A coalition of self-proclaimed experts on the Horn of Africa is currently lobbying the new Trump administration to formally recognize Somaliland and support regime change in Eritrea. These initiatives are championed and propagated by individuals whose primary objective seems to be fostering instability under the pretext of promoting freedom and self-determination for local populations. However, their deeper motivations are evident: they aim to establish dominance over strategically significant regions and exploit the natural resources within these nations.
Somaliland
The region serves as a crucial corridor for international trade and maritime navigation. Amid ongoing geopolitical tensions between Somalia and Ethiopia, there has been significant discourse surrounding the implications of U.S. recognition of Somaliland, particularly in light of strategic military interests in the area. This includes Israel’s establishment of a military base to monitor Iranian activities and its proxies in Yemen.
Proponents argue that U.S. acknowledgment of Somaliland’s independence could be pivotal in curbing Iranian influence in the Horn of Africa. Additionally, it is claimed that such recognition could yield strategic advantages for Ethiopia. However, advocates of these positions often overlook the potential ramifications on regional stability and security dynamics.
Regime Changes in Eritrea
In recent weeks, individuals such as Michael Rubin and Martin Plaut, alongside other proponents of interventionist policies, have demonstrated a concerted effort to advocate for regime change in Eritrea. This campaign includes facilitating the establishment of a government-in-exile that lacks recognition or legitimacy among the Eritrean populace. Furthermore, it provides support to various political opposition groups, some of which have historically called for the territorial disintegration of Eritrea and have aligned themselves with adversarial factions in neighboring countries intent on undermining Eritrean sovereignty.
Certain oppositional factions are effectively instruments used to destabilize and dismantle Eritrea, serving the interests of external actors aiming to erode national unity and undermine Eritrean identity.
One might question the rationale behind their aggressive advocacy for such inherently destructive and intolerable actions. The answer lies in their disregard for the associated costs and ramifications. Their primary concern is narrowly aligned with their own vested interests.
How Should We Confront Them?
International legal frameworks may pose challenges to the Trump administration’s potential recognition of Somaliland. However, historically, U.S. leadership has often prioritized national interests over adherence to international legal standards.
It is crucial for the people of the region to remain critically aware of the narratives and disinformation propagated by those seeking to sow discord among nations, as these tactics often create a conducive environment for exploitation.
While significant reform and transformation of socio-political landscapes are needed across all countries in the region, these changes must originate from the people themselves. Reform processes should be rooted in local communities and led by the citizenry, ensuring ownership and sustainable outcomes. External influences, often motivated by self-serving interests and indifferent to the long-term welfare of these societies, must not dictate the path to reform. Instead, the power to shape these changes should remain firmly in the hands of local stakeholders.
The President of the Federal Republic of Somalia and the Prime Minister of Ethiopia signed a treaty to resolve their dispute stemming from the Memorandum of Understanding between Ethiopia and the secessionist Somaliland in January 2024.
What Was the Ankara Deal?
The Turkey-brokered deal is not yet final or binding, but it represents an agreement by both countries to begin negotiations regarding Ethiopia’s claim for sea access. According to the treaty, both countries agreed to respect each other’s sovereignty and collaborate to find common ground for enhancing commercial and trade exchanges, which would benefit the countries and the region.
What Did the Leaders Say?
Soon after the treaty was signed, Ethiopia’s Prime Minister stated, “Ethiopia respects the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Somalia, but any agreement or deal they make with Somaliland is out of the business of the Republic of Somalia.” This contradictory statement signals that the Ethiopian government may not intend to fully respect the treaty.
Although both leaders affirmed their willingness to talk and resolve disputes, the conflict is far from over, with no significant breakthroughs achieved. Both sides appear to be buying time to strengthen their respective positions for the unresolved issues.
What Will Happen to the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU)?
In the recent election in Somaliland, a new president, Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi Irro, assumed office and nominated a foreign minister known for opposing the Memorandum of Understanding signed by the former administration with Ethiopia. This indicates that the people of Somaliland, an autonomous region, are largely against any deals with Ethiopia. Furthermore, the newly elected president has announced plans to review the agreement, emphasizing its lack of transparency and casting doubt on its validity. The situation remains unclear, but given the region’s history, significant developments could occur.
Regional and Future Perspectives
After the signing of the treaty in Ankara, reports emerged that militias in Jubaland, allegedly supported by Ethiopian soldiers stationed in Somalia since 2006 under the pretext of fighting al-Shabaab, engaged in clashes with the federal army. Unverified reports suggest that several federal government soldiers were killed, with many fleeing to Kenya before returning to Somalia. Concurrently, a delegation from Somalia led by the Foreign Minister arrived in Ethiopia to initiate work on normalizing relations under the Ankara Treaty.
On December 21, 2024, French President Emmanuel Macron visited Ethiopia in what appeared to be a politically motivated move amidst his domestic challenges. The Ethiopian Prime Minister welcomed Macron with an unprecedented ceremony, yet the visit yielded no tangible outcomes. Macron declined to support Ethiopia’s bid for sea access, emphasizing that such matters depend on the consent of sovereign nations, thereby reaffirming international law regarding territorial integrity. This outcome highlighted the Prime Minister’s diplomatic failure.
Subsequently, the Somali President visited Eritrea, following an earlier visit to Mogadishu by Egypt’s Foreign Minister. These visits signal to Ethiopia that Somalia is not diplomatically isolated.
Somali President in Addis Ababa
President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud visited Ethiopia on January 11, 2025, following his attendance at an African agriculture summit in Uganda. His office described the visit as a follow-up to the Ankara Treaty, aiming to resolve disputes and begin technical negotiations by February’s end. However, analysts believe the visit primarily sought to appease Turkish mediators, on whom Somalia heavily relies for security and economic support.
Ethiopia’s Position
Ethiopia appears isolated in its approach, which has been perceived as disingenuous and unacceptable to regional actors. Instead of seeking external and colonial powers’ assistance to destabilize the region, Ethiopia should pursue respectful bilateral agreements to foster mutual growth and stability. The sovereignty of Red Sea nations must remain inviolate.
Conclusion
As 2025 begins, the United States’ regional policy under President Donald Trump remains unclear. The Middle East, particularly Yemen’s ongoing crisis, continues to impact regional geopolitics, with implications for security and stability. Middle-power nations such as Turkey, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Iran also play crucial roles, while major powers like the European Union, China, and Russia monitor developments closely to safeguard their strategic interests.
The Ankara Treaty underscores the need for African-led solutions to African problems. Organizations such as the African Union and IGAD should have taken the lead in addressing the dispute. Ethiopia must recognize that regional collaboration is the only sustainable path toward peace and prosperity.
Since its inception in 1963, the organization of the African Unity (OAU) and its successor the African Union (AU) has been hosted by Ethiopia. Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia was its first chairman. Among the major pillars of the African Union’s mission is safeguarding the sovereignty and territorial integrity of member states. Affirming commitments to its objectives, in its Cairo Declaration of Article 2 of resolution 16(1), the OAU pledged the independent African states to respect their inherited colonial borders. Through the Cairo declaration, the OAU asserted that colonial borders be a sacrosanct boundary of African countries. In its effort to promote peace and security throughout the continent, the African Union established the Peace and Security Council in December 2003. The specific goal of the Peace and Security Council (PSC) is “prevention, management, and resolution of conflicts”. In line with the above agreements and objectives of the African Union, we will see if Ethiopia deserves to continue hosting the African Union.
ETHIOPIA IS A THREAT TO REGIONAL PEACE.
Somalia.
Contrary to the objectives of the African Union, Ethiopia has been a source of instability in the Horn of Africa region. Following the 1977–1978 border war with Somalia, Ethiopia worked hard to make Somalia a failed state for three decades. In 2006 when Somalis started to organize themselves under the Union of Islamic Courts and begin to bring normalcy to Somalia Ethiopia invaded Somalia. The invasion of Somalia by Ethiopia created Al-Shabaab. In the pretext of fighting Al-Shabaab Ethiopia is still in Somalia. According to the United Nations monitoring group report, Ethiopia coupled with Yemen are the major source of Arms and logistics to Al-Shabaab. Such evidence indicates Ethiopia wants Somalia to remain a failed state.
Eritrea.
After being colonized by Italy for 50 years (1889-1941) and ten years (1941-1951) under the British Interim Administration, the United Nations forced Eritrea to be federated with Ethiopia in 1952. In 1962, Ethiopia’s emperor Haile Selassie unilaterally dissolved the Federation and annexed Eritrea, triggering a 30-year armed struggle in Eritrea. Eritrea which has a distinct flag, parliament, and national boundaries based on the 1900, 1902, and 1908 colonial agreements between Ethiopia and Italy was turned into an administrative region of Ethiopia. Although the annexation of Eritrea happened two years before the 1964 Cairo declaration, it was a clear indication that Ethiopia had not been committed to peace and security in Africa. After 30 years of war and destruction, the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF) completely Liberated Eritrea in 1991. Through the UN and the AU monitored referendum Eritrea became an independent country on May 24, 1993. Again, in violation of the 1964 Cairo declaration, in 1998 Ethiopia claimed the Badme region of Eritrea and conducted a two-year devastating war against Eritrea. In 2002 the Eritrea and Ethiopia boundary commission based on the colonial agreements of 1900, 1902, and 1908 declared Badme was an Eritrean territory. Ethiopia rejected the ruling and occupied Badme and other Eritrean territories for twenty years. As a continuation of the Ethiopian leader’s act of undermining colonial boundaries recently the current Prime Minister of Ethiopia Dr. Abiy Ahmed attempted to replace the 1964 Cairo declaration with Ethnic based boundaries. He argued that because the Afar Ethnic group live in both Eritrea and Ethiopia, the Ethiopian Afars should have a say on the Eritrean Red Sea. He continued to say because Somalis live in both Ethiopia and Somalia the Ethiopian Somalis should have a say on the Indian ocean. In violation of the 1964 OAU declaration, he claimed to have a historical right to own a port and corridor to the sea. These statements clearly indicate that Ethiopia is not serious about the 1964 Cairo declaration and the 1982 UN convention or Law of the Sea.
