![AmbStesfamariam's tweet photo. It is Friday, and what a week it has been for the folks at FANA and the PP cadres. I am accustomed to receiving from Member States their priorities for UNGA 81, but this week’s output from the PP has been something of an overload.
Eight years after Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed came to power, 2026 may well be the year in which the rhetoric, acronyms and strategic formulations finally lay bare what has long been hiding in plain sight: the ambitions of his government for #Ethiopia, the implications for its neighbors, and the formidable challenge this presents to an international community seeking to build lasting peace and stability in the #Horn of #Africa.
In a region where strategic doctrines come and go with remarkable speed, one might reasonably hope that Ethiopia’s foreign policy could survive a Thursday without acquiring another acronym. Perhaps the PP might give its audience a little time to digest its growing collection of increasingly elaborate formulations before unveiling the next one.
Otherwise, in the rush to introduce yet another strategic concept, it may risk another strategic miscalculation, and deepen the very self-created quagmire it is now working so hard to explain. But before we get to this week’s latest formulations, let us go back a little bit.
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed introduced Ethiopia, and at times the region, to መደመር, Medemer, in its first and second iterations, presenting it as a new political philosophy and, ultimately, as the only viable path for Ethiopia and the region: addition, convergence, cooperation and the pooling of strengths. But the Ethiopian experience has increasingly produced a rather different vocabulary.
Instead of መደመር (Medemer), there has been far too much መደናገር (Medenager): confusion, disorientation and a country struggling to find its way through one crisis after another. And instead of adding to the lives and security of its citizens, there has been መቀነስ (Mequenes): a grim process of subtraction, as Ethiopian lives have been lost in violence across different parts of the country.
People have been killed in cold blood. Communities have been devastated. Families have disappeared into grief. And much of the international community has watched with a silence that has sometimes been difficult to distinguish from indifference. One is left wondering whether Ethiopian lives have been valued differently depending on where those lives were lost.
The irony is difficult to miss. A philosophy premised on adding together was supposed to strengthen the Ethiopian state and bring its peoples closer together. Yet the country has repeatedly experienced fragmentation, violence, displacement and deepening mistrust.
Perhaps the real test of any political philosophy is not how elegantly it is written in books, nor how compellingly it is presented from podiums. It is whether ordinary people are safer, whether their children are alive, whether communities can live without fear, and whether a citizen’s life is treated as having equal value regardless of ethnicity, region or political affiliation.
Last month, we were introduced to the 3Ms: Mequaquam, Metekem and Megrat. This week, the PP brought us the 4As of Ethiopia’s diplomatic doctrine: Active, Alternative, Adaptive and Agenda-Setting. And now we have the latest PP-created concept: “compound pressure.” One almost wonders when the PowerPoint will run out of letters, or whether every familiar principle of statecraft will eventually acquire its own acronym.
As Prime Minister Abiy put it:
“...ለዚህ ምንከተለው መንገድ፣ በኛ ሳይድ ሶስት መ ብለን አስቀምጠናቸዋል። አንደኛው መቋቋም ነው... ሁለተኛ መጠቀም ነው። ፈተናን ወደ እድል መቀየር። ሶስተኛው መግራት ነው። በሰው አጀንዳ መገራት ሳይሆን አሁን የራስ አጀንዳ ፈጥሮ መግራት ነው...”
Translated by @HOAAffairs as:
“…The path we follow on our side we have set as the ‘Three Ms’. The first is Mequaquam (to withstand): building resilient institutions and a nation. The second is Metekem (to exploit): turning challenges into opportunities. The third is Megrat (to tame): rather than being tamed by others’ agendas, creating our own agenda and taming [the region] …”
There is, of course, nothing inherently objectionable about a state developing strategic doctrines or giving familiar ideas new terminology. States are entitled to think strategically. They are entitled to develop doctrines. They are even entitled to create acronyms. But beneath the acronyms remain a few rather unfashionable concepts that PP cadres continue to ignore: sovereignty, territorial integrity, sovereign equality and international law. Strategies evolve. Acronyms come and go. Sovereignty is not a passing trend.
And this is where the latest formulation, “compound pressure”, deserves closer attention. The PP presents Ethiopia’s security environment in terms of multiple pressures: the unresolved political and security challenges surrounding the Tigray transition, the Nile Basin and GERD dispute, and wider questions concerning Red Sea access and frontier security. These developments may indeed impose a cumulative strategic burden on Ethiopia.
There is also nothing inherently wrong with analyzing a country’s security environment in terms of cumulative pressure. Strategic planners do this all the time. But such an analysis must be accompanied by accountability, honesty and a clear distinction between perception and fact.
The problem begins when strategic analysis is transformed into a legal argument. Several developments may have a cumulative effect on #Ethiopia. That does not establish that they are coordinated. It does not establish that they have a single author. It does not establish that they constitute one dispute. And, most importantly, it does not give Ethiopia additional legal rights.
Each issue has its own history, its own actors, its own facts and its own applicable law. Strategic accumulation is not legal aggregation. Or, as I would describe it, a self-created quagmire compounded by arrogance and hubris is still a quagmire. It is reassuring, at least, to know that the PP understands the predicament it has created for itself.
But a quagmire is a predicament, not a title deed. A difficult strategic environment does not give Ethiopia a legal right to resolve it by imposing costs on its neighbors. Feeling being constrained does not confer the right to constrain others. The PP may feel strategically constrained by several separate developments. It cannot convert that cumulative constraint into a legal basis for overriding the sovereign rights of its neighbors.
PM Abiy cannot convert cumulative strategic pressure into cumulative sovereign rights. Strategic pressure may explain behavior; it does not legalize it. #Eritrea|s decisions regarding foreign military bases, maritime policy, relations with other states and territorial integrity may be inconvenient to Ethiopian strategy. But, inconvenience is not illegality.
On the issue of establishing a naval base on the Red Sea, the presence of foreign military facilities in the region does not change the equation. They exist because a sovereign state, permits them. #Eritrea has chosen otherwise. Presence by consent is not entitlement by proximity. International law does not operate on a “me too” principle.
The same applies to claims involving proxies, conspiracies and regional alignments. Tigrayan politics have their own history and agency. Egypt, Sudan and the Gulf states have their own interests and calculations. #Eritrea has its sovereign interests. #Ethiopia has its own. There is a word for states pursuing overlapping interests: international relations.
And if “compound pressure” simply means that Ethiopia is surrounded by sovereign states whose independent decisions sometimes constrain Ethiopian choices, Eritrea can offer a modest reminder: that is what having neighbors means.
Eritrea does not oppose Ethiopia’s aspirations. It does not oppose peaceful access to international markets or mutually beneficial regional trade. What it rejects is the progression from access to entitlement, entitlement to control, and control to historical or security necessity. That progression is not inevitable. It is a political choice.
Eritrea also understands perfectly well the economic value of Massawa, Assab, the Dahlak Islands and its Red Sea coastline. Thank you for the business advice. Eritrea will decide how to manage its sovereign assets.
There is also a certain irony in Ethiopia’s invocation of “sovereignty of decision.” Ethiopia has sovereignty of decision. So does Eritrea. Ethiopia deserves strategic freedom. So does Eritrea. Ethiopia deserves security. So does Eritrea. Freedom from the agendas of others cannot mean the subordination of neighbors to one’s own agenda. That is not strategic freedom. What the PP is seeking is strategic privilege.
The #Horn of #Africa does not need another war to establish this rather obvious proposition. A stable, prosperous Ethiopia is in Eritrea’s interest. A stable, prosperous Eritrea is in Ethiopia’s interest. The sensible path is reciprocity: equal sovereignty, negotiated access, lawful commerce and respect for established borders. If #Ethiopia wants trade, it should build partnerships. If it wants regional influence, it should exercise diplomacy. If it wants access, it should negotiate access. But if access becomes a demand that Eritrea surrender its sovereign discretion, then the issue is no longer maritime access. It is hierarchy.
And hierarchy is not the same thing as regional cooperation.
