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Over the past 20 months, as multiple wars have swept across the Middle East, the southern end of the Red Sea has become a source of international concern. In the early months of 2025 alone, the United States spent billions of dollars on a high-profile military campaign against the Houthis in Yemen, who have continued to attack international shipping in this crucial body of water in response to Israel’s war in Gaza. Yet regional and world powers have largely ignored a volatile crisis on the Red Sea’s other coast, along the Horn of Africa, that could soon erupt into a major conflagration.

The crisis involves the coastal nation of Eritrea and its larger landlocked neighbor Ethiopia, which lost access to the Red Sea after Eritrean independence in 1993. In November 2023, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said that gaining Red Sea access has become an existential question for Ethiopia. In particular, he claims that Ethiopia should control Assab, a crucial port in southern Eritrea. Since then, tensions between the two countries have mounted, and Ethiopia may be preparing to march its forces directly to Assab, which is only 37 miles from the Ethiopian border. Although Abiy has denied that Ethiopia has plans for a military conflict, both sides have been buying military equipment, including armed drones, drone defenses, missiles, mechanized firepower, and desert terrain armored vehicles. In recent weeks, both have also moved military forces to the border near Assab and are engaging in escalating exchanges of hostile rhetoric.

A battle over the Red Sea port would be dangerous. But what makes the looming conflict even more threatening is the likelihood that it could quickly spread to Ethiopia’s volatile Tigray region, which borders Eritrea and which was the epicenter of a devastating 2020–22 war between the Ethiopian federal government in Addis Ababa and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front. In the aftermath of that war—which cost as many as 600,000 lives, including hundreds of thousands of civilians, and left a dismal legacy of displacement and destruction—a peace agreement was supposed to bring new stability to the region. But since then, few of the agreement’s provisions have been implemented. Eritrean troops are still present in the region and large parts of Tigray have been de facto annexed by Ethiopia’s neighboring Amhara region. More than one million Tigrayans remain unable to return home. Most worrying of all, the leadership of the TPLF has split into contending factions, which are forging rival alliances with Ethiopia and Eritrea and building separate armed wings.

If fighting breaks out between Ethiopia and Eritrea, Tigray will again be the main battleground, with potentially catastrophic consequences—for Tigray and for the entire Horn of Africa. Both sides have large, well-equipped armies and are prepared to inflict and absorb casualties on a vast scale. A conflict would tear up what remains of a fragile peace and security architecture in the region, and could draw in Somalia and Sudan in a region-wide vortex of violence. Further fueling instability is the rival meddling of leading Middle Eastern powers, with the United Arab Emirates supporting Ethiopia, and Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey leaning toward Eritrea.

Continue reading https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ethiopia ... temptation

WASHINGTON, NOT WAR

For all the region’s troubles, keeping Tigray out of a future conflict should not be difficult. For one, the region could simply refuse to take sides in the Ethiopian-Eritrean standoff. The rival TPLF factions have common interest in avoiding an internecine fight that will damage them both. Despite their tactical political alliances, they could forge a shared position to avoid taking part in a broader cross-border war.

In fact, Tigrayans hold considerable leverage with Addis Ababa and Asmara. Ethiopia and Eritrea would have little reason to initiate a conflict without backing from a strong Tigrayan armed contingent, and neither side could sustain a war for long if Tigray stays resolutely neutral. A war between the two countries for the port of Assab would be akin to two bald men fighting over a comb. If Ethiopia succeeded in capturing the city, such a move would violate international law and international shipping companies would avoid the port; it would also invite pariah status for a government that has long relied on extensive Western support. Moreover, it is far from clear that gaining Assab would strengthen Abiy’s power. In this corner of the Danakil Desert, Eritrea has no conventional military options other than defense. Should Eritrea lose the port, however, it would have no difficulty in finding discontented groups within Ethiopia to fight against Addis Ababa, plunging Ethiopia further into turmoil and instability.

Along with receiving desperately needed humanitarian aid, the real need for Tigray—and for Ethiopia—is to see the terms of the Pretoria Agreement finally implemented. The provisions of the deal are neither onerous nor complicated: the withdrawal of Amhara forces and the restoration of the prewar administrative boundary of Tigray, the return of displaced people to their places of origin, and the opening of a political dialogue to enable Tigray to find its place in Ethiopia’s national politics. Yet these steps have never been carried out because the more powerful of the two parties—the Ethiopian government under Abiy—hasn’t been pressed to make good on the agreement.

Western governments and regional powers could do much to change this picture. Ethiopia received billions of dollars in foreign aid and concessionary finance in 2024 alone, and donor governments could make further aid payments contingent on the Abiy government doing what it has already formally promised. The Tigrayan administration, for its part, needs resources to deliver on the people’s demands for assistance and reconstruction. With real pressure from Washington, Addis Ababa and the Tigrayan administration should be able to marginalize the reckless factions that are seeking to exploit the situation—and finally bring to heel the Middle Eastern powers that have for too long enjoyed free rein to meddle in the Horn of Africa. If the Trump administration could pull off such a deal, it would be a meaningful diplomatic victory with long-term dividends for U.S. power and for renewed prosperity in the war-scarred region.

Whatever the outcome of the current tensions, Tigray has a long road to recovery. Ultimately, rebuilding the region will require sustained effort to rebuild accountable institutions and civil society, as well as the economic foundations needed to provide lasting stability. None of this will be possible, however, if there is another war. The most urgent task today is to prevent that from happening.

Abere wrote: ↑

05 Aug 2025, 17:12

Simply, reading the end paragraph or the conclusion, America actually rescued TPLF and perpetuated vice, conflict and instability in Ethiopia. Just not once but multiple times. The evidence is very obvious, when TPLF was decimated in its assisted invasion and march to Debresina( ትግሬ ማዞሪያ) and died like flies all over Amhara provinces, it was America that rescued TPLF. America was spreading news that TPLF would be in Addis Ababa and all flights to Ethiopia better be stopped. To its disappointment, Fano picked every rat woyane like ripen grape all the way to Korem-Alamata. Again emboldened by its master, TPLF attacked again but decisvely decimated almost chased or cleaned out of Mekelle, yet thanks to Mike Hammer or Blinken, again they rescued remnant TPLF and called for dialogue between OLF-PP and TPLF-Woyane, both of whom are their children - raised, financed and supported. This was bad fate for the Tigre people, Amhara people, and all Ethiopians. The best remedy to heal Ethiopia is obviously to stomp out Woyane and OLF-PP. Amercia never want that. If peace and stability were the prime goal, the most logical thing is to eliminate Woyane, OLF and Shabia. As long as these black death carrier are walking in the political land escape of Ethiopia there will never be peace - this is a no brainer. Only rat Woyane, OLF, Shabia talks shoulda woulda , coulda stuff

Aye Aberber,

America rescued Tigray from Debrebrhan the outskirt of Addis Ababa and Abiy and his followers were ready to leave the country for permanent exile.