer the Trump administration. Ethiopia is larger and has a more dynamic economy, as demonstrated by the ongoing multibillion-dollar expansion of U.S.-Ethiopia cooperation in the arena of commercial aviation. Asmara can of course trade on its strategic location along the Red Sea, situating itself as an alternative for U.S. assets in Djibouti. But Somaliland now looks to have momentum as the preferred option for an expanded U.S. military presence along the Horn of Africa littoral.
The balance of external support is no less confused closer to home. A war between Eritrea and Ethiopia would likely merge with the conflagration in neighboring Sudan. Addis Ababa and Asmara would almost certainly attempt to mobilize the actors engaged there: the United Arab Emirates on the side of Ethiopia and Egypt and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) backing Eritrea. But the Sudanese conflict has itself become a grinding stalemate, leaving doubts about which side will prevail—and whether either set of external actors would fully invest in yet another costly African war. Eritrea’s ruling People’s Front for Democracy and Justice must also be aware that despite its current strategic alignment with Egypt and SAF, these partnerships have been laden with considerable historic tension and are hardly ironclad.
Dynamics in Tigray are perhaps the most consequential area of uncertainty. As relations between Addis Ababa and Asmara have nosedived, both have sought to court support in this region of northern Ethiopia. Straddling much of the Eritrea-Ethiopia frontier, and teeming with roughly 250,000 still-mobilized fighters, Tigray would obviously be a critical swing player in any confrontation between the two countries. The Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), the de facto administrators of the territory, also understand this fact and seek to leverage it.
But exactly how Tigray would align has remained an open question for several reasons. First, the recent memory of the brutal 2020-22 Tigray war, when Addis Ababa and Asmara were militarily aligned against Tigrayan fighters, has left a bitterness and suspicion toward both that is hard to ignore. This strategic wariness applies at the level of both the public and political elite and cuts across many of Tigray’s prevailing political divides. Second, Tigray’s political cohesiveness has dramatically eroded, a fact signaled by the rift within the TPLF between former Tigrayan interim administrator Getachew Reda and TPLF party boss Debretsion Gebremichael. The former has clearly leaned toward Addis Ababa, while the latter—who now fully controls the TPLF—is closer to Eritrea.
Finally, a key strategic objective of the TPLF remains the reacquisition of disputed territories in western Tigray that were lost to Amhara during the war. This is an outcome that the TPLF may be willing to pursue through the risky option of force if necessary. But both Addis Ababa and Asmara are balancing delicate equities in Amhara that they do not want to see disrupted by changes to the status quo in western Tigray. Furthermore, neither is enthusiastic about a TPLF corridor to Sudan, albeit for different reasons. For Addis Ababa, the return of these territories to Tigray would provide the TPLF with yet another avenue for external supply, and for Asmara, it might reduce the TPLF’s dependence on the Eritrean state.
But all this uncertainly does not guarantee continued peace. Past restraint along the Eritrea-Ethiopia frontier should be no reason for comfort. The risks of open conflict between the countries are growing, and the Tigray factor is the key catalyst.
Two recent developments underscore the forces at work. The first occurred in June, when a border post between Ethiopia and Eritrea was reopened in Zalambessa, a town in northern Tigray. This was the first such reopening since 2020. That it occurred without the involvement of the Ethiopian government raised concerns that the crossing could be used to facilitate the movement of goods and potentially ammunition between the Eritrean government and the TPLF. The second development came later that summer, when the TPLF violently seized dissident regional administrations in southern Tigray.
Collectively, these developments illustrate shifts that have been in evidence for months: the tipping of factional struggles within Tigray in favor of Debretsion and old-line TPLF and the further movement of this group toward Eritrea. These trends began in earnest in March, when the Debretsion faction ousted its rivals from the interim administration and exiled them to Addis Ababa. The move was yet another blow to the 2022 Pretoria Agreement, which ended the Tigray war and was meant to anchor the rapprochement between the TPLF and Abiy’s government. While an immediate crisis was averted through the selection of Tadesse Werede as the new president of Tigray’s interim administration, that has not attenuated prevailing trends. Emerging reports suggest that the TPLF is now attempting to gauge and shape public sentiment in Tigray through “regional consultation” forums with an eye toward potential conflict with the federal government. And the TPLF’s official rhetoric has become more explicitly pro-Asmara and anti-Addis Ababa in recent weeks.
The reasons for the TPLF’s increasingly pronounced pivot toward Eritrea—just years ago its mortal enemy—are complex. The central issue is the failure of Addis Ababa and Tigray to agree on the reentry of the region into Ethiopia’s body politic as provided for in the Pretoria Agreement. Both sides share considerable blame. As a result, thorny questions around demobilization, disputed regional boundaries, the resettlement of displaced Tigrayans, and the TPLF’s political normalization have been left to fester. With Pretoria effectively moribund, the TPLF—the weaker of the two signatories and the one under considerable pressure from its own population to see key provisions realized—has gradually looked for greater leverage and security. Its alignment with the Eritrean government appears to be the answer.
In this context, the risk that the TPLF attempts to test its muscle against the federal government in conjunction with Eritrea and other local anti-government forces, or that Addis Ababa acts to preempt deepening ties between its northern rivals through operations in Tigray or even Eritrea, grows by the day.
With the logic of restraint quickly collapsing, urgent action is needed to prevent the next Eritrea-Ethiopia war. Since dynamics in Tigray are a key driver of escalation, it is here on which initial efforts to stabilize tensions should focus. Rehabilitating the stalled dialogue between the federal government and Tigray is an essential first step. These efforts should be geared toward advancing implementation of the Pretoria Agreement in all its facets. Western powers that have in the past been supportive of Pretoria, particularly the United States and Europe, should insist on this point and offer the necessary incentives and guarantees necessary to generate follow-through. They must also unequivocally denounce provocation and be vocal in signaling their displeasure when the federal government and Tigray act in ways inconsistent with their obligations under the agreement—something they have consistently been reluctant to do.
But taking the Tigray card off the table will only go so far in stabilizing Eritrea-Ethiopia relations. Longer term, Ethiopia needs secure access to the sea, possibly through Eritrean ports. This matter must be addressed seriously, respecting Eritrea’s sovereignty and territorial integrity as well as Ethiopia’s demand for reliable access. A practical framework might involve the Trump administration, the Europeans, and key African and Gulf states facilitating dialogue between Ethiopia and Eritrea. Offering the right mix of investment, sanctions relief, and deepened bilateral relationships could help create incentives for peace.
More broadly, it is pivotal to support Ethiopia in diversifying its port options for its growing demand. Continuing talks with Somalia (and, by extension, Somaliland), exploring Djibouti’s proposal for a controlled port, and assessing alternatives such as Lamu in Kenya or Port Sudan merit serious consideration. This would also serve to regionalize the question of Ethiopian port access, which may assuage Eritrean apprehensions about being the target of Ethiopian revanchism.
Whatever the formula for de-escalation, the bottom line is that the Horn of Africa, and the world, cannot afford another Eritrea-Ethiopia war. It would further destabilize a region already racked by a constellation of devastating conflicts from Sudan to Somalia. And it would take generations for the region and its people to recover. With dynamics in Tigray beginning to erode the tense but not yet violent status quo along the Eritrea-Ethiopia frontier, all must act to bolster peace before it is too late.
The post The Risk of a New Ethiopian-Eritrean War Is Growing appeared first on Foreign Policy.