The #Horn has suffered enough from attempts to resolve political and strategic problems through force, coercion and unilateral calculations of entitlement. There is another path. It begins with accepting a rather simple proposition: #Ethiopia can pursue its interests without denying the interests of its neighbors. It can seek access without claiming ownership. It can pursue security without making insecurity for others the price of its own. It can exercise influence without demanding hierarchy.
The PP can develop as many strategic doctrines and invent as many acronyms as it wishes. But none of them changes the underlying rules. Acronyms can describe a strategy; they cannot amend international law. And there remains one inconvenient constraint that no PP acronym can overcome: international law applies to #Eritrea too. But it also applies to #Ethiopia.
Have a great weekend, folks. Hopefully, the PP cadres will take a break too, if only to give us all a chance to catch up with the latest acronym on Monday…](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HPtVWIxXsAA5l_n.jpg)
![AmbStesfamariam's tweet photo. It is Friday, and what a week it has been for the folks at FANA and the PP cadres. I am accustomed to receiving from Member States their priorities for UNGA 81, but this week’s output from the PP has been something of an overload.
Eight years after Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed came to power, 2026 may well be the year in which the rhetoric, acronyms and strategic formulations finally lay bare what has long been hiding in plain sight: the ambitions of his government for #Ethiopia, the implications for its neighbors, and the formidable challenge this presents to an international community seeking to build lasting peace and stability in the #Horn of #Africa.
In a region where strategic doctrines come and go with remarkable speed, one might reasonably hope that Ethiopia’s foreign policy could survive a Thursday without acquiring another acronym. Perhaps the PP might give its audience a little time to digest its growing collection of increasingly elaborate formulations before unveiling the next one.
Otherwise, in the rush to introduce yet another strategic concept, it may risk another strategic miscalculation, and deepen the very self-created quagmire it is now working so hard to explain. But before we get to this week’s latest formulations, let us go back a little bit.
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed introduced Ethiopia, and at times the region, to መደመር, Medemer, in its first and second iterations, presenting it as a new political philosophy and, ultimately, as the only viable path for Ethiopia and the region: addition, convergence, cooperation and the pooling of strengths. But the Ethiopian experience has increasingly produced a rather different vocabulary.
Instead of መደመር (Medemer), there has been far too much መደናገር (Medenager): confusion, disorientation and a country struggling to find its way through one crisis after another. And instead of adding to the lives and security of its citizens, there has been መቀነስ (Mequenes): a grim process of subtraction, as Ethiopian lives have been lost in violence across different parts of the country.
People have been killed in cold blood. Communities have been devastated. Families have disappeared into grief. And much of the international community has watched with a silence that has sometimes been difficult to distinguish from indifference. One is left wondering whether Ethiopian lives have been valued differently depending on where those lives were lost.
The irony is difficult to miss. A philosophy premised on adding together was supposed to strengthen the Ethiopian state and bring its peoples closer together. Yet the country has repeatedly experienced fragmentation, violence, displacement and deepening mistrust.
Perhaps the real test of any political philosophy is not how elegantly it is written in books, nor how compellingly it is presented from podiums. It is whether ordinary people are safer, whether their children are alive, whether communities can live without fear, and whether a citizen’s life is treated as having equal value regardless of ethnicity, region or political affiliation.
Last month, we were introduced to the 3Ms: Mequaquam, Metekem and Megrat. This week, the PP brought us the 4As of Ethiopia’s diplomatic doctrine: Active, Alternative, Adaptive and Agenda-Setting. And now we have the latest PP-created concept: “compound pressure.” One almost wonders when the PowerPoint will run out of letters, or whether every familiar principle of statecraft will eventually acquire its own acronym.
As Prime Minister Abiy put it:
“...ለዚህ ምንከተለው መንገድ፣ በኛ ሳይድ ሶስት መ ብለን አስቀምጠናቸዋል። አንደኛው መቋቋም ነው... ሁለተኛ መጠቀም ነው። ፈተናን ወደ እድል መቀየር። ሶስተኛው መግራት ነው። በሰው አጀንዳ መገራት ሳይሆን አሁን የራስ አጀንዳ ፈጥሮ መግራት ነው...”
Translated by @HOAAffairs as:
“…The path we follow on our side we have set as the ‘Three Ms’. The first is Mequaquam (to withstand): building resilient institutions and a nation. The second is Metekem (to exploit): turning challenges into opportunities. The third is Megrat (to tame): rather than being tamed by others’ agendas, creating our own agenda and taming [the region] …”
There is, of course, nothing inherently objectionable about a state developing strategic doctrines or giving familiar ideas new terminology. States are entitled to think strategically. They are entitled to develop doctrines. They are even entitled to create acronyms. But beneath the acronyms remain a few rather unfashionable concepts that PP cadres continue to ignore: sovereignty, territorial integrity, sovereign equality and international law. Strategies evolve. Acronyms come and go. Sovereignty is not a passing trend.
And this is where the latest formulation, “compound pressure”, deserves closer attention. The PP presents Ethiopia’s security environment in terms of multiple pressures: the unresolved political and security challenges surrounding the Tigray transition, the Nile Basin and GERD dispute, and wider questions concerning Red Sea access and frontier security. These developments may indeed impose a cumulative strategic burden on Ethiopia.
There is also nothing inherently wrong with analyzing a country’s security environment in terms of cumulative pressure. Strategic planners do this all the time. But such an analysis must be accompanied by accountability, honesty and a clear distinction between perception and fact.
The problem begins when strategic analysis is transformed into a legal argument. Several developments may have a cumulative effect on #Ethiopia. That does not establish that they are coordinated. It does not establish that they have a single author. It does not establish that they constitute one dispute. And, most importantly, it does not give Ethiopia additional legal rights.
Each issue has its own history, its own actors, its own facts and its own applicable law. Strategic accumulation is not legal aggregation. Or, as I would describe it, a self-created quagmire compounded by arrogance and hubris is still a quagmire. It is reassuring, at least, to know that the PP understands the predicament it has created for itself.
But a quagmire is a predicament, not a title deed. A difficult strategic environment does not give Ethiopia a legal right to resolve it by imposing costs on its neighbors. Feeling being constrained does not confer the right to constrain others. The PP may feel strategically constrained by several separate developments. It cannot convert that cumulative constraint into a legal basis for overriding the sovereign rights of its neighbors.
PM Abiy cannot convert cumulative strategic pressure into cumulative sovereign rights. Strategic pressure may explain behavior; it does not legalize it. #Eritrea|s decisions regarding foreign military bases, maritime policy, relations with other states and territorial integrity may be inconvenient to Ethiopian strategy. But, inconvenience is not illegality.
On the issue of establishing a naval base on the Red Sea, the presence of foreign military facilities in the region does not change the equation. They exist because a sovereign state, permits them. #Eritrea has chosen otherwise. Presence by consent is not entitlement by proximity. International law does not operate on a “me too” principle.
The same applies to claims involving proxies, conspiracies and regional alignments. Tigrayan politics have their own history and agency. Egypt, Sudan and the Gulf states have their own interests and calculations. #Eritrea has its sovereign interests. #Ethiopia has its own. There is a word for states pursuing overlapping interests: international relations.
And if “compound pressure” simply means that Ethiopia is surrounded by sovereign states whose independent decisions sometimes constrain Ethiopian choices, Eritrea can offer a modest reminder: that is what having neighbors means.
Eritrea does not oppose Ethiopia’s aspirations. It does not oppose peaceful access to international markets or mutually beneficial regional trade. What it rejects is the progression from access to entitlement, entitlement to control, and control to historical or security necessity. That progression is not inevitable. It is a political choice.
Eritrea also understands perfectly well the economic value of Massawa, Assab, the Dahlak Islands and its Red Sea coastline. Thank you for the business advice. Eritrea will decide how to manage its sovereign assets.
There is also a certain irony in Ethiopia’s invocation of “sovereignty of decision.” Ethiopia has sovereignty of decision. So does Eritrea. Ethiopia deserves strategic freedom. So does Eritrea. Ethiopia deserves security. So does Eritrea. Freedom from the agendas of others cannot mean the subordination of neighbors to one’s own agenda. That is not strategic freedom. What the PP is seeking is strategic privilege.