Sudan.
Ethiopia’s continuous border conflict with Sudan in the Alfashaga region also indicates Ethiopia’s lack of commitment to settle international border problems in line with the 1964 Cairo Declaration. When the Tigray war started Sudan reclaimed what it called land that was occupied by Ethiopia. The border problem between Sudan and Ethiopia is a dormant conflict that could erupt at any time.
ETHIOPIA HAS A LONG HISTORY OF VIOLENT REGIME CHANGES AND PERSISTENT CONFLICTS.
Focusing on the history of modern Ethiopia, Emperor Haile Selassie, the first OAU chairman, was overthrown in a violent military coup by a Marxist–Leninist junta, the Derg. On the morning of 23 November 1974, the Derg executed 54 Haile Selassie’s Ministers, and six were killed in a shootout with the executioners. Haile Selassie was assassinated on 27 August 1975 by the then Ethiopian Military Junta. The catastrophic famine of 1983–1985 was what brought the Derg junta government the most international attention. Mengistu’s government is estimated to be responsible for the deaths of 500,000 to 2,000,000 Ethiopians, mostly during the 1983–1985 famine in Ethiopia and close to 750, 000 people due to the red terror execution of civilians. Consistent with what the Derg military Junta did to Haile Selassie, after waging a war for 17 years, the Tigray Liberation Front (TPLF) toppled the Derg Marxist Leninist Junta in 1991. Although the TPLF is credited with what resembles to an economic change in Ethiopia, the ethnic-based federalism system it established continues to be a time bomb in Ethiopia. Ethnic conflicts in Ethiopia are believed to have killed close to two million and displaced five million Ethiopians. The Oromo and Amhara youth uprising toppled the Tigray liberation front-led government in 1998 and brought the current Prime Minister, Dr. Abiy Ahmed, to power. Although in the beginning, the transition of power seemed peaceful it was followed by a deadly conflict between the Ethiopian Federal Government and the TPLF. The conflict resulted in the death of close to two million people in Tigray, Amhara, and Afar and the widespread destruction of property and infrastructure. Regardless of the ongoing wars in Amhara and Oromo, recently the Prime Minister of Ethiopia Dr. Abiy Ahmed made a dangerous speech to his parliament that could destabilize the whole Horn of Africa region. Ethiopian leaders continue to have a strong appetite for war, and they do not seem to survive without it.
CONCLUSION.
The saddest part of the story is a leader, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, whom Ethiopians and people of the neighboring countries hoped would change the trajectory of war and conflicts in Ethiopia and received a noble prize has become the prime instigator of war in Ethiopia. On top of the ongoing wars in Amhara and Oromo and the dormant deadly conflict in Tigray currently, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed is eying an invasion of neighboring countries, especially Eritrea. Therefore, Ethiopia’s continuous disregard for the 1964 Cairo declaration on colonial boundaries and its persistent internal conflicts do not reflect the values of the African Union. In fact, the Ethiopian utter disregard for the African Union’s declarations and agreements is making the African Union weaker and partial. The recent threat of the Prime Minister on neighboring countries should be a warning bell to the African Union. If Ethiopia continues to undermine the African Union’s declarations and agreements, it may be disqualifying itself from continuing to be the host of the African Union. It is time for the AU and its member states to send a strong warning to Ethiopia.
Sanctions are routinely presented as a clean alternative to military force. In reality, they are a blunt instrument with a poor track record — particularly when deployed unilaterally. This article examines the legal distinction between multilateral and unilateral sanctions, reviews the empirical evidence on their effectiveness, and applies both lenses to the case of Eritrea. The central argument is that sanctions, especially of the unilateral variety, tend to consolidate the regimes they target while transferring the burden onto civilian populations.
1. A Tool That Promises More Than It Delivers
In the vocabulary of international politics, sanctions are often presented as a ‘clean’ alternative to force — a way to apply pressure without resorting to war. The logic appears straightforward: if you strike a country in its economic or financial interests, its leadership will be compelled to reconsider its choices. But this framing significantly oversimplifies a mechanism that, in practice, is far more uncertain.
Sanctions do not act on abstract entities. They operate on concrete political systems — systems with entrenched elites, security apparatus, informal networks, and adaptive capacities that are routinely underestimated. It is precisely this capacity for adaptation that explains why, in the majority of cases, the instrument fails to produce the expected results.
As a substantial body of scholarship has noted, sanctions rarely function as a direct lever for change. More often, they generate indirect effects that are difficult to control, and sometimes the opposite of what was intended. The promise of an effective, non-violent intervention runs up against a reality defined by ambiguous and frequently disappointing outcomes.
2. The Only Legitimate Sanctions
Before any assessment can be made, a point of principle must be established. The only sanctions that can claim legitimacy under international law are those adopted by the United Nations Security Council. This is not a procedural technicality — it is a substantive distinction.
Multilateral sanctions arise from a collective process and exist within a recognized legal framework, with the declared objective of responding to threats to international peace and security. Unilateral sanctions are an altogether different matter. They are decisions taken by individual states — typically major powers — that extend their political will beyond their own borders. They carry no international mandate, and for precisely that reason, they must be considered illegitimate under international law.
In the case of Eritrea, the distinction is concrete and current. The United Nations sanctions, introduced in 2009 and strengthened in 2011, were lifted in 2018. What remains today is a collection of unilateral measures, primarily American, targeting specific individuals and entities — often through instruments such as asset freezing and financial restrictions. To continue speaking generically of ‘sanctions’ without distinguishing between these two levels is not merely imprecise. It actively contributes to a misleading narrative.
3. Do They Work? The Evidence Says Rarely
When the analysis moves from the normative to the empirical, the picture becomes even starker. Systematic studies — among them those of Gary Clyde Hufbauer, Jeffrey Schott, and Kimberly Ann Elliott, alongside the critical analyses of Robert Pape and Daniel Drezner — consistently show that sanctions have a limited success rate, particularly when the objectives are ambitious. Where positive results do occur, they tend to involve narrow, discrete goals rather than structural transformations.
The explanation is relatively straightforward. Sanctions generate economic costs, but they do not automatically translate into political change. Ruling elites have strong incentives to hold firm, and the means to do so: control of resources, suppression of dissent, and the construction of alternative networks. Moreover, as several studies have shown, sanctions can actually strengthen a regime’s internal cohesion — providing a justification for tightened control and a ready-made narrative of resistance against an external enemy.
In the meantime, the most immediate consequences fall on the population: inflation, scarcity of goods, reduced access to essential services and markets. This gap between stated objectives and actual outcomes is one of the central reasons why many scholars regard sanctions as a blunt instrument — particularly when deployed extensively and unilaterally.
4. Eritrea: Convenient Explanations and a More Complex Reality
In discussions about Eritrea, sanctions have become a recurring explanation for a range of domestic problems: economic stagnation, the absence of reform, institutional weakness. It is an explanation that has some basis in reality, but it becomes problematic when it is used as the sole or primary lens.
Following the lifting of UN sanctions in 2018, the formal context shifted significantly. Yet this shift did not translate into any comparably evident transformation at home. This data point suggests that internal factors play a determining role. Unilateral sanctions may limit access to certain resources or financial circuits, but they alone cannot account for the absence of structural reform or independent institutions.
When sanctions become the only explanatory framework, they risk functioning as an alibi — redirecting attention away from domestic dynamics (political, economic, institutional) and toward external factors. A more rigorous reading requires holding both dimensions together, without reducing complexity to a single cause.
5. Who Actually Pays the Price
The most critical issue concerns the concrete effects of sanctions, particularly unilateral ones. Designed to target governments and their leaderships, they end up falling directly on the population. Financial and trade restrictions translate into rising prices, shrinking economic opportunity, and diminished access to essential goods and services. In less open environments, these effects are magnified.
External pressure does not necessarily weaken power — it often reinforces it. Resources concentrate in the hands of the state or entrenched elites; the margins for economic autonomy narrow; dependence deepens. This is the central paradox of sanctions: a tool conceived to change a government’s behavior can end up consolidating it, while transferring the costs onto society at large.
Conclusion
An honest conclusion must start here. Sanctions are not a simple solution to complex problems. They may have a limited role to play, in specific contexts and with well-defined objectives. But unilateral sanctions in particular remain a tool without international legitimacy — frequently ineffective, and potentially counterproductive.
In the Eritrean case, acknowledging this does not mean denying the weight of external pressures. It means refusing to let those pressures become a total explanation. Because when analysis comes to rely on a single cause, the risk is not merely oversimplification. The risk is a failure to understand at all.
Key References
Hufbauer, G.C., Schott, J.J., Elliott, K.A. & Oegg, B. (2007). Economic Sanctions Reconsidered (3rd ed.). Peterson Institute for International Economics.
Pape, R.A. (1997). Why Economic Sanctions Do Not Work. International Security, 22(2), 90-136.
Drezner, D.W. (1999). The Sanctions Paradox: Economic Statecraft and International Relations. Cambridge University Press.
