The Horn of Africa is once again moving through a dangerous period. Fighting has returned to northern Ethiopia, relations between Eritrea and Ethiopia have broken down, Somalia is still battling al-Shabaab, Sudan remains consumed by war, and the Red Sea has become an increasingly contested strategic space. None of these crises began for the same reason, and it would be misleading to force them into a single explanation. But over the past three years, the Ethiopian government’s decision to elevate access to the sea from an economic concern into a question of national destiny has added another source of instability to an already tense region. For Eritrea, this is not a theoretical debate over trade routes or port access. It goes directly to sovereignty, territorial integrity and the hard-won independence of the Eritrean state.
Ethiopia is a large landlocked country, and it has every legitimate reason to seek reliable ports, lower transport costs and diversified access to international markets. There is nothing unreasonable about that. Eritrea itself could one day benefit from a healthy commercial relationship in which Ethiopian goods move through Eritrean ports under agreements that serve both countries. The difficulty begins when ordinary maritime access is blurred with the language of sovereign access. The two are not the same. A landlocked country can lease port facilities, negotiate transit corridors, build rail links, enter customs agreements and secure long-term access without changing borders or raising questions over who owns the coastline. When the discussion shifts toward sovereignty, however, the issue stops being purely economic and becomes political and territorial.
That is why the language coming from Addis Ababa has been taken so seriously in Eritrea. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has spoken of access to the Red Sea as a strategic and even existential matter for Ethiopia, while at the same time insisting that his government seeks a peaceful solution. Those assurances should not be ignored, but neither should they be treated as sufficient on their own. Governments do not assess national security only by listening to reassuring statements. They look at policy choices, military capability, regional behavior, political rhetoric and the precedent established by previous actions.
Somalia offered the clearest example of how quickly the sea-access question could become a sovereignty dispute. In January 2024, Ethiopia signed a memorandum with Somaliland that involved access to coastline for maritime purposes, while Somaliland expected possible Ethiopian recognition of its independence. Mogadishu saw the arrangement as a direct challenge to Somalia’s territorial integrity, and relations deteriorated sharply. What might have been handled through normal commercial negotiation instead became a regional political crisis. Turkish mediation later produced the Ankara Declaration, which provided a far more workable formula: Ethiopia could pursue maritime access while Somalia retained sovereign authority over its territory. In other words, Ethiopia could obtain what it economically needed without acquiring what did not belong to it.
The Eritrean case is far more sensitive because of history. Assab is not simply a port on the Red Sea and Eritrea’s coastline is not abandoned Ethiopian infrastructure waiting to be reclaimed. It is part of a sovereign country whose independence came after decades of armed struggle, enormous sacrifice, an internationally observed referendum and international recognition. Eritreans do not view that coastline through the lens of Ethiopian nostalgia. They view it as part of their country. When political voices inside Ethiopia speak about Assab or the loss of access to the sea as though an unfinished historical injustice must somehow be corrected, Eritreans naturally hear something very different: a challenge to a question they consider settled.
This does not mean Ethiopia has decided to invade Eritrea, nor should such a claim be made without evidence. But it would be equally unrealistic to pretend that years of increasingly assertive maritime rhetoric have no effect on Eritrean security calculations. They do. They create suspicion where there might otherwise have been room for confidence. They make military movements more alarming, political statements more consequential and diplomatic disputes harder to contain. At a time when relations between the two governments have already deteriorated and serious fighting has returned to northern Ethiopia, even ambiguity becomes dangerous.
The contradiction in Addis Ababa’s regional posture is therefore difficult to miss. Ethiopia faces serious problems inside its own borders: armed conflict, political fragmentation, economic pressure and deep mistrust among competing political actors. Under such conditions, one would expect the federal government to reduce external tension and seek the most stable possible relationship with its neighbors. Instead, the sea-access campaign has contributed to new suspicions. Somalia became more wary of Ethiopian intentions, Eritrea began to view Ethiopia’s Red Sea rhetoric as a national-security concern, and Egypt deepened its relationships in the region while its own dispute with Ethiopia over the Nile remained unresolved. A policy presented as necessary for Ethiopia’s long-term security has, in practice, made its regional environment more complicated.
Whether one chooses to call this expansionism is less important than examining the consequences. Motive is difficult to prove, and political labels often obscure more than they clarify. What can be seen is that Ethiopia’s maritime campaign has not brought it sovereign access to the sea. What it has done is deepen mistrust with Somalia, increase anxiety in Eritrea and pull the Red Sea question into a wider network of regional rivalries. That alone should be enough to force a serious reconsideration in Addis Ababa.
For Eritrea, the correct approach is not to become entangled in Ethiopia’s internal struggle over who should govern the country. That question belongs to Ethiopians. Eritrea’s interests are more straightforward: protect its borders, preserve its sovereignty, avoid being pulled into another country’s internal conflicts and make clear that Eritrean territory cannot become part of anyone else’s solution to domestic political failure. This is not hostility toward Ethiopia. A peaceful and stable Ethiopia would be good for Eritrea, and there is no contradiction between defending Eritrean sovereignty and supporting a normal economic relationship with the Ethiopian people.
In fact, the two countries could gain far more from cooperation than confrontation. Eritrean ports could serve Ethiopian commerce. Transport links could reopen. Trade could grow. Energy, logistics and investment could create shared economic interests that reduce the incentive for conflict. But such cooperation can only work if it begins with mutual respect. A regional order in which the larger state treats the smaller state’s sovereignty as flexible whenever strategic needs change is not cooperation; it is pressure.
That principle matters beyond Eritrea. If Ethiopia’s population, size or economic needs were accepted as grounds for special territorial entitlement, every smaller country in the region would have reason to worry. The Horn of Africa has already paid too high a price for borders, identity and state power to be handled carelessly. Reopening settled territorial questions would not solve Ethiopia’s problems. It would simply create new ones.
The most serious danger now is the convergence of several crises that once remained partly separate. Ethiopia’s internal conflicts, the deterioration of relations with Eritrea, the unresolved maritime debate, Somalia’s security challenges, Sudan’s war, the Ethiopia-Egypt dispute and growing competition around the Red Sea are increasingly occupying the same strategic space. When that happens, the margin for error becomes very small. A local clash can quickly acquire regional meaning. An accusation can lead to mobilization. A domestic war can attract outside actors. A government can misread another government’s intentions and discover too late that escalation has taken on a life of its own.
The answer does not require hostility toward Ethiopia, and Eritrea has nothing to gain from permanent confrontation with its neighbor. What is required is clarity. Ethiopia has legitimate economic needs, and those needs can be addressed through trade, port agreements, transit corridors and investment. Eritrea can engage where cooperation serves its own national interest, but that engagement must take place between sovereign equals. The Red Sea can be shared as an economic space without Eritrean sovereignty being treated as negotiable. Eritrea is not Ethiopia’s missing coastline. It is a sovereign country, and any serious effort to build peace in the Horn has to begin from that reality.