The #Horn of #Africa does not need another war to establish this rather obvious proposition. A stable, prosperous Ethiopia is in Eritrea’s interest. A stable, prosperous Eritrea is in Ethiopia’s interest. The sensible path is reciprocity: equal sovereignty, negotiated access, lawful commerce and respect for established borders. If #Ethiopia wants trade, it should build partnerships. If it wants regional influence, it should exercise diplomacy. If it wants access, it should negotiate access. But if access becomes a demand that Eritrea surrender its sovereign discretion, then the issue is no longer maritime access. It is hierarchy.
And hierarchy is not the same thing as regional cooperation.
The #Horn has suffered enough from attempts to resolve political and strategic problems through force, coercion and unilateral calculations of entitlement. There is another path. It begins with accepting a rather simple proposition: #Ethiopia can pursue its interests without denying the interests of its neighbors. It can seek access without claiming ownership. It can pursue security without making insecurity for others the price of its own. It can exercise influence without demanding hierarchy.
The PP can develop as many strategic doctrines and invent as many acronyms as it wishes. But none of them changes the underlying rules. Acronyms can describe a strategy; they cannot amend international law. And there remains one inconvenient constraint that no PP acronym can overcome: international law applies to #Eritrea too. But it also applies to #Ethiopia.
Have a great weekend, folks. Hopefully, the PP cadres will take a break too, if only to give us all a chance to catch up with the latest acronym on Monday…](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HPtVWIiXYAEB_RW.jpg)
![AmbStesfamariam's tweet photo. It is Friday, and what a week it has been for the folks at FANA and the PP cadres. I am accustomed to receiving from Member States their priorities for UNGA 81, but this week’s output from the PP has been something of an overload.
Eight years after Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed came to power, 2026 may well be the year in which the rhetoric, acronyms and strategic formulations finally lay bare what has long been hiding in plain sight: the ambitions of his government for #Ethiopia, the implications for its neighbors, and the formidable challenge this presents to an international community seeking to build lasting peace and stability in the #Horn of #Africa.
In a region where strategic doctrines come and go with remarkable speed, one might reasonably hope that Ethiopia’s foreign policy could survive a Thursday without acquiring another acronym. Perhaps the PP might give its audience a little time to digest its growing collection of increasingly elaborate formulations before unveiling the next one.
Otherwise, in the rush to introduce yet another strategic concept, it may risk another strategic miscalculation, and deepen the very self-created quagmire it is now working so hard to explain. But before we get to this week’s latest formulations, let us go back a little bit.
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed introduced Ethiopia, and at times the region, to መደመር, Medemer, in its first and second iterations, presenting it as a new political philosophy and, ultimately, as the only viable path for Ethiopia and the region: addition, convergence, cooperation and the pooling of strengths. But the Ethiopian experience has increasingly produced a rather different vocabulary.
Instead of መደመር (Medemer), there has been far too much መደናገር (Medenager): confusion, disorientation and a country struggling to find its way through one crisis after another. And instead of adding to the lives and security of its citizens, there has been መቀነስ (Mequenes): a grim process of subtraction, as Ethiopian lives have been lost in violence across different parts of the country.
People have been killed in cold blood. Communities have been devastated. Families have disappeared into grief. And much of the international community has watched with a silence that has sometimes been difficult to distinguish from indifference. One is left wondering whether Ethiopian lives have been valued differently depending on where those lives were lost.
The irony is difficult to miss. A philosophy premised on adding together was supposed to strengthen the Ethiopian state and bring its peoples closer together. Yet the country has repeatedly experienced fragmentation, violence, displacement and deepening mistrust.
Perhaps the real test of any political philosophy is not how elegantly it is written in books, nor how compellingly it is presented from podiums. It is whether ordinary people are safer, whether their children are alive, whether communities can live without fear, and whether a citizen’s life is treated as having equal value regardless of ethnicity, region or political affiliation.
Last month, we were introduced to the 3Ms: Mequaquam, Metekem and Megrat. This week, the PP brought us the 4As of Ethiopia’s diplomatic doctrine: Active, Alternative, Adaptive and Agenda-Setting. And now we have the latest PP-created concept: “compound pressure.” One almost wonders when the PowerPoint will run out of letters, or whether every familiar principle of statecraft will eventually acquire its own acronym.
As Prime Minister Abiy put it:
“...ለዚህ ምንከተለው መንገድ፣ በኛ ሳይድ ሶስት መ ብለን አስቀምጠናቸዋል። አንደኛው መቋቋም ነው... ሁለተኛ መጠቀም ነው። ፈተናን ወደ እድል መቀየር። ሶስተኛው መግራት ነው። በሰው አጀንዳ መገራት ሳይሆን አሁን የራስ አጀንዳ ፈጥሮ መግራት ነው...”
Translated by @HOAAffairs as:
“…The path we follow on our side we have set as the ‘Three Ms’. The first is Mequaquam (to withstand): building resilient institutions and a nation. The second is Metekem (to exploit): turning challenges into opportunities. The third is Megrat (to tame): rather than being tamed by others’ agendas, creating our own agenda and taming [the region] …”
There is, of course, nothing inherently objectionable about a state developing strategic doctrines or giving familiar ideas new terminology. States are entitled to think strategically. They are entitled to develop doctrines. They are even entitled to create acronyms. But beneath the acronyms remain a few rather unfashionable concepts that PP cadres continue to ignore: sovereignty, territorial integrity, sovereign equality and international law. Strategies evolve. Acronyms come and go. Sovereignty is not a passing trend.
And this is where the latest formulation, “compound pressure”, deserves closer attention. The PP presents Ethiopia’s security environment in terms of multiple pressures: the unresolved political and security challenges surrounding the Tigray transition, the Nile Basin and GERD dispute, and wider questions concerning Red Sea access and frontier security. These developments may indeed impose a cumulative strategic burden on Ethiopia.
There is also nothing inherently wrong with analyzing a country’s security environment in terms of cumulative pressure. Strategic planners do this all the time. But such an analysis must be accompanied by accountability, honesty and a clear distinction between perception and fact.
The problem begins when strategic analysis is transformed into a legal argument. Several developments may have a cumulative effect on #Ethiopia. That does not establish that they are coordinated. It does not establish that they have a single author. It does not establish that they constitute one dispute. And, most importantly, it does not give Ethiopia additional legal rights.
Each issue has its own history, its own actors, its own facts and its own applicable law. Strategic accumulation is not legal aggregation. Or, as I would describe it, a self-created quagmire compounded by arrogance and hubris is still a quagmire. It is reassuring, at least, to know that the PP understands the predicament it has created for itself.
But a quagmire is a predicament, not a title deed. A difficult strategic environment does not give Ethiopia a legal right to resolve it by imposing costs on its neighbors. Feeling being constrained does not confer the right to constrain others. The PP may feel strategically constrained by several separate developments. It cannot convert that cumulative constraint into a legal basis for overriding the sovereign rights of its neighbors.
PM Abiy cannot convert cumulative strategic pressure into cumulative sovereign rights. Strategic pressure may explain behavior; it does not legalize it. #Eritrea|s decisions regarding foreign military bases, maritime policy, relations with other states and territorial integrity may be inconvenient to Ethiopian strategy. But, inconvenience is not illegality.
On the issue of establishing a naval base on the Red Sea, the presence of foreign military facilities in the region does not change the equation. They exist because a sovereign state, permits them. #Eritrea has chosen otherwise. Presence by consent is not entitlement by proximity. International law does not operate on a “me too” principle.
The same applies to claims involving proxies, conspiracies and regional alignments. Tigrayan politics have their own history and agency. Egypt, Sudan and the Gulf states have their own interests and calculations. #Eritrea has its sovereign interests. #Ethiopia has its own. There is a word for states pursuing overlapping interests: international relations.
And if “compound pressure” simply means that Ethiopia is surrounded by sovereign states whose independent decisions sometimes constrain Ethiopian choices, Eritrea can offer a modest reminder: that is what having neighbors means.
Eritrea does not oppose Ethiopia’s aspirations. It does not oppose peaceful access to international markets or mutually beneficial regional trade. What it rejects is the progression from access to entitlement, entitlement to control, and control to historical or security necessity. That progression is not inevitable. It is a political choice.