UN Security Council Resolution 1907 (2009) and Resolution 2023 (2011) on Eritrea. Lifted by Resolution 2444 (2018).
There is a truth that global history has repeatedly confirmed, yet powerful nations and international institutions continue to obscure: dependency is not a safety net it is a trap. When a country surrenders its sovereignty over security, economy, food production, or strategic geography to external actors, it does not gain protection. It gains exposure. It trades one form of vulnerability for another except this time, the vulnerability is structural, deeply embedded, and politically exploitable.
For three decades, Eritrea has been lectured about its refusal to integrate into the Western-led aid and security architecture. It has been called reclusive, isolated, and self-defeating. Critics in think tanks and Western capitals have framed Eritrea’s self-reliance policy as obstinacy. But in April 2026, the Wall Street Journal published what amounts to a geopolitical confession a report revealing that the Trump administration is actively exploring lifting sanctions on Eritrea and resetting diplomatic relations, driven by Eritrea’s strategic Red Sea coastline and Washington’s urgent need to counter Iranian threats to global maritime corridors.
The country that was told it needed the West more than the West needed it has, without firing a shot, become the country that every major power now courts. That is not an accident. That is the dividend of self-sufficiency.
The WSJ Report: A Strategic Confession
On April 22, 2026, the Wall Street Journal broke news that sent diplomatic signals across the Horn of Africa and beyond. The Trump administration, the report said, is exploring ways to reset ties with a “reclusive and autocratic state controlling prime geopolitical real estate along the Red Sea as Iran threatens to choke off a second vital maritime corridor against the backdrop of war with the U.S.”
The report confirmed that Massad Boulos, President Trump’s senior envoy for Africa, had met privately with President Isaias Afwerki in Cairo late last year a significant move after years of diplomatic silence. Boulos told foreign counterparts that the U.S. aims to begin lifting some sanctions on Eritrea. The State Department confirmed it “looks forward to strengthening U.S. ties with the people and government of Eritrea.”
What drove this about-face? The answer lies in geography and strategic leverage that no amount of isolation, sanction, or international pressure could erase. Eritrea’s more than 700 miles of Red Sea coastline controlling approaches to the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, one of the world’s most critical maritime chokepoints has made it indispensable at exactly the moment global powers need it most. Twelve percent of world commerce passes through the Red Sea waters Eritrea overlooks. With Iran threatening to strangle maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz and Houthi forces disrupting Red Sea shipping, Eritrea’s sovereign control of that coastline is no longer a regional footnote. It is a global strategic asset.
Critically, China’s Special Envoy to the Horn of Africa, Hu Changchun, had already made two visits to Asmara within four months in December 2025 and April 2026 signaling Beijing’s own active engagement with Eritrea’s strategic position. This is not the diplomatic landscape of a nation that failed by choosing self-reliance. This is the landscape of a nation that succeeded — on its own terms.
The Gulf: When Security Dependency Becomes a Bullseye
To understand why Eritrea’s path was wise, look at the Gulf states nations that built entire security architectures on dependency with the United States, and are now living through the catastrophic consequences.
Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, and Bahrain are all classified as U.S. “major non-NATO allies” or formal defense partners. They host major American military bases. Arms deals with Gulf states exceeded $130 billion between 2015 and 2023. The foundational premise was explicit: American military power, forward-deployed to the Gulf, would deter Iran and protect host states from attack. The Gulf monarchies accepted this premise wholeheartedly and paid for it with their strategic autonomy.
When the U.S.-Israeli military campaign against Iran launched in February 2026, the premise collapsed with stunning speed. Iran, knowing exactly which countries hosted American forces, struck not the United States itself — but the Gulf states that had welcomed American bases. The logic was precise and punishing: if you host the patron’s military, you absorb the patron’s wars.
Qatar hosts Al Udeid Air Base one of the most important U.S. military installations in the world. Iran had already fired missiles at Al Udeid in June 2025. After the February 2026 escalation, Iran launched multiple waves of strikes against Qatar, targeting Hamad International Airport, natural gas facilities, and military installations. Iranian missiles struck Qatar’s massive natural gas facility, forcing Doha to expel Iranian military attachés within 24 hours. Qatar found itself absorbing punishment for decisions made in Washington and Tel Aviv, with no meaningful say in whether the war that brought those strikes should have been launched at all. Qatar could not remove the American bases. It could not stay neutral. It could not join the offensive. Dependency had narrowed its options to zero.
The United Arab Emirates hosts Al Dhafra Air Base near Abu Dhabi and Jebel Ali port capable of accommodating U.S. aircraft carriers. Dubai and Abu Dhabi had cultivated global reputations as safe commercial and investment havens. When the Iran war began, the UAE became Iran’s most intensely targeted Gulf state: 298 ballistic missiles, 15 cruise missiles, and 1,606 drones. Debris from intercepted missiles damaged the Burj Al Arab hotel. Fires erupted near Dubai International Airport. Jebel Ali port was struck. At least six people were killed in Abu Dhabi and Dubai casualties of a war the UAE officially opposed. The UAE had publicly stated in January 2026 that it would not allow attacks on Iran to be launched from its territory. It could not remove the American bases that made it a target. The bases designed to protect the UAE had, instead, painted targets on it.
Saudi Arabia reportedly warned Washington against the attack before it was launched, and stated that neither the U.S. nor Israel would be permitted to use Saudi territory for offensive operations. Riyadh had spent years carefully managing its relationship with Tehran — reopening embassies, pursuing economic dialogue. That diplomatic architecture was obliterated overnight when Washington made its decision without Riyadh’s meaningful consent. Iran launched over 500 ballistic missiles and 2,000 unmanned aerial vehicles at Gulf targets. Saudi oil infrastructure at Ras Tanura was struck. Despite purchasing the world’s most advanced American air defense systems, the kingdom found its energy facilities under sustained attack. Senator Lindsey Graham publicly gave Saudi Arabia an ultimatum: “Join the war or consequences will follow.” That is the reality of security dependency laid bare — a patron that can demand your participation in a war you did not choose, threaten you if you decline, and simultaneously be incapable of fully protecting you from retaliation.
Bahrain hosts the U.S. Fifth Fleet headquarters at the Jufair naval base the most significant U.S. naval installation in the Middle East, and the ultimate symbol of Gulf-American security dependency. When Iranian strikes began, the Fifth Fleet base itself was targeted. The very symbol of American protection in the Gulf was struck by the enemy it was meant to deter.
The verdict from analysts was unambiguous. The Soufan Center concluded that U.S. military presence in the Gulf “has neither acted as a deterrent nor been able to protect from Iranian missile and drone incursions.” Responsible Statecraft noted that “far from insulating Persian Gulf states, the U.S. military presence has contributed to their vulnerability.” Carnegie Endowment analysts observed that Gulf states are now in the middle of an active war scrambling to develop “homegrown manufacturing” of air defense systems to reduce their dependence on the United States. In other words, after decades of dependency and at enormous cost, the Gulf states are being forced to consider the very model Eritrea chose from the beginning.
Africa’s Debt Trap: Dependency as Financial Colonialism
The security dependency trap has a financial twin: aid and debt dependency the preferred instrument of Western powers for maintaining influence over African nations after formal colonialism ended.
The International Monetary Fund and World Bank have, since the 1950s, structured African development through what analysts now call a Faustian bargain. A country facing economic difficulty accesses IMF credit — but only by agreeing to conditions: currency liberalization, privatization of state assets, reduction of public spending on health and education, and structural reforms designed to make economies accessible to foreign capital rather than capable of domestic production. In Zambia, IMF-supported reforms resulted in the privatization of vital assets and a public debt surge that ended in default. In Zimbabwe, World Bank and IMF reforms produced deindustrialization and job losses that set the stage for economic collapse. In Mozambique, IMF-promoted liberalization triggered a debt crisis that forced years of austerity on ordinary citizens.
Today, 48 African countries collectively owe USD 42.2 billion to the IMF approximately one-third of its total outstanding credit globally. Donor countries routinely use “promises of aid or threats of stopping aid to pressure recipients into adopting the political or economic policies preferred by the donor.” The result is not development. It is a sophisticated, institutionalized form of dependency that preserves external control over the most fundamental national decisions.
Eritrea rejected this architecture entirely. The government has consistently argued that development cannot be achieved through aid but can be attained through trade and investment aligned with national priorities. That choice widely derided in Western capitals preserved Eritrea’s policy independence at a time when the rest of the continent was mortgaging its sovereignty for credit lines.
Afghanistan: What Happens When the Patron Leaves
If the Gulf example shows the danger of military dependency during conflict, Afghanistan shows its catastrophic consequence when the patron simply decides to leave.
For twenty years, the United States invested massively in Afghanistan its military, its institutions, its civilian infrastructure, its women’s education programs. Afghanistan’s security, civil society, and economic survival were deeply interwoven with American presence. When the withdrawal was completed, the entire architecture collapsed almost instantly. The Afghan state, built entirely on dependency, had no internal foundation to stand on.
By 2026, the United States has committed no humanitarian funding at all to Afghanistan, effectively abandoning the civilian consequences of its own twenty-year intervention. Women and girls who depended on Western support for education and employment are bearing the heaviest burden of that withdrawal. No country that depends on a foreign power for its survival can be truly sovereign. Afghanistan had twenty years, billions of dollars, and the world’s most powerful military behind it — and never built the capacity to stand independently, because the aid model was never designed to make Afghanistan self-sufficient. It was designed to make Afghanistan manageable.