Eritrea also understands perfectly well the economic value of Massawa, Assab, the Dahlak Islands and its Red Sea coastline. Thank you for the business advice. Eritrea will decide how to manage its sovereign assets.
There is also a certain irony in Ethiopia’s invocation of “sovereignty of decision.” Ethiopia has sovereignty of decision. So does Eritrea. Ethiopia deserves strategic freedom. So does Eritrea. Ethiopia deserves security. So does Eritrea. Freedom from the agendas of others cannot mean the subordination of neighbors to one’s own agenda. That is not strategic freedom. What the PP is seeking is strategic privilege.
The #Horn of #Africa does not need another war to establish this rather obvious proposition. A stable, prosperous Ethiopia is in Eritrea’s interest. A stable, prosperous Eritrea is in Ethiopia’s interest. The sensible path is reciprocity: equal sovereignty, negotiated access, lawful commerce and respect for established borders. If #Ethiopia wants trade, it should build partnerships. If it wants regional influence, it should exercise diplomacy. If it wants access, it should negotiate access. But if access becomes a demand that Eritrea surrender its sovereign discretion, then the issue is no longer maritime access. It is hierarchy.
And hierarchy is not the same thing as regional cooperation.
The #Horn has suffered enough from attempts to resolve political and strategic problems through force, coercion and unilateral calculations of entitlement. There is another path. It begins with accepting a rather simple proposition: #Ethiopia can pursue its interests without denying the interests of its neighbors. It can seek access without claiming ownership. It can pursue security without making insecurity for others the price of its own. It can exercise influence without demanding hierarchy.
The PP can develop as many strategic doctrines and invent as many acronyms as it wishes. But none of them changes the underlying rules. Acronyms can describe a strategy; they cannot amend international law. And there remains one inconvenient constraint that no PP acronym can overcome: international law applies to #Eritrea too. But it also applies to #Ethiopia.
Have a great weekend, folks. Hopefully, the PP cadres will take a break too, if only to give us all a chance to catch up with the latest acronym on Monday…](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HPtVTxWXoAA3ULg.jpg)
Olivia
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Joined January 2012
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El-Alamein Joint Declaration
The Quadrilateral Consultative Summit between Egypt, Sudan, Eritrea and Somalia
(Unofficial Translation)
https://t.co/owXuxwFHY1
Semantic Shifts and Strategic Deceptions: Prosperity Party’s Rhetorical Pivot on the Red Sea
Research and Documentation Division
Ministry of Foreign Affairs
4 October 2026
The PP’s hostile posture toward Eritrea is part and parcel of a broader expansionist foreign policy that has destabilized the Horn of Africa on multiple fronts including:
1. The PP has pursued a persistent campaign, for three years now, of denigrating Eritrean statehood and advancing expansionist claims over sovereign Eritrean territories.
2. The PP’s hypocrisy is stark; it exploits the fact that AU is headquartered in the Ethiopian capital for purposes of continental diplomacy. At the same time, it bypassed international protocols by signing a unilateral, unlawful Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Somaliland, directly violating the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Federal Republic of Somalia.
3. Furthermore, the PP regime has aggravated the catastrophic civil war in Sudan by hosting a UAE-financed military training facility, which serves as an active staging ground for cross-border drone strikes, weapon trafficking networks, and the recruitment of Mercenaries to reinforce the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), thereby catalyzing widespread regional destabilization.
https://t.co/JiiYrzxbKD
Eritrea: The Sovereign African Nation That No One Talks About
How much do you really know about Eritrea? And is what you think you know the truth, or what Western and Western-aligned media outlets have told you is the truth?
In this report for The Spearhead and the All-African People’s Revolutionary Party (A-APRP), @barrahart sheds light on this sovereign, North-East African nation that no one ever talks about — an African nation whose 30-year struggle for independence began this very month, September 1st, 1961.
The Spearhead is proud to call itself a sister organization of the A-APRP. Follow us to stay posted, and visit https://t.co/mGQZMwWiV6 to join the Revolution.
Forward ever!
The truth comes out from UN. Now all Western media started to talk about Ethiopian civil war, Starvation, Economic Collapse, killing civilians by prime minister Abi Drones.
بلد أفريقي رفض مشاريع الفوضى الاسرائيلية ورفض إغراءات وتخبط ابن زايد ورفض التآمر ضد مصر والسعودية والسودان ، رفض مشاريع الحوثي وحميدتي وتشطير الصومال ، بلد نهجه واضح جدا وحليف قوي للسعودية ومصر ولا توجد على ارضه سفارة اماراتية ويرفض تخبط اثيوبيا تجاه السودان ، انها ارتريا ❤️🇪🇷
After US lifted #Eritrea related sanctions on September 18, 2026. Danakali’s Executive Chairman, Seamus Cornelius commented;
“This is a positive and long overdue development for Eritrea and our many Eritrean friends as
it removes a serious, unjustifiable impediment to their natural rights to social and economic
development on their own terms. We look forward to continuing our long-term involvement
in the mineral exploration and development” エリトリア
Congratulations to Eritrea.
A nation that stood its ground when challenged by major powers, defended its sovereignty, and refused to bow to neo-colonialism and imperialism. Even Hillary Clinton once described Eritrea as a “bad example of good governance in Africa” in other words, the kind of example that could become a problem for major powers if other African nations followed suit.
Now, years later, those same major powers are reconsidering their approach.
As Africans, we should be proud of Eritrea for being an example of a nation that stood firm, defended its sovereignty, and refused to let outside powers dictate its path.
Profile Q & A - “One Hundred Seventy-five Countries Later, Eritrea: Vanquished Hegemonies, Quiet Resilience, and Green Resolve”, Prof. Saleem H. Ali
*"...It was so refreshing to observe peaceful coexistence between Muslims and Christians in public life. Religious identity is visible but not a source of everyday friction; instead, it is woven into a shared civic fabric. That coexistence extends into workplaces and markets, where people of different faiths interact routinely and respectfully".
*"...Eritrea left me with a sense of wonder - at its architecture, its coastal beauty, and its social fabric. While challenges remain, it is a country which has vanquished colonialism and Cold War hegemony with tenacity. That sentence captures what I felt: a nation that has endured, that holds on to its cultural and spiritual landmarks, and that is quietly working toward environmental and social sustainability. My three days were only an introduction, but they were enough to make me want to return.
https://t.co/fSssEkxk9a
“Ambition and Determination that I have”🇪🇷🇮🇪
In eternal memory of one of the great legends of soul music in Africa…To say Tsehaytu Beraki did control the heart beat of our generation in #Eritrea is not an exaggeration at all …and of course not forgetting Asmerom Zagretay エリトリア エチオピア
https://t.co/Xty2fxplF5
A wild and almost unknown land in East Africa: bordered by #Sudan, #Kenya, British #Somaliland, #Eritrea, and what was then Italian Somaliland.
'Free Abyssinia' – thats how the British news agency in a 1941 Reuters report described the land we call Ethiopia today.This rare archival video footage reveals significant historical details that strongly indicate Eritrea was already recognized as a distinct and far advanced country long before being federated with or annexed by Ethiopia (Abyssinia).
Key points from this 1941 British second world war report:
1)Abyssinia is described as “a wild and almost unknown land in East Africa bordered by Eritrea” – explicitly listing Eritrea as a separate neighboring country.
2) Abyssinia (Ethiopia) is called “the first country to be restored to its own people” after being occupied by Fascist Italy and its Axis allies, and other nations under Nazi like Holland, France, .... will also be liberated by the allies.
3) The freedom of Abyssinia was carried out by the British Empire
4) Emperor Haile Selassie was greeted upon his return by the British General Commander in East Africa, General Cunningham (commander of forces in Abyssinia). He was in Addis Ababa months before Haile Selasie.
5) Nigerian troops (serving under the British) formed the guard of honor.
Footage of central Addis Ababa in 1941, around the Menelik Palace, shows a city of mud houses and dirt roads with virtually no modern buildings – in stark contrast to Asmara (Eritrea), which at the time was already a planned, modern city with paved roads, European-style architecture, and advanced infrastructure built during Italian colonial rule."
Deki Eri 🇪🇷 Let’s come together and vote for Eritrea’s Snit Habteab.❤️🇪🇷
🗳️ Visit https://t.co/posGKDJYeZ
🌍 Select “Africa”
👑 Choose Snit Habteab
✅ Follow the instructions to vote
Free voting is available through the 1Zone app, with paid voting available on the website.
#MissWorld2026 #ERITREA 🇪🇷
“Most of all, I ran for you.” 🎀🤍 — says Sinit Habteab in honor of her late mom!
Please vote, follow her on Instagram, and support her cancer-awareness message. 🇪🇷👏🏾
👇🏽👇🏽IG
https://t.co/mlPeoYkXq8
#MissWorld #MissWorldEritrea #SinitHabteab #Eritrea #BreastCancerAwareness
Voting for Miss World has officially begun! 🇪🇷 Let’s come together and vote for Eritrea’s Snit Habteab.
🗳️ Visit https://t.co/UZmzZEzBGx
🌍 Select “Africa”
👑 Choose Snit Habteab
✅ Follow the instructions to vote
Free voting is available through the 1Zone app, with paid voting available on the website.
#MissWorld2026 #ERITREA 🇪🇷
It is Friday, and what a week it has been for the folks at FANA and the PP cadres. I am accustomed to receiving from Member States their priorities for UNGA 81, but this week’s output from the PP has been something of an overload.
Eight years after Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed came to power, 2026 may well be the year in which the rhetoric, acronyms and strategic formulations finally lay bare what has long been hiding in plain sight: the ambitions of his government for #Ethiopia, the implications for its neighbors, and the formidable challenge this presents to an international community seeking to build lasting peace and stability in the #Horn of #Africa.
In a region where strategic doctrines come and go with remarkable speed, one might reasonably hope that Ethiopia’s foreign policy could survive a Thursday without acquiring another acronym. Perhaps the PP might give its audience a little time to digest its growing collection of increasingly elaborate formulations before unveiling the next one.
Otherwise, in the rush to introduce yet another strategic concept, it may risk another strategic miscalculation, and deepen the very self-created quagmire it is now working so hard to explain. But before we get to this week’s latest formulations, let us go back a little bit.
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed introduced Ethiopia, and at times the region, to መደመር, Medemer, in its first and second iterations, presenting it as a new political philosophy and, ultimately, as the only viable path for Ethiopia and the region: addition, convergence, cooperation and the pooling of strengths. But the Ethiopian experience has increasingly produced a rather different vocabulary.
Instead of መደመር (Medemer), there has been far too much መደናገር (Medenager): confusion, disorientation and a country struggling to find its way through one crisis after another. And instead of adding to the lives and security of its citizens, there has been መቀነስ (Mequenes): a grim process of subtraction, as Ethiopian lives have been lost in violence across different parts of the country.
People have been killed in cold blood. Communities have been devastated. Families have disappeared into grief. And much of the international community has watched with a silence that has sometimes been difficult to distinguish from indifference. One is left wondering whether Ethiopian lives have been valued differently depending on where those lives were lost.
The irony is difficult to miss. A philosophy premised on adding together was supposed to strengthen the Ethiopian state and bring its peoples closer together. Yet the country has repeatedly experienced fragmentation, violence, displacement and deepening mistrust.
Perhaps the real test of any political philosophy is not how elegantly it is written in books, nor how compellingly it is presented from podiums. It is whether ordinary people are safer, whether their children are alive, whether communities can live without fear, and whether a citizen’s life is treated as having equal value regardless of ethnicity, region or political affiliation.
Last month, we were introduced to the 3Ms: Mequaquam, Metekem and Megrat. This week, the PP brought us the 4As of Ethiopia’s diplomatic doctrine: Active, Alternative, Adaptive and Agenda-Setting. And now we have the latest PP-created concept: “compound pressure.” One almost wonders when the PowerPoint will run out of letters, or whether every familiar principle of statecraft will eventually acquire its own acronym.
As Prime Minister Abiy put it:
“...ለዚህ ምንከተለው መንገድ፣ በኛ ሳይድ ሶስት መ ብለን አስቀምጠናቸዋል። አንደኛው መቋቋም ነው... ሁለተኛ መጠቀም ነው። ፈተናን ወደ እድል መቀየር። ሶስተኛው መግራት ነው። በሰው አጀንዳ መገራት ሳይሆን አሁን የራስ አጀንዳ ፈጥሮ መግራት ነው...”
Translated by @HOAAffairs as:
“…The path we follow on our side we have set as the ‘Three Ms’. The first is Mequaquam (to withstand): building resilient institutions and a nation. The second is Metekem (to exploit): turning challenges into opportunities. The third is Megrat (to tame): rather than being tamed by others’ agendas, creating our own agenda and taming [the region] …”
There is, of course, nothing inherently objectionable about a state developing strategic doctrines or giving familiar ideas new terminology. States are entitled to think strategically. They are entitled to develop doctrines. They are even entitled to create acronyms. But beneath the acronyms remain a few rather unfashionable concepts that PP cadres continue to ignore: sovereignty, territorial integrity, sovereign equality and international law. Strategies evolve. Acronyms come and go. Sovereignty is not a passing trend.
And this is where the latest formulation, “compound pressure”, deserves closer attention. The PP presents Ethiopia’s security environment in terms of multiple pressures: the unresolved political and security challenges surrounding the Tigray transition, the Nile Basin and GERD dispute, and wider questions concerning Red Sea access and frontier security. These developments may indeed impose a cumulative strategic burden on Ethiopia.
There is also nothing inherently wrong with analyzing a country’s security environment in terms of cumulative pressure. Strategic planners do this all the time. But such an analysis must be accompanied by accountability, honesty and a clear distinction between perception and fact.
The problem begins when strategic analysis is transformed into a legal argument. Several developments may have a cumulative effect on #Ethiopia. That does not establish that they are coordinated. It does not establish that they have a single author. It does not establish that they constitute one dispute. And, most importantly, it does not give Ethiopia additional legal rights.
Each issue has its own history, its own actors, its own facts and its own applicable law. Strategic accumulation is not legal aggregation. Or, as I would describe it, a self-created quagmire compounded by arrogance and hubris is still a quagmire. It is reassuring, at least, to know that the PP understands the predicament it has created for itself.
But a quagmire is a predicament, not a title deed. A difficult strategic environment does not give Ethiopia a legal right to resolve it by imposing costs on its neighbors. Feeling being constrained does not confer the right to constrain others. The PP may feel strategically constrained by several separate developments. It cannot convert that cumulative constraint into a legal basis for overriding the sovereign rights of its neighbors.
PM Abiy cannot convert cumulative strategic pressure into cumulative sovereign rights. Strategic pressure may explain behavior; it does not legalize it. #Eritrea|s decisions regarding foreign military bases, maritime policy, relations with other states and territorial integrity may be inconvenient to Ethiopian strategy. But, inconvenience is not illegality.
On the issue of establishing a naval base on the Red Sea, the presence of foreign military facilities in the region does not change the equation. They exist because a sovereign state, permits them. #Eritrea has chosen otherwise. Presence by consent is not entitlement by proximity. International law does not operate on a “me too” principle.
The same applies to claims involving proxies, conspiracies and regional alignments. Tigrayan politics have their own history and agency. Egypt, Sudan and the Gulf states have their own interests and calculations. #Eritrea has its sovereign interests. #Ethiopia has its own. There is a word for states pursuing overlapping interests: international relations.
And if “compound pressure” simply means that Ethiopia is surrounded by sovereign states whose independent decisions sometimes constrain Ethiopian choices, Eritrea can offer a modest reminder: that is what having neighbors means.
Eritrea does not oppose Ethiopia’s aspirations. It does not oppose peaceful access to international markets or mutually beneficial regional trade. What it rejects is the progression from access to entitlement, entitlement to control, and control to historical or security necessity. That progression is not inevitable. It is a political choice.
Eritrea also understands perfectly well the economic value of Massawa, Assab, the Dahlak Islands and its Red Sea coastline. Thank you for the business advice. Eritrea will decide how to manage its sovereign assets.