Pakistan, Ukraine, and South Korea: Three More Warnings
Pakistan demonstrates how dependency inverts power in unexpected ways. During the Afghanistan war, the United States depended on Pakistan for 40 to 60 percent of all military supplies to coalition forces — shipments traveling through Karachi and across 1,200 miles of Pakistani territory. When U.S. forces killed Pakistani troops, Pakistan shut down the supply routes. The patron became the dependent. U.S. foreign policy was constrained by Pakistan’s tolerance. This is how dependency works in every direction — vulnerability follows regardless of which side of the equation you occupy.
Ukraine has built its entire battlefield strategy around continuous Western weapons supply: Patriot air defense systems, HIMARS rockets, artillery shells, and precision munitions. That supply chain is now under direct stress. U.S. officials have warned allies that ongoing operations against Iran could delay weapons shipments to Ukraine, as the Pentagon prioritizes munitions for the Middle East. The National Defense University documented that the war in Ukraine revealed “the inadequacy of the U.S. defense industrial base to keep pace with high-intensity conflict.” Ukraine’s battlefield survival depends on decisions made in Washington, Brussels, and London not Kyiv. That is the ultimate cost of military dependency: you do not control your own fate even in the defense of your own territory.
South Korea learned the high-technology version of the same lesson. In 2019, Japan imposed export restrictions on three critical semiconductor materials that Samsung and SK Hynix had become wholly dependent upon: high-purity hydrogen fluoride, photoresist, and fluorinated polyimides. South Korea’s entire semiconductor industry — the backbone of its economy — was held hostage by a single supplier. The crisis forced a billion-dollar emergency localization program. Within three years, South Korea had broken its 100 percent dependence on Japanese photoresist and reduced its reliance on Japanese hydrogen fluoride by 30 percent. The lesson South Korea paid dearly to learn is one Eritrea already knew from day one: strategic dependency is strategic vulnerability.
Eritrea’s Self-Sufficiency: The Philosophy Behind the “Isolation”
Against this global backdrop, Eritrea’s development philosophy so routinely dismissed in Western media as obstinacy — reveals itself as a coherent and historically grounded strategic doctrine.
Eritrea emerged from a thirty-year liberation struggle with a foundational understanding forged through lived experience: dependence was not a safety net but a vulnerability. During those decades of armed struggle, the EPLF built supply lines, trained doctors, engineered weapons, and sustained an entire liberation economy without foreign patrons — because it had no choice. That experience of self-organization under conditions of extreme scarcity became the blueprint for post-independence governance.
Since 1993, Eritrea has built 785 dams throughout the country to reduce dependence on rain-fed agriculture and increase food security. It has invested in vocational training and education to build a domestic skilled workforce rather than relying on foreign expertise. In the mining sector, Eritrea has insisted on arrangements requiring local benefit and skills transfer from foreign partners rather than simply exporting raw resources. At the 2026 ECOSOC Forum on Financing for Development, Eritrea engaged with IMF reform discussions not as a supplicant seeking credit, but as an advocate for a global financial system that “respects sovereignty and supports country-led development.”
Eritrea maintains diverse partnerships — with Italy, China, the United Kingdom, Japan, and the United Nations — but on terms that protect its development sovereignty. Self-reliance is not isolation. It is, as Eritrea’s model demonstrates, “not about rejecting the world, but about engaging it on its own terms, ensuring partnerships are mutually beneficial.” A self-reliant nation can engage globally without being captured. A dependent nation cannot refuse engagement even when that engagement is destructive.
The Diplomatic Flood: When the World Comes to You
The ultimate validation of Eritrea’s strategic model is visible in the dramatic convergence of global diplomatic attention on Asmara in 2025 and 2026. China’s Special Envoy visited Asmara twice within four months. The European Union maintained its delegation in Asmara and hosted formal diplomatic events with over 150 attendees from the government and diplomatic corps. Canada, Japan, Norway, Turkey, and the United Kingdom jointly reaffirmed Eritrea’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. Egypt dispatched a high-level economic delegation covering investment, trade, electricity, agriculture, and central banking. Eritrea’s Foreign Minister Osman Saleh, at the 80th UN General Assembly, held bilateral meetings with the foreign ministers of Egypt, Algeria, and Iran, as well as the Vatican’s Archbishop. And now, Washington itself is signaling a full diplomatic reset.
None of these global actors came to Asmara to offer charity. They came because Eritrea has something they need: sovereign geography, strategic leverage, and a government that has not mortgaged its foreign policy to any single patron. In a multipolar world, the country that keeps its options open holds the most cards.
The Wall Street Journal describes Eritrea as “strategically vital” a direct inversion of the language used to describe it for the past twenty years. Eritrea’s Red Sea position has become critically important precisely because Eritrea controls it no foreign base, no foreign military presence, no patron with veto power over how its ports and coastlines are used. Eritrea is not a satellite of anyone. That is its power.
Sovereignty Is the Strategy
History does not lie. The Gulf states chose American security guarantees and are now being struck by Iranian missiles in an American war they did not choose and could not prevent. Afghanistan chose American institution-building and collapsed the day the Americans left. Zambia and Zimbabwe chose IMF structural adjustment and watched their economies hollowed out. Ukraine chose Western arms dependency and now waits for weapons supply chains strained by the very conflicts its patron created.
Eritrea chose itself. It chose the hard path the path of building internal capacity before seeking external help, of insisting on sovereignty as a non-negotiable precondition for any partnership, of accepting short-term economic pressure rather than long-term political subordination.
The Wall Street Journal’s April 22, 2026 report is not a Western favor being extended to Eritrea. It is the world acknowledging what Eritrea’s own choices made possible: a geopolitically indispensable position that no sanction erased, no isolation diminished, and no pressure could transfer to another country.
Dependency equals vulnerability. It always has. The nations that understood this earliest and built sovereign foundations despite every pressure not to — are the nations that negotiate from strength when the next global crisis arrives. Eritrea arrived at this moment not because the world changed. Eritrea arrived because it never changed its fundamental principle: sovereignty first, dependency never.
The latest signs of possible U.S.-Eritrea engagement should be read neither with excitement nor with suspicion alone. They should be read with clarity. According to a Wall Street Journal report published on April 22, the Trump administration is reviewing a plan that could ease some sanctions on Eritrea and reopen more serious diplomatic contact after years of distance.
This matters because it confirms something Eritreans have always known, even when others tried to deny it: Eritrea’s strategic relevance does not disappear because major powers choose to ignore it. The report says Washington’s interest is tied to the Red Sea, the Bab al-Mandeb chokepoint, and wider instability linked to Iran and the Houthis, all of which have increased the value of Eritrea’s long Red Sea coastline in American calculations. In other words, Eritrea has returned to the center of geopolitical thinking not because the outside world has suddenly become fair, but because geography and crisis have forced a reassessment.
There is an important lesson in that. Nations that stand firm through difficult periods can outlast the fashions of international politics, but endurance by itself is not enough. A country may survive on resilience, but it cannot build its full future on resilience alone.
Since independence in 1993, Eritrea has defended its sovereignty with unusual discipline and stubbornness, often under real pressure from stronger states and hostile diplomatic narratives. Relations with Washington deteriorated over time, and U.S. sanctions and restrictions tied to the conflicts in northern Ethiopia and broader human rights concerns remained part of that reality in recent years. Even now, reporting indicates that any U.S. move is still under review rather than finalized, which means Eritrea should approach this moment with patience and realism rather than illusion.
Still, the shift is real enough to deserve serious reflection. If Washington is reconsidering Eritrea because the Red Sea has become too important to neglect, then Eritrea must also reconsider how best to convert strategic location into durable national strength. Geography can give a country leverage, but only institutions, legitimacy, and productive citizens can turn leverage into lasting power.
This is where the discussion must become honest. Eritrea has every right to reject foreign bullying. It has every right to insist that engagement be based on mutual respect rather than diktat. But an Eritrea-first position should not confuse national dignity with political immobility. Strategic flexibility is not surrender. It is the ability to adapt without losing oneself.
That means the changing geopolitical climate should be treated not only as an external opportunity, but as an internal warning. If the world is shifting, Eritrea must not remain frozen. It should move with confidence to strengthen the state from within, beginning with long-delayed constitutional implementation and the building of credible national institutions. A constitution is not a gift to outsiders, and it is not a public relations tool. It is a covenant between state and citizen, and a framework that gives sovereignty institutional form.
The same is true for broader civic and political renewal. A strong Eritrea needs more than military vigilance. It needs functioning law, predictable institutions, and a public sphere where citizens can contribute to national life without fear. It needs a national compact that treats the people not only as defenders of the state, but as rightful participants in shaping it.
This is especially urgent because the region is becoming more dangerous, not less. Tensions related to Ethiopia’s recurring push for sea access have already fueled fears of a fresh confrontation, and recent analysis has highlighted the risk that rhetoric around Red Sea access could trigger another regional crisis. In such an environment, Eritrea needs both deterrence and diplomacy, both resolve and flexibility. Neither one alone is sufficient.
The Wall Street Journal report also notes that Egypt has been facilitating parts of the current dialogue and that contacts have involved senior American, Eritrean, and Egyptian figures. That detail matters because it shows the issue is no longer merely bilateral. Eritrea now sits inside a wider contest involving Red Sea security, Arab-African diplomacy, regional rivalries, and the strategic anxieties of global powers. A small country in such an environment cannot afford political stagnation at home while maneuvering in a rapidly changing region abroad.
There is also a deeper national question beneath the diplomacy. What kind of state does Eritrea want to be in this new phase? One that is noticed only when others need its coastline, or one that commands respect because it has combined sovereignty with institutional maturity, discipline with openness, and resilience with reform?
That is the real challenge of this moment. The outside world may be changing its tone toward Eritrea for reasons of strategy, not justice. Eritrea, however, should not respond only tactically. It should respond historically. It should recognize that strategic relevance creates a window, and windows do not remain open forever.
An Eritrea-first approach today should therefore rest on two principles at once. The first is that national independence remains nonnegotiable. The second is that internal reform is no longer optional. Implementing the constitution, broadening lawful civic space, strengthening institutions, and giving the younger generation a fuller stake in the future are not concessions to Washington or to any other capital. They are acts of national self-respect.
If this geopolitical shift teaches anything, it is that Eritrea still matters. But the next lesson is even more important: to matter is not enough. The country must also prepare itself to use that relevance wisely, strengthen itself internally, and enter the next era with confidence rooted not only in sacrifice, but in renewal.
Those who listened to the recent interview General Tsadkan gave to the Ethiopian Prosperity Party-controlled media can’t help but scratch their heads. The interview indicates that he is very desperate, eager to seize power, and as usual, planning revenge. Especially his narration of the 1998-2000 Ethio-Eritrea border war, his decision to invade Eritrean sovereign territory, Assab, and how it all ended are full of lies and contradictions. Now he has a new horse called a prosperity party, and he would do anything to use it to climb to power. Fortunately, almost all of his past attempts ended in failure, and his current attempt may even end badly. To understand Tsadkan’s downward spiral from power and his repetitive failed attempts to come back, we need to dig a little deeper.
He was chief of staff of the Ethiopian Defense Forces (ENDF) from 1991 to 1998.
When the border problem between Eritrea and Ethiopia started in Badme and Bada areas (1996–1998), he was the chief of staff of the Ethiopian Defense Forces. He was also a member of the Ethio-Eritrean committee tasked to resolve the border problem before it erupted into a full-fledged war. Right before the full-fledged war, he oversaw the brigade that crossed into Eritrea through Adi Murug (Bada) and dismantled the Eritrean administration, closed schools, and expelled teachers from the area. His friend Gebru Asrat was the president of the Tigray region, doing his bidding in the border areas. Both, stationed in Addis Ababa, are still beating the drums of war. Thus, we can safely conclude that General Tsadkan was the architect of the 1998–2000 Ethio-Eritrea border war that led to the perishing of 100,000 Ethiopian soldiers.
During the 1998–2000 Ethio-Eritrea War
During the 1998–2000 Ethio-Eritrea border war, General Tsadkan planned to attack Eritrea on the Tserona front, Egri Mekel. He intended to break the Eritrean defense line using close to 12,000 infantry, 5,000 Tigrayan civilians with donkeys, and a large 20th mechanized division. As written by General Yohannes Gebremeskel and by Tesfaye Gebreab, it was carnage.
After the war ended in a complete defeat, General Tsadkan himself said, “I led many battles in my career. I have fought in many wars. I have seen a lot. I have never experienced this kind of utter failure. It is bad.” His army was decimated, and Tsadkan had to flee ten miles away to save his life, crying on the way.
In a war review conducted in Infara (Tigray), General Tsadkan’s crying continued, and it was decided he should be fired and gradually pass his position to General Samora Yonus. In revenge for his defeat in Egri Mekel, Tsadkan ordered his army to rape Eritrean women in Kohito and other areas around Senafe, Eritrea. Such crimes are documented in the Red Cross office in Geneva, Switzerland.
Also, after losing hope in his plan to march to Asmara, the capital city of Eritrea, Tsadkan ordered the capture the port city of Assab. Recently, Tsadkan gave an interview to the Ethiopian government-owned media about his decision to do so. His interview was full of lies and exaggerations. Let’s expose his lies one by one.
1. He claimed that the Ethiopian Army pushed the Eritrean Army up to 18 km from Assab.
Tsadkan knows that that did not happen. The Eritrean Army withdrew from the Bure front, 71 Kms away from Assab, after the Eritrean government accepted the Mediator’s proposal that required Eritrea to leave 25 miles demilitarized zone between the two countries. However, in violation of the agreement, the Ethiopian army followed the withdrawing Eritrean Army and launched an attack. So, the Ethiopian Army did not push the Eritrean Army, and Tsdakan was telling a lie.
2. He blamed Meles for stopping the war in Assab.
Gebru Asrat’s book clearly indicated that the attack on Assab was launched after Meles declared the war was over. Meles declared the war was over on June 1st, 2000, and the war in Assab continued till June 17. According to Gebru’s book, individuals in the TPLF who were not happy with the war ordered the attack. Previously, Tsadkan himself admitted ordering the attack; thus, Gebru was referring to Tsadkan. Also, Herman Cohen, the then Undersecretary in the US State Department indicated that the Ethiopian side asked the mediators preparing the signing of the secession of hostilities in Algeria to delay it by a few days so that the Ethiopian Army could occupy Assab and gain an upper position in the negotiation. The attack ended in a disastrous defeat of the Ethiopian invading army and Ethiopia was forced to sign the cessation of hostilities agreement on June 18, 2000. Gebru also described the humiliating defeat in Assab, but still, he tried to blame Meless. Now Tsadkan wants to try again. “You cannot teach an old dog a new trick.”
After the 1998–2000 Border War
After being dismissed as chief of staff, General Tsadkan acquired substantial wealth, raising questions regarding its source. Despite having a limited pension, he acquired properties, including villas in Addis Ababa and shares in a Tigray beer factory. Some speculate this wealth resulted from activities during or after the war, but details and evidence remain unclear.
During the 2020–2022 Tigray War
Up to the time leading to the Qeerroo (Oromo youth) revolt that expelled the TPLF from the federal government seat in Addis Ababa, General Tsadkan was writing articles supporting the revolt against the TPLF. Later, he became a regular in Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s office.
Surprisingly, when Ethiopia and Eritrea made peace, Tsadkan reversed course, fled to Tigray, and became one of the top people who secretly decided and planned the gruesome attack on the Northern Command. This attack sparked the Tigray War and led to the immense suffering of the Tigrayan people. If Tsadkan was an Ethiopian Nationalist, why did he conspire to attack the Ethiopian National Defense forces he once led?
After the TPLF army entered Mekelle, June 28th, 2021, and continued its attack on the Ethiopian Army, Tsadkan was sure he was going to capture the Federal Government Seat, Addis Ababa, and realize his long dream to be the Prime Minister of Ethiopia. He declared no negotiation with the Prosperity Party because, in his mind, the war was ending. Surprisingly, the TPLF army was defeated and had to return to Tigray. Again, Tsadkan blamed the TPLF and America for their defeat.
Pretoria Agreement and Tsadkan’s Unfulfilled Wishes
After the 2020–2022 devastating Tigray war, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) signed a peace agreement on November 2, 2022, in Pretoria, South Africa. The peace agreement required the establishment of a provisional government in the Tigray region of Ethiopia. When the selection of the members of the provisional government started, General Tsadkan, who made a name for himself by claiming to be a leader of the Tigray Defense Force (TDF), was rejected by the army. Yet GSTS (Tigrayan Scholars in Diaspora) and their bosses in the Prosperity Party brought him to the Tigray for provisional administration as their representative. Equipped with the Endorsement, he was ready to destroy the Tigrayan social fabric and create a very dangerous political turmoil in Tigray. The brazen move by the Tsadkan and its readiness to throw Tigray into a sub-regional conflict is very scary, to say the least. The late Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’s decision to expel Tsadkan, from the Army and the TPLF was right, and the TPLF should have seen the dangers of bringing him to power.
He requested the Deployment of the Ethiopian Army to places bordering Eritrea.
In his new book titled “Azurit”, another senior inner-circle Tigrayan general, Yohannes Gebremeskel, lists General Tsadkan among the few Tigrayans who secretly met, decided, and planned an attack on the Northern Command. The Northern Command was attacked by 200,000 Tigray Special Forces and militia on November 4, 2020. General Tsadkan, who was fired by Meles Zenawi for his dismal war planning in the Tserona front during the 1998–2000 Ethio-Eritrea border war, was very eager to return to power not only in Tigray but also in the federal government. The irony is that the Northern Command, which he decided and planned to attack and dismantle, was called by him to come to the Ethiopian Eritrean border to protect him from the TPLF and TPLF-loyal generals. Why was General Tsadkan, who built his name as a leader of the TDF during the 2020–2022 Tigray War, afraid of the TDF?
After he fled from Tigray in 2025.
After realizing that his sinister agenda to grab power in Tigray failed, he fled to the United States. General Tsadkan has already moved his family to the United States. While he is conspiring to ignite wars in Ethiopia, his children are graduating from reputable and expensive colleges in the USA. After he made sure that the relationship between Eritrea and Ethiopia was battered, he returned from the US to Ethiopia, and currently he is continuing his old and failed project to dismantle Tigray and hoping to ignite war between Eritrea and Ethiopia. Tsadkan, who secretly conspired and planned an attack on the Ethiopian defense forces, is now in Addis Ababa, instigating another war between Eritrea and Ethiopia. People may think that this can only happen in a movie. Yet, unfortunately, this is a reality in Ethiopian politics.
Conclusion: –
Tsadkan’s agenda is laced with revenge and greed for power. Will he succeed? Time will tell. One thing is clear, though. It would not be long before he packs and flees to the US for good. I mean, if he is lucky. Otherwise, the prosperity party may decide to take action before he flees. It is highly likely that this time he may not be as lucky as before.
The Rhetoric of Endings: Confusing Loss with Disappearance
In his latest Facebook post, Nasser Omer Ali offers a lucid reflection on an increasingly central tension in Ethiopian political discourse: the tendency to conflate strategic threats with existential ones. The occasion is the release of a new musical work by Teddy Afro, which reached millions of listeners within hours and immediately became a public event in its own right. The line that drew the most attention, evoking the rupture of a shared national rhythm, captures a widespread sense of fracture and discontinuity. But it is precisely here that a profound misreading takes hold. The perception of loss is rapidly translated into a diagnosis of national death. When a particular idea of Ethiopia is called into question, when power balances shift or established narratives are contested, the experience can feel like a shock. Yet a political shock is not the same as the disappearance of a political community. Collapsing these two registers narrows the space of the possible and transforms every change into an absolute threat. In this way, the language of crisis does not merely describe reality but actively constructs it, feeding a spiral in which every transformation is perceived as a step toward collapse.
The Absence of Trust and the Role of Institutions
To understand why this language proves so tenacious, a comparative perspective is useful. The European case offers a significant example of how the perception of threat can be transformed over time. After centuries of conflict, and above all after the Second World War, the countries of Europe arrived at a shared recognition that war among themselves could no longer be tolerated. This evolution has its roots in a long intellectual tradition reaching back to Immanuel Kant, but it was made concretely possible by the devastation of the twentieth century and by the support of the United States. From this process emerged first the European Community and then the European Union, marking a passage from a system grounded in competition to one oriented toward cooperation. In this framework, security gradually became a shared concern. In the Horn of Africa, by contrast, no comparable process has ever taken hold. In Ethiopia, political change is frequently experienced as an existential threat, while in Eritrea a mirror logic prevails, one in which any transformation is seen as a risk sufficient to justify its indefinite postponement. In one case, the nation appears to be dying because power is changing hands. In the other, the nation is held to survive precisely by preventing power from changing at all. Different contexts, the same inability to distinguish between stability and stasis. Without institutions capable of generating trust, every political shift becomes suspect and every transformation risks being read as a radical menace.
Art, Memory, and the Construction of Identity
Against this backdrop, the role of art becomes critically important. Teddy Afro is not merely a successful musician; he is a figure who exerts a profound influence on public language and collective imagination. In his earlier work, he has repeatedly drawn on the symbolism of the Ethiopian emperors, reinforcing a narrative centred on historical greatness and national continuity. This is not a neutral choice. While it resonates with and gives voice to widely shared anxieties, it also risks feeding precisely the kind of singular, totalising vision of identity that is part of the problem. In a country marked by a mosaic of diversity, art cannot be placed in the service of a self-founding national narrative, nor can it become an instrument for legitimising the centrality of one dominant group over others. An artist, precisely because of his influence, should create room for freedom, encourage encounter, and celebrate plurality. From an anthropological standpoint, identities are always multiple and in transformation. Cultures are not closed systems but dynamic realities built through continuous exchange. In this respect, the contribution of Amartya Sen is particularly relevant. In his volume Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny, published in 2006 by W. W. Norton and Company, Sen demonstrates how the reduction of identity to a single dimension is one of the primary sources of conflict. The case of the India-Pakistan partition shows how a rigid identity paradigm can produce deep and lasting fractures. Applied to the Ethiopian context, this suggests that the problem is not diversity itself, but the way in which it is narrated and organised politically.
From Fear to Strategic Clarity
If the crisis is at once institutional and linguistic, its resolution calls for a shift in perspective. Nasser Omer Ali’s analysis brings to light how the dominant narratives, however opposed they may appear, share a common premise. In Ethiopia, the argument runs that the nation is in danger because power is in transformation. In Eritrea, the argument runs in reverse: the permanence of power is legitimised precisely in the name of avoiding any transformation that might be perceived as destabilising. In both cases, the existence of the nation is made to coincide with a specific configuration of power. It is this equivalence that must be overcome. A nation is not a regime, nor a dominant group, nor a single historical narrative. It is an open process, capable of adapting, of renegotiating its own equilibria, and of making room for new forms of belonging. Moving from the politics of existential fear to a politics of strategic clarity means learning to distinguish between what genuinely threatens collective survival and what represents instead a shift in the distribution of power. It also means building institutions that make change predictable and therefore less traumatic. Without this, societies risk remaining trapped in a spiral in which every transformation produces new fears and every fear justifies new closures. The Horn of Africa stands today before a crucial choice: to continue interpreting change as an existential threat, or to begin constructing the conditions for a coexistence grounded in trust, plurality, and cooperation. That is where the possibility of a different future resides.
For nearly eighty years, American foreign policy has oscillated between sweeping global ambitions and consistently disappointing results. The gap is hard to ignore. No other power has ever assembled a comparable concentration of resources devoted to strategic planning. Elite universities, research institutions, sophisticated military establishments, intelligence agencies, and think tanks work continuously on the analysis of international scenarios. Layer on top of that advanced modeling, simulation, and theoretical frameworks such as game theory.
And yet the overall record remains defined by repeated failure. From Vietnam to Iraq, through Afghanistan and more recent crises, the same difficulty keeps resurfacing: an inability to convert material superiority into durable political outcomes. The argument here is not that the United States lacks competence, but that the competence it possesses is systematically misapplied. Decision-making appears fragmented, shaped by competing interests, and driven by an enduring overconfidence in the ability to manage complexity.
SUEZ AS A REVEALING EXCEPTION
The 1956 Suez Crisis stands as a rare counterexample — one of the few moments in its postwar history when American foreign policy displayed a strategic clarity it has rarely managed at any other point. By siding against France and Britain, and finding a point of convergence with the Soviet Union, Washington helped bring the curtain down on European colonial ambition in the region. This was not idealism. It was a coherent expression of realist national interest: supporting the old colonial powers would have weakened America’s standing in the emerging world and handed an advantage to its principal rival.
The episode demonstrates that a more selective and self-aware foreign policy was achievable. That is precisely why it remains an outlier. In the decades that followed, the capacity to read international balances of power steadily eroded, giving way to interventions driven more by political impulse and ideological momentum than by any clear ordering of priorities.
SOPHISTICATED THEORY, DISTORTED DECISIONS
One of the more striking features of this record is the distance between the quality of analysis and the weakness of the decisions that follow from it. Many of the foundational theories of international relations were developed in the United States and continue to be refined there. Realism counsels restraint and an honest reckoning with the limits of power; rational choice theory and game theory both presuppose coherence in the pursuit of objectives.
In practice, however, these frameworks are routinely ignored or applied selectively. Decision-making is shaped by inter-agency competition, bureaucratic inertia, and short electoral cycles. Decisions are not the product of a unified rational actor but of negotiated compromises among institutions with divergent interests. In this environment, even the most rigorous analysis tends to be diluted or reframed to fit the moment. The problem is not the absence of rationality but its dispersal.
THE MIDDLE EAST AND THE REPETITION OF ERROR
The Middle East provides the clearest illustration of this pattern. The invasion of Iraq destabilized the regional order and produced consequences directly contrary to its stated aims. The Afghanistan experience demonstrated how difficult it is to build functioning institutions in radically unfamiliar contexts. More recently, the decision to align American policy with the Israeli government’s posture toward Iran — an alignment that amounts to reckless aggression — represents a further step in this accumulation of self-inflicted failures.
Rather than consolidating its position, Washington has contributed to escalating tension while steadily narrowing the space for diplomatic resolution. The paradox repeats itself: the United States neglects its allies, then turns to them for support in managing crises it helped generate. The pattern holds — ambitious objectives, uncertain execution, counterproductive results, and eventual retreat.
INTERNAL INCENTIVES AND THE LIMITS OF POWER
The deeper causes of this pattern lie in structural features of American domestic politics that are difficult to override. The political system is calibrated for short-term decision-making, routinely driven by electoral and media imperatives. The relationship between policymakers and analytical expertise remains dysfunctional. Analysis is produced in abundance but rarely drives final decisions. The military-industrial complex creates persistent pressure to reach for military instruments even when they are not the most effective ones available.
Compounding all of this is a stubborn belief in the controllability of events. Recent history consistently demonstrates otherwise: complex environments, local dynamics, and cultural factors place sharp limits on what external intervention can achieve. Military superiority does not translate into lasting political results. What emerges is the portrait of a power capable of analyzing the world with considerable precision, yet far less capable of turning that knowledge into coherent action. The recurrence of these failures is not accidental. It is structural — and for that reason it will keep repeating.
Stand on the waterfront in Massawa on any given morning and you understand something that no satellite map can fully convey. The Red Sea is not just water. It is air. It is bread. It is the entire reason anyone ever cared that Eritrea existed. The sun comes up over the strait, the dhows move slowly against the horizon, and the port hums with the quiet logic of a country that has, for thirty years, tried to survive at the intersection of other people’s ambitions.
That intersection is now at the center of one of the most consequential and most fragile diplomatic moments of this decade. And to understand what is happening — not the headline version, but the structural version — you have to start somewhere most analysts refuse to start: with the world that made this conflict possible in the first place.
Stand on the waterfront in Massawa on any given morning and you understand something that no satellite map can fully convey. The Red Sea is not just water. It is air. It is bread. It is the entire reason anyone ever cared that Eritrea existed. The sun comes up over the strait, the dhows move slowly against the horizon, and the port hums with the quiet logic of a country that has, for thirty years, tried to survive at the intersection of other people’s ambitions.
That intersection is now at the center of one of the most consequential and most fragile diplomatic moments of this decade. And to understand what is happening — not the headline version, but the structural version — you have to start somewhere most analysts refuse to start: with the world that made this conflict possible in the first place.
To understand Eritrea’s position in this moment, you have to understand what thirty years of the unipolar world order actually meant for countries that didn’t fit its blueprint.
Eritrea gained independence in 1993 after a thirty-year liberation war — one of the longest and most brutal anti-colonial struggles in African history. It emerged into a world that had just declared itself organized: one superpower, one dominant set of institutions, one framework for what a “legitimate” state looked like and who got to decide. Small nations that complied received investment, security assurances, and access to markets. Small nations that didn’t were sanctioned, isolated, and described in the language of instability and rogue behavior.
Eritrea, from the beginning, refused to comply on terms it considered demeaning to its sovereignty. That refusal had real costs. In 2009, the United Nations — under significant American pressure — imposed sanctions on Eritrea, accusing it of supporting al-Shabaab in Somalia. Eritrea denied the charges, and independent analysts raised serious doubts about the evidence. The sanctions stayed for nearly a decade. Investment dried up. Debt mounted. The economy that should have been built — the one that might have given young Eritreans a reason to stay — was never built. Today, more than 660,000 Eritreans, roughly one in five citizens, live in exile. They did not leave because of geography. They left because the economic ground under them was never allowed to solidify.
This is what the unipolar order looked like from the receiving end. Not the version described in Washington think tanks or Brussels policy papers — the version experienced in Asmara, in Massawa, in the lives of people who watched opportunities disappear under the weight of external pressure that was applied not because Eritrea was a threat to anyone, but because it would not be managed.
When the West withdrew, others filled the space. That is not a moral argument for any particular partnership. It is simply what happens when a country is pushed to the margins and then expected to survive anyway. Russia arrived at Massawa. The UAE set up at Assab. Iran, which had its own long, intimate familiarity with the experience of being sanctioned into a corner, rebuilt relationships it had cultivated since the early 2000s. China watched from a careful distance, investing in infrastructure, asking few questions about governance, offering the kind of transactional partnership that the Western-led order had always withheld.
None of these relationships were born of ideology. They were born of exclusion. That is a crucial distinction that the Western media — which spent this war analyzing Iranian logistics routes in Eritrean ports as though they appeared from nowhere — almost entirely failed to make.
The ceasefire itself, fragile as it is, carries the same structural story.
Iran’s Strait of Hormuz remained largely closed as of Thursday morning, which was the core U.S. condition for the truce — unmet on day one. Israel endorsed the ceasefire with one hand and with the other launched the single deadliest day of airstrikes on Lebanon in the entire war, killing at least 254 people. Hezbollah warned that if Israel doesn’t stop, “no party will adhere” to the truce. Iran’s IRGC said it would keep its “fingers on the trigger.” An Israeli-made surveillance drone was shot down over Iranian airspace within hours. Iran’s parliament speaker accused the United States of violating three clauses of the agreed framework before the first day was over.
What we are watching is not peace. It is two exhausted powers being separated by a referee neither fully trusts, standing in their corners, breathing hard, each claiming victory, neither willing to give ground on the things that actually matter.
The Lebanon question is the most revealing fault line. Iran insists the ceasefire must cover Lebanon, where Hezbollah is being devastated by Israeli strikes. Israel and the United States insist it does not. This is not a dispute about contract language. It is the central contradiction of the entire deal laid bare: the United States negotiated a pause in one theater while its closest ally continued full operations in another, and then expressed surprise that the other side found this unreasonable. Former Biden Iran envoy Robert Malley said the negotiations are “commencing on very shaky foundations.” That is diplomatic understatement for a deal assembled under a midnight deadline, announced on social media, and contested within hours of going into effect.
Vice President JD Vance will lead the U.S. delegation to Islamabad on Saturday alongside Witkoff and Kushner, with Iran’s delegation already traveling. Pakistan will host. That image — the United States negotiating under Pakistani facilitation, on Pakistani soil, over a conflict it launched — would have been unthinkable in the high noon of the unipolar era. It is the architecture of the emerging order, visible in a single diplomatic itinerary.
For Eritrea, the stakes of what happens in Islamabad are not abstract. They are coastal, economic, and existential.
The Bab el-Mandeb Strait — the 18-mile chokepoint where the Red Sea narrows into the Gulf of Aden — runs directly past Eritrea’s southern shore. Before this war, roughly a fifth of the world’s maritime trade passed through it every day. The war shut that down. Shipping companies rerouted around the Cape of Good Hope, adding two weeks and up to 40 percent to the cost of moving goods between Asia and Europe. Eritrea’s ports, which might have benefited from increased regional trade, instead sat in the shadow of a conflict that treated the entire Red Sea as a war zone.
If the ceasefire holds and evolves into a genuine agreement, those shipping lanes reopen. Eritrea’s geographic position — which the unipolar order treated as a liability to be managed — becomes an asset in a multipolar world that values connectivity over control. The ports of Assab and Massawa could become exactly what they were always meant to be: commercial gateways on one of the world’s most important waterways. There is real economic hope in that scenario, for a country that has been waiting thirty years for its geography to work in its favor rather than against it.
If the ceasefire collapses — if Trump follows through on his warning of “bigger and better” attacks, if the Islamabad talks fail, if the Lebanon contradiction tears the deal apart before it has any chance to breathe — then the Red Sea becomes a war zone again, the shipping lanes stay closed, and Eritrea absorbs costs it had no role in creating. Small nations on the margins of great power conflicts do not get to choose their exposure. They inherit it.
This is not a story unique to Eritrea. It is the story of dozens of countries across Africa, Asia, and Latin America that spent thirty years being told the unipolar order was the only order, that compliance was the only option, and that their sovereignty was negotiable whenever Washington decided it needed to be. Iran lived that story. So did Venezuela, Cuba, Syria, Zimbabwe, North Korea, and many others. Each found its own way to survive outside the system. The partnerships those countries formed with each other were not products of shared ideology — they were products of shared exclusion.
What the world is now witnessing, in the chaos and the fragility and the Pakistani mediation and the competing 10-point proposals, is the settlement of that thirty-year account. The unipolar order built its power on the assumption that it could sanction, isolate, and bomb its way to compliance. The Iran war is the moment that assumption was tested against reality — and found wanting.
There is one more dimension that never quite makes it into the international coverage, and it matters enormously to the people who actually live in Eritrea.
Ordinary Eritreans did not design their country’s foreign policy. They did not choose which powers arrived at their ports or what those powers brought with them. What they did was endure — decades of conscription, economic stagnation, restricted movement, and a diplomatic isolation imposed from outside as much as it was constructed from within. The international sanctions that contributed to that isolation were not applied because Eritrea was a danger to global peace. They were applied because Eritrea would not be compliant, and the unipolar order had very little patience for small countries that insisted on their own terms.
Over 660,000 Eritreans live outside their country today. They are not economic migrants in any comfortable sense of the phrase. They are the human cost of a system that punished sovereignty and then expressed shock when the people trapped inside it tried to leave.
The world watches Pakistan broker a ceasefire between two powers who each believe they won. Egypt calls it a “vital opportunity.” Malaysia calls it a “significant advancement.” The Pope called Trump’s threats to obliterate Iranian civilization “truly unacceptable” — a sentence that would have been extraordinary in any previous decade and passed almost without comment in this one. Trump kept all U.S. military forces stationed around Iran, warning that the “real agreement” must be fully complied with — the language of a power that has not yet fully absorbed the idea that the world has changed.
In Eritrea, people go to Massawa, watch the water, and wait. They have been waiting a long time — not for permission from anyone, but for the moment when the world finally becomes what it has been slowly, painfully becoming: a place where more than one set of interests counts, where more than one kind of legitimacy is recognized, where countries that fought for their independence and paid dearly for it are finally allowed to exist on their own terms.
That world is not here yet. The ceasefire is fragile. Islamabad may produce an agreement or it may produce another impasse. But the fact that it is happening in Islamabad, brokered by Pakistan, between parties whose conflict shook the foundations of a thirty-year order — that is not a detail. That is the headline. That is the story.
The unipolar world is settling its debts. Countries like Eritrea, who paid those debts without incurring them, are watching from the shore — and for the first time in a long time, what happens next is genuinely open.
The African Union’s decision to appoint former Tanzanian president Jakaya Kikwete as High Representative for the Horn of Africa and the Red Sea comes at a difficult moment for the region. The AU says his task will be to support preventive diplomacy, political dialogue, confidence-building, and coordination with regional and international bodies working on peace and security.
That sounds straightforward on paper. In reality, he is stepping into one of the most tense and crowded political theaters in Africa.
The Horn of Africa and the Red Sea are no longer separate security spaces. What happens on land now quickly affects the sea, and what happens at sea quickly affects politics on land. A war in Sudan can shake Red Sea port security. Attacks on commercial shipping near Bab el-Mandeb can disrupt trade routes, raise costs, and increase outside military activity. A dispute over port access in one corner of the region can trigger diplomatic pressure, military partnerships, and competing alliances somewhere else. Everything is connected now, and that is what makes the region so difficult to manage.
For Eritrea, this matters in very practical ways. The issue is not only war or peace in the abstract. It is sovereignty. It is whether outside powers and larger neighboring states use regional instability to push political agendas, military presence, or pressure over ports and sea access. It is also about coastal security, trade resilience, and protecting the country from being dragged into conflicts that do not serve Eritrean interests.
The danger today is coming from many directions at once. Sudan remains one of the biggest sources of instability in the western Red Sea corridor. The war there has created armed supply routes, mass displacement, and new opportunities for outside powers seeking influence along the coast. In the east, the aftershocks of Ethiopia’s push for maritime access continue to shape politics between Addis Ababa, Mogadishu, and Somaliland. In the wider Red Sea, attacks on shipping and the growing use of drones and missiles have shown how quickly maritime insecurity can disrupt global trade and attract foreign military responses.
This is the environment Kikwete now has to work in.
He is not arriving as a commander with enforcement power. He is arriving as a political coordinator. That distinction matters. His role is to talk, align, persuade, calm tensions, and reduce diplomatic fragmentation. He can help create channels between governments. He can encourage confidence-building steps. He can help reduce the number of competing mediation tracks that often allow armed actors to play one platform against another. But he cannot impose solutions by force, and that limits what even a skilled envoy can achieve.
Still, Kikwete is not without assets.
He is a former head of state with long experience in government and diplomacy. He served as president of Tanzania from 2005 to 2015 and held senior ministerial roles before that. He has also worked in AU-related diplomacy before, including as AU High Representative for Libya. Those experiences give him credibility, access, and familiarity with the slow, difficult work of mediation. He knows how continental diplomacy functions. He knows how to speak to presidents, ministers, donors, and institutions. That gives him a level of reach that many ordinary envoys do not have.
But experience alone will not make him effective.
His biggest challenge will be the region itself. The Horn is full of overlapping crises, and each one has its own local actors, outside backers, and political sensitivities. Sudan is burning. Somalia remains fragile. Ethiopia’s regional ambitions continue to create anxiety. Djibouti remains a center of foreign military competition. Gulf states, Turkey, the United States, China, the European Union, Russia, Iran, and Israel all have interests tied in one way or another to the Red Sea corridor. In such an environment, peace efforts often do not fail because there is no envoy. They fail because too many actors want different outcomes.
That is why Kikwete’s real test will be whether he can reduce political noise and produce practical risk reduction.
If he is effective, it will probably not be because he delivers one dramatic grand bargain. It will be because he helps lower the temperature. He may be able to encourage quiet diplomacy between states that no longer trust each other. He may help create rules or understandings around incidents at sea, along borders, or near ports. He may help bring more coherence between the AU, IGAD, the UN, and Arab institutions that often work in parallel instead of together. In a region this volatile, even modest diplomatic order can have real value.
From an Eritrean point of view, however, engagement must be cautious and clear-eyed.
Any regional framework that ignores sovereignty, rewards pressure politics, or normalizes aggressive narratives about access to the Red Sea will not bring stability. It will deepen mistrust. Eritrea therefore has a strong interest in engaging Kikwete’s office early, firmly, and on clear principles: respect for sovereignty, rejection of coercive sea-access politics, non-interference, and equal treatment of littoral states. If the AU wants confidence-building, it must begin from those principles, not from the idea that smaller states should absorb the demands of larger ones in the name of regional compromise.
That is also where Kikwete’s neutrality will be tested. In theory, he is expected to serve peace. In practice, every envoy operates inside institutional and political pressure. The AU wants unity. External partners want stability on their terms. Powerful states want their interests protected. Smaller states want guarantees that “dialogue” will not become a polite word for pressure. Kikwete will have to navigate all of that. His success will depend not only on his skill, but on whether he can convince the region that he is there to reduce danger, not to package it more elegantly.
The Horn of Africa does not need more diplomatic ceremony. It needs disciplined, honest engagement rooted in reality. It needs less fragmentation, fewer proxy games, and more respect for the security concerns of states that sit directly on the fault lines of the Red Sea.
Kikwete brings stature and experience to the job. That gives the AU a chance. But in a region shaped by war, rivalry, and outside competition, the real measure of his work will be simple: can he help prevent the next crisis from becoming a larger one?
For Eritrea, that is the question that matters most.
Since the opening of hostilities with Iran — now entering its fourth week — commentators and analysts across the world have scrambled to explain the American decision to open a confrontation of this scale. No convincing answer has emerged. Interpretations have piled up without a common thread: some pointed to subservience to Israel, others to Trump’s improvisation, his private financial entanglements, or the long-term strategic rivalry with China. All plausible readings; none fully satisfying.
It may be worth considering a different hypothesis: that the rationale exists, but has been deliberately constructed to remain invisible. The apparent confusion, the contradictory statements, the ill-timed remarks may not be signs of improvisation at all, but elements of a deliberate strategy — keeping public opinion off-balance while the war machine does its work. Buying time. Or, in the older metaphor, boiling the frog.
II. A long war, perhaps planned from the start
By the twenty-first day of the conflict, American military operations display a continuity that leaves little room for short-term improvisation. Reports filtering through established channels suggest troop movements toward the theater of operations that would require weeks on logistics alone. Two readings are possible. The first: Washington found itself more bogged down than expected and is now struggling to adapt. The second: a long war was always the plan, and the opening weeks were designed to ease domestic and international opinion into accepting the conflict’s existence.
The two are not mutually exclusive, but the second receives far less attention than it deserves. It is also worth noting that the charge of irrationality is leveled almost exclusively at the United States, rarely at Israel, whose objectives are considerably clearer. But what Israel wants from this war and what Washington wants may be two very different things, with strategies that only partially overlap. This distinction matters: conflating them obscures both.
III. Trump is the face. The strategy runs deeper.
Here is where the two readings converge into something more troubling. If Washington’s aims cannot be fully explained by the immediate military objectives, it may be because those objectives are not, in fact, the primary target. The real aim of American strategy may not be Iran at all, but the international system as a whole. Not military conquest, but something more subtle: weakening the rest of the world enough to make America look stronger — even without America having actually become stronger. Relative power is what counts, not absolute strength. If the others fall back, you move forward regardless.
It would be a mistake, though, to pin this reading on Trump alone. Trump is the visible face of a much broader and more durable coalition of interests. Behind him stands the military-industrial complex, which thrives on prolonged conflict. There are the major technology platforms and figures like Peter Thiel, who have openly invested in an alternative vision of the global political order. There are investment funds with strategic exposure to energy and commodities that benefit directly from instability. These are structures that do not depend on electoral cycles and that plan on decade-long horizons.
The logic behind all this is what Schumpeter called creative destruction: collapsing a system in order to create the conditions for building a new one. The concrete signals are already visible. China has suspended fertilizer exports, with potentially severe consequences for global food production. The damage to energy infrastructure in the Gulf will be measured in years, not months. Sovereign debts under strain, weakened currencies, fractured supply chains: not an explosion, but a slow, silent erosion — the kind that is hardest to stop precisely because it is hardest to see.
IV. The slow catastrophe, and who benefits from its invisibility
The outcome of this process, if the hypothesis holds, would not be a world defeated militarily. It would be a tired world — disoriented, too consumed by its own crises to mount any credible alternative to American hegemony. The deterioration would be incremental, with no single dramatic moment to point to as the break. That is precisely the mechanism of the boiling frog: there is never a clear moment to push back, because each individual step seems survivable on its own.
In that scenario, the United States would emerge with a significant relative advantage — not necessarily richer or stronger in absolute terms, but surrounded by a weaker, more dependent world, more willing to accept Washington’s terms. A hegemony no longer built on persuasion or multilateral institutions, but on hard power, undisguised and unapologetic.
There would be domestic costs: economic strain, likely electoral losses in the midterms, institutional friction. But this is where the picture grows genuinely disturbing. Several figures in the coalition around Trump have shown sustained interest in restructuring American institutional constraints themselves — not merely in winning within the system, but in rewriting the rules that govern it. The domestic and international projects may be two dimensions of the same ambition.
What we may be witnessing, then, is not the chaos of a miscalculated war. It is the first phase — deliberately opaque — of an attempt to redraw the global distribution of power. The confusion is not a bug. It is load-bearing. This is a hypothesis, not a verdict. But some hypotheses deserve to be taken seriously. Especially the ones we would rather not consider.
May this blessed day bring peace, strength, and unity to your families and communities. May it be a time of reflection, dignity, and hope for a better future.
There are moments in history when a resource becomes more than a commodity. It becomes a test. Copper is now that test.
The world is entering an era where electrification is no longer optional. Power grids must expand, vehicles must transition, and data must move faster and farther. Beneath all of it, quiet, unseen, but indispensable, lies copper. Yet the world is waking up to a difficult truth. It does not have enough.
This is not speculation. It is a structural reality. Demand is rising faster than supply can respond. New mines take decades, financing is cautious, and political risk is rising. The global system is tightening, and in that tightening space, countries like Eritrea come into focus, not because they dominate the market, but because in a constrained world, even modest producers begin to matter.
Eritrea Is Not Large, But It Is Not Irrelevant
Eritrea’s copper story is not one of scale. It is one of positioning. At present, the country’s production is anchored in the Bisha mine, operated through a partnership between the Eritrean National Mining Corporation and Zijin Mining Group. Bisha produces roughly twenty thousand tonnes of copper annually. It is steady and functional, but it is not transformative on its own.
The real question lies elsewhere, beneath Asmara. The Asmara Mining Share Company controls a polymetallic system that has long been known and studied, and now appears to be slowly moving toward development. If fully realized, it could change Eritrea’s position, not globally, but regionally and strategically. In a world facing shortage, that difference matters.
The Illusion of Abundance and the Reality of Constraint
There is a quiet contradiction shaping the global economy. On one hand, the world speaks confidently about green transitions, digital expansion, and industrial growth. On the other hand, the material foundation of that future is under strain.
Copper is not easily replaced. It is efficient, durable, and essential. Electric vehicles