There is also a certain irony in Ethiopia’s invocation of “sovereignty of decision.” Ethiopia has sovereignty of decision. So does Eritrea. Ethiopia deserves strategic freedom. So does Eritrea. Ethiopia deserves security. So does Eritrea. Freedom from the agendas of others cannot mean the subordination of neighbors to one’s own agenda. That is not strategic freedom. What the PP is seeking is strategic privilege.
The #Horn of #Africa does not need another war to establish this rather obvious proposition. A stable, prosperous Ethiopia is in Eritrea’s interest. A stable, prosperous Eritrea is in Ethiopia’s interest. The sensible path is reciprocity: equal sovereignty, negotiated access, lawful commerce and respect for established borders. If #Ethiopia wants trade, it should build partnerships. If it wants regional influence, it should exercise diplomacy. If it wants access, it should negotiate access. But if access becomes a demand that Eritrea surrender its sovereign discretion, then the issue is no longer maritime access. It is hierarchy.
And hierarchy is not the same thing as regional cooperation.
The #Horn has suffered enough from attempts to resolve political and strategic problems through force, coercion and unilateral calculations of entitlement. There is another path. It begins with accepting a rather simple proposition: #Ethiopia can pursue its interests without denying the interests of its neighbors. It can seek access without claiming ownership. It can pursue security without making insecurity for others the price of its own. It can exercise influence without demanding hierarchy.
The PP can develop as many strategic doctrines and invent as many acronyms as it wishes. But none of them changes the underlying rules. Acronyms can describe a strategy; they cannot amend international law. And there remains one inconvenient constraint that no PP acronym can overcome: international law applies to #Eritrea too. But it also applies to #Ethiopia.
Have a great weekend, folks. Hopefully, the PP cadres will take a break too, if only to give us all a chance to catch up with the latest acronym on Monday…
![AmbStesfamariam's tweet photo. It is Friday, and what a week it has been for the folks at FANA and the PP cadres. I am accustomed to receiving from Member States their priorities for UNGA 81, but this week’s output from the PP has been something of an overload.
Eight years after Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed came to power, 2026 may well be the year in which the rhetoric, acronyms and strategic formulations finally lay bare what has long been hiding in plain sight: the ambitions of his government for #Ethiopia, the implications for its neighbors, and the formidable challenge this presents to an international community seeking to build lasting peace and stability in the #Horn of #Africa.
In a region where strategic doctrines come and go with remarkable speed, one might reasonably hope that Ethiopia’s foreign policy could survive a Thursday without acquiring another acronym. Perhaps the PP might give its audience a little time to digest its growing collection of increasingly elaborate formulations before unveiling the next one.
Otherwise, in the rush to introduce yet another strategic concept, it may risk another strategic miscalculation, and deepen the very self-created quagmire it is now working so hard to explain. But before we get to this week’s latest formulations, let us go back a little bit.
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed introduced Ethiopia, and at times the region, to መደመር, Medemer, in its first and second iterations, presenting it as a new political philosophy and, ultimately, as the only viable path for Ethiopia and the region: addition, convergence, cooperation and the pooling of strengths. But the Ethiopian experience has increasingly produced a rather different vocabulary.
Instead of መደመር (Medemer), there has been far too much መደናገር (Medenager): confusion, disorientation and a country struggling to find its way through one crisis after another. And instead of adding to the lives and security of its citizens, there has been መቀነስ (Mequenes): a grim process of subtraction, as Ethiopian lives have been lost in violence across different parts of the country.
People have been killed in cold blood. Communities have been devastated. Families have disappeared into grief. And much of the international community has watched with a silence that has sometimes been difficult to distinguish from indifference. One is left wondering whether Ethiopian lives have been valued differently depending on where those lives were lost.
The irony is difficult to miss. A philosophy premised on adding together was supposed to strengthen the Ethiopian state and bring its peoples closer together. Yet the country has repeatedly experienced fragmentation, violence, displacement and deepening mistrust.
Perhaps the real test of any political philosophy is not how elegantly it is written in books, nor how compellingly it is presented from podiums. It is whether ordinary people are safer, whether their children are alive, whether communities can live without fear, and whether a citizen’s life is treated as having equal value regardless of ethnicity, region or political affiliation.
Last month, we were introduced to the 3Ms: Mequaquam, Metekem and Megrat. This week, the PP brought us the 4As of Ethiopia’s diplomatic doctrine: Active, Alternative, Adaptive and Agenda-Setting. And now we have the latest PP-created concept: “compound pressure.” One almost wonders when the PowerPoint will run out of letters, or whether every familiar principle of statecraft will eventually acquire its own acronym.
As Prime Minister Abiy put it:
“...ለዚህ ምንከተለው መንገድ፣ በኛ ሳይድ ሶስት መ ብለን አስቀምጠናቸዋል። አንደኛው መቋቋም ነው... ሁለተኛ መጠቀም ነው። ፈተናን ወደ እድል መቀየር። ሶስተኛው መግራት ነው። በሰው አጀንዳ መገራት ሳይሆን አሁን የራስ አጀንዳ ፈጥሮ መግራት ነው...”
Translated by @HOAAffairs as:
“…The path we follow on our side we have set as the ‘Three Ms’. The first is Mequaquam (to withstand): building resilient institutions and a nation. The second is Metekem (to exploit): turning challenges into opportunities. The third is Megrat (to tame): rather than being tamed by others’ agendas, creating our own agenda and taming [the region] …”
There is, of course, nothing inherently objectionable about a state developing strategic doctrines or giving familiar ideas new terminology. States are entitled to think strategically. They are entitled to develop doctrines. They are even entitled to create acronyms. But beneath the acronyms remain a few rather unfashionable concepts that PP cadres continue to ignore: sovereignty, territorial integrity, sovereign equality and international law. Strategies evolve. Acronyms come and go. Sovereignty is not a passing trend.
And this is where the latest formulation, “compound pressure”, deserves closer attention. The PP presents Ethiopia’s security environment in terms of multiple pressures: the unresolved political and security challenges surrounding the Tigray transition, the Nile Basin and GERD dispute, and wider questions concerning Red Sea access and frontier security. These developments may indeed impose a cumulative strategic burden on Ethiopia.
There is also nothing inherently wrong with analyzing a country’s security environment in terms of cumulative pressure. Strategic planners do this all the time. But such an analysis must be accompanied by accountability, honesty and a clear distinction between perception and fact.
The problem begins when strategic analysis is transformed into a legal argument. Several developments may have a cumulative effect on #Ethiopia. That does not establish that they are coordinated. It does not establish that they have a single author. It does not establish that they constitute one dispute. And, most importantly, it does not give Ethiopia additional legal rights.
Each issue has its own history, its own actors, its own facts and its own applicable law. Strategic accumulation is not legal aggregation. Or, as I would describe it, a self-created quagmire compounded by arrogance and hubris is still a quagmire. It is reassuring, at least, to know that the PP understands the predicament it has created for itself.
But a quagmire is a predicament, not a title deed. A difficult strategic environment does not give Ethiopia a legal right to resolve it by imposing costs on its neighbors. Feeling being constrained does not confer the right to constrain others. The PP may feel strategically constrained by several separate developments. It cannot convert that cumulative constraint into a legal basis for overriding the sovereign rights of its neighbors.
PM Abiy cannot convert cumulative strategic pressure into cumulative sovereign rights. Strategic pressure may explain behavior; it does not legalize it. #Eritrea|s decisions regarding foreign military bases, maritime policy, relations with other states and territorial integrity may be inconvenient to Ethiopian strategy. But, inconvenience is not illegality.
On the issue of establishing a naval base on the Red Sea, the presence of foreign military facilities in the region does not change the equation. They exist because a sovereign state, permits them. #Eritrea has chosen otherwise. Presence by consent is not entitlement by proximity. International law does not operate on a “me too” principle.
The same applies to claims involving proxies, conspiracies and regional alignments. Tigrayan politics have their own history and agency. Egypt, Sudan and the Gulf states have their own interests and calculations. #Eritrea has its sovereign interests. #Ethiopia has its own. There is a word for states pursuing overlapping interests: international relations.
And if “compound pressure” simply means that Ethiopia is surrounded by sovereign states whose independent decisions sometimes constrain Ethiopian choices, Eritrea can offer a modest reminder: that is what having neighbors means.
Eritrea does not oppose Ethiopia’s aspirations. It does not oppose peaceful access to international markets or mutually beneficial regional trade. What it rejects is the progression from access to entitlement, entitlement to control, and control to historical or security necessity. That progression is not inevitable. It is a political choice.
Eritrea also understands perfectly well the economic value of Massawa, Assab, the Dahlak Islands and its Red Sea coastline. Thank you for the business advice. Eritrea will decide how to manage its sovereign assets.
There is also a certain irony in Ethiopia’s invocation of “sovereignty of decision.” Ethiopia has sovereignty of decision. So does Eritrea. Ethiopia deserves strategic freedom. So does Eritrea. Ethiopia deserves security. So does Eritrea. Freedom from the agendas of others cannot mean the subordination of neighbors to one’s own agenda. That is not strategic freedom. What the PP is seeking is strategic privilege.
The #Horn of #Africa does not need another war to establish this rather obvious proposition. A stable, prosperous Ethiopia is in Eritrea’s interest. A stable, prosperous Eritrea is in Ethiopia’s interest. The sensible path is reciprocity: equal sovereignty, negotiated access, lawful commerce and respect for established borders. If #Ethiopia wants trade, it should build partnerships. If it wants regional influence, it should exercise diplomacy. If it wants access, it should negotiate access. But if access becomes a demand that Eritrea surrender its sovereign discretion, then the issue is no longer maritime access. It is hierarchy.
And hierarchy is not the same thing as regional cooperation.
The #Horn has suffered enough from attempts to resolve political and strategic problems through force, coercion and unilateral calculations of entitlement. There is another path. It begins with accepting a rather simple proposition: #Ethiopia can pursue its interests without denying the interests of its neighbors. It can seek access without claiming ownership. It can pursue security without making insecurity for others the price of its own. It can exercise influence without demanding hierarchy.
The PP can develop as many strategic doctrines and invent as many acronyms as it wishes. But none of them changes the underlying rules. Acronyms can describe a strategy; they cannot amend international law. And there remains one inconvenient constraint that no PP acronym can overcome: international law applies to #Eritrea too. But it also applies to #Ethiopia.
Have a great weekend, folks. Hopefully, the PP cadres will take a break too, if only to give us all a chance to catch up with the latest acronym on Monday…](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HPtVWMDXoAAvh5p.jpg)
Osman Saleh Eritrean foreign minister is undisputed heavyweight of Horn of Africa diplomacy and one of the finest foreign minister in the region in the recent years.
Unapologetically patriotic, calm, calculative and unwavering.
He didn't just survive international isolation, he weaponised it into masterclass in sovereignty. He outmaneuvered the western establishment at every turn. A titan of statecraft.
Excellent Read - #Eritrea@35: “…Greater Than I Was”; by Kesete Ghebrehiwet
*"...On Saturday, 23 May 2026, the eve of Eritrea’s 35th Independence Day, I walked with my family toward the center of the festivities as the nation celebrated. The streets pulsed with movement, color, music, and emotion. People from all walks of life – children, youth, parents, elders, and nationals from abroad – had gathered to share in a historic occasion. It was not merely a celebration; it was a day of memory, pride, renewal, and reflection".
*"...The Eritrean flag waved everywhere – on banners, decorations, clothing, and painted faces. Mothers and young girls wore colorful outfits decorated with the national colors. Young boys and girls walked confidently in T-shirts bearing images of lions, freedom fighters, and maps of Eritrea, as well as slogans of dignity, resilience, and pride. Every color, design, and smile seemed to carry a message".
*"...Among these sights, one phrase on the backs of teenage boys’ and girls’ T-shirts caught my attention: 'I am Greater than I Was". At first glance, it seemed simple, but the more I looked, the more powerful it became. It was not an ordinary slogan. It was a statement of growth, confidence, and hope – speaking not only for the students but for Eritrea itself".
*"...As I continued walking with my family among the crowds, the phrase stayed with me. 'I am Greater than I Was'. It spoke of youth growing into responsibility, a nation advancing through resilience, yesterday’s sacrifices, today’s joy, and tomorrow’s promise. On that festive day, amid flags, lights, smiles, and songs, one truth became clear: Eritrea’s greatness lives in the hearts of its people – especially the young generation preparing to inherit and build the future. They are greater than they were, and through them, Eritrea will continue to grow even greater".
https://t.co/TcOw7ap90F
Marvelous beauty.
Mesmerizing scenery.
Fountain of resilience.
Eritrea has been making major moves in the last few years.
🇸🇦 & 🇪🇷 - Assab Port investment (2025)
🇺🇸 & 🇪🇷 - Sanctions lift for Massawa access (2026)
🇪🇬 & 🇪🇷 - Maritime cooperation & port development (May 2026)
We wish you 1000 more years of success
There has been a lot written about Eritrea in the last few weeks, and I have decided to respond to one of the many pieces coming out of Ethiopia...The IFA article titled “Eritrea’s Sovereignty Claim and the Insecurity It Conceals”.
This article rests on a selective interpretation of international law, an incomplete account of the history of the #Horn of #Africa, and a troubling attempt to recast legitimate concerns regarding #sovereignty and territorial integrity as evidence of political insecurity rather than lawful state responsibility. It is therefore necessary to address several of the issues raised in this selectively framed piece.
The title itself is particularly revealing. It reflects an increasingly common tendency in certain Prosperity Party (PP) political and intellectual circles to delegitimize Eritrea’s invocation of sovereignty by portraying it not as a foundational principle of international law, but as a form of concealment, obstruction, or paranoia. That framing is deeply problematic.
Sovereignty is not something #Eritrea must “hide behind.” Sovereignty is the cornerstone of the modern international legal order, enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations and the Constitutive Act of the African Union. For African states in particular, many of which emerged from colonial partition, territorial disputes, occupation, and prolonged external interference, the defense of sovereignty and territorial integrity cannot be dismissed as rhetorical posturing; these are existential legal principles rooted in painful historical experience.
For #Eritrea, these concerns are not theoretical. Eritrea emerged from a long anti-colonial and anti-annexation struggle following federation, annexation, and decades of war. #Ethiopia was not merely a neighboring state in #Eritrean historical memory; it was Eritrea’s former colonizer. That historical experience inevitably shapes Eritrea’s understanding of sovereignty, borders, and national survival.
As the Amharic proverb aptly states: “የወጋ ቢረሳ የተወጋ አይረሳም” — “The one who inflicted the wound may forget, but the one who was wounded never does.” The proverb captures an essential reality often ignored in external analyses of #Eritrea: historical memory shapes national security consciousness. States and peoples that endured annexation, war, occupation, territorial disputes, sanctions, and prolonged external pressure do not, and cannot, approach questions of sovereignty lightly or abstractly.
From an #Eritrean perspective, sovereignty is therefore not an abstract diplomatic slogan or tactical political shield. It is inseparable from the sacrifices made during one of Africa’s longest liberation struggles and from the determination to prevent any return, direct or indirect, to arrangements perceived as compromising Eritrea’s hard-won independence and territorial integrity.
To suggest that Eritrea’s insistence on sovereignty somehow masks illegitimate motives effectively reverses the legal burden. It implies that smaller states defending internationally recognized borders must justify their concerns, while larger regional powers, advancing inflammatory hegemonistic ambitions and openly invoking “historical rights,” “natural entitlement,” or “strategic necessity” regarding maritime access, are treated as merely pursuing economic pragmatism.
From Eritrea’s perspective, the issue has never been whether Ethiopia, as a landlocked state, possesses legitimate developmental interests in commercial maritime access. Eritrea has never disputed that principle. International law already recognizes the rights of landlocked states to negotiated access and freedom of transit. The issue is whether such ambitions are being articulated and pursued in a manner consistent with the UN Charter, sovereign equality, and the prohibition against the threat or use of force.
Article 2(4) of the @UN Charter prohibits not only the use of force, but also the threat of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of states. International law does not require states to wait for military invasion before taking seriously rhetoric, strategic signaling, or political discourse carrying coercive implications. Preventive vigilance regarding credible coercive signaling is fully consistent with the sovereign right of states to safeguard their territorial integrity and political independence.
Against this backdrop, Eritrea’s concerns regarding Ethiopia’s increasingly assertive discourse on Red Sea access are neither irrational nor propagandistic. Senior Prosperity Party (PP) officials, including Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, have repeatedly framed maritime access in existential and revisionist terms, invoking notions of “historical rights,” “natural entitlement,” and strategic inevitability. #Ethiopia|n political discourse surrounding Red Sea access has at times gone even further, with prominent figures openly declaring that Ethiopia would obtain maritime access “peacefully if possible and militarily if necessary.”
This rhetoric has not emerged in isolation. It has been accompanied by a broader climate of increasingly normalized irredentist discourse on Ethiopian social and political media platforms, including circulation of altered maps depicting Assab and portions of sovereign Eritrean territory as part of Ethiopia. Independent fact-checking organizations documented multiple instances in which maps were digitally manipulated to incorporate Assab into Ethiopian territory amid heightened public debate surrounding #RedSea access.
Equally troubling were images and videos circulated from military-linked events and social media accounts showing #Ethiopia|n military figures displaying maps incorporating portions of southern #Eritrea into #Ethiopia during public ceremonies associated with special forces mobilization and nationalist messaging. Whether officially sanctioned or not, the widespread dissemination of such imagery contributed to a political environment in which revisionist territorial narratives increasingly entered mainstream discourse.
Taken together, these developments cannot reasonably be dismissed as harmless nationalist symbolism. In a region with a long history of interstate war, contested borders, and unresolved territorial grievances, such rhetoric and imagery carry legal and security implications that responsible states are entitled to take seriously under the precautionary logic embedded within Article 2(4) of the @UN Charter.
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed himself publicly characterized Red Sea access as an existential issue for Ethiopia and suggested that the matter could not remain unresolved indefinitely. International media and regional analysts increasingly warned that such rhetoric, combined with military mobilization and nationalist agitation surrounding Assab, risked contributing to renewed regional instability and fears of interstate confrontation.
The 2024 Memorandum of Understanding between Ethiopia and #Somaliland further heightened tensions, particularly as Somalia formally rejected the arrangement as an infringement upon its sovereignty and territorial integrity. These developments underscore precisely why questions of maritime access in the Horn cannot be divorced from wider legal and security considerations.
Equally problematic is the article’s selective treatment of the 1998–2000 Eritrea–Ethiopia border conflict.
Eritrea’s borders were not undefined or ambiguous constructs. They were established through the 1900, 1902, and 1908 treaties concluded between imperial Italy and imperial Ethiopia. These treaties formed the legal basis upon which the Eritrea–Ethiopia Boundary Commission (EEBC), established under the Algiers Agreement, based its delimitation ruling.
Critically, the EEBC’s final and binding decision awarded Badme, the principal flashpoint and casus belli of the 1998–2000 conflict, unequivocally to #Eritrea. That fact is legally fundamental. It demonstrates that the territorial dispute centered on areas ultimately determined by the competent international arbitral body to fall within Eritrean sovereignty.
The article also misrepresents the role of the Eritrea–Ethiopia Claims Commission by implying that it definitively adjudicated the broader origins of the war. As legal scholars, including analyses published in the European Journal of International Law, have noted, the Claims Commission was not specifically mandated to comprehensively determine the origins of the conflict. The independent investigative mechanism envisaged under Article 3 of the Algiers Agreement for that purpose was never constituted.
Thus, no authoritative international process ever fully examined the broader antecedents of the conflict, including tensions arising from contested administration, local clashes, militia activity, mapping disputes, and allegations of encroachments into sovereign Eritrean territory during the 1990s, as well as the unprovoked assault by Ethiopian troops against an #Eritrean army unit in the Badme area on 5 May 1998. What was conclusively determined, however, was the territorial issue itself. And on that question, the #EEBC ruled in #Eritrea’s favor.
The defining legal and political crisis of the post-war period therefore was not Eritrea’s rejection of international law, but Ethiopia’s refusal, for nearly two decades, to implement a binding arbitral ruling it had expressly agreed would be “final and binding.” This remains one of the most consequential contradictions in discussions surrounding the rule of law in the Horn of Africa.
At stake was not merely a bilateral border dispute, but the integrity of international arbitration itself. If states may disregard binding arbitral rulings when politically inconvenient, the credibility of peaceful dispute resolution mechanisms under international law is fundamentally undermined.
The article’s treatment of the 2009 sanctions regime is similarly incomplete. From #Eritrea’s perspective, the sanctions imposed under United Nations Security Council Resolution 1907 emerged from a highly politicized process shaped by Ethiopia’s manipulation of #IGAD and the @AfricanUnion. The allegations underpinning the sanctions were strongly contested and were never established through an independent judicial process meeting accepted evidentiary standards.
For many Eritreans, the sanctions episode remains a troubling example of the instrumentalization of multilateral institutions for geopolitical purposes. Indeed, many #Africa|n observers viewed the process with deep discomfort, recognizing the damaging precedent of one #Africa|n state mobilizing punitive international measures against another amid contested allegations. The eventual lifting of sanctions in 2018 further underscored the fundamentally political nature of the process.
The article also presents Eritrea’s National Service Program in a highly reductionist manner. While external narratives often portray the program solely through a militarized lens, Eritrea’s national service system has long included substantial civic and developmental components. National Service graduates contribute across ministries, schools, colleges, hospitals, infrastructure projects, local administrations, and diplomatic missions abroad.
More importantly, the statutory 18-month duration of National Service was prolonged largely as a consequence of the prolonged no-war-no-peace environment and continued security threats emanating from unresolved tensions with successive Ethiopian governments.
At the same time, Ethiopia itself has, in recent years, undergone extensive military mobilization, major arms acquisitions, and repeated internal armed conflicts across multiple regions. Numerous international organizations, media investigations, and even #Ethiopian institutions have documented serious abuses in regions such as Amhara and Oromia, including extrajudicial killings, drone strikes affecting civilians, arbitrary detentions, mass displacement, and attacks on civilian infrastructure.
A balanced and credible analysis cannot selectively invoke human rights concerns only where they reinforce preferred geopolitical narratives while minimizing or contextualizing large-scale violence elsewhere.
More broadly, #Eritrea’s foreign policy has consistently emphasized sovereign equality, non-interference, regional ownership, and resistance to hegemonic arrangements in the Horn of Africa. #Eritrea’s invocation of sovereignty is not “camouflage”; it reflects the historical experience of a state that emerged from one of Africa’s longest liberation struggles and subsequently endured war, sanctions, prolonged territorial occupation, and sustained external pressure.
Regional integration and economic cooperation in the Horn are both necessary and achievable. Eritrea has never opposed negotiated frameworks for trade, connectivity, or maritime access grounded in mutual consent and international law. What Eritrea rejects, correctly, is the normalization of rhetoric implying that the strategic ambitions or demographic weight of larger states entitle them to exceptional arrangements at the expense of the sovereignty and security concerns of smaller neighbors.
Ultimately, the issue is not opposition to Ethiopia’s development. It is the insistence that all regional ambitions remain firmly anchored within the principles of international law: sovereign equality, territorial integrity, non-interference, pacta sunt servanda, and the prohibition against coercion enshrined in the Charter of the @UN.
As for future Eritrea–Ethiopia relations, or “settlement,” as the author characterizes it, prudence, realism, and historical experience counsel patience rather than premature and unrealistic optimism.
Genuine peace and stable relations between neighboring states cannot be manufactured through diplomatic slogans, external pressure, or intellectual wishful thinking. They must emerge organically, gradually, and on the basis of mutual respect, consistency, reciprocity, and trust built over time.
Lasting peace cannot be rushed, especially after the considerable goodwill and historic opportunity extended in 2018 were ultimately undermined by a leadership in Ethiopia that failed to consolidate reconciliation internally, regionally, and institutionally. Sustainable peace in the Horn of Africa will require seriousness, strategic patience, and above all, an #Ethiopia that is first at peace with itself.
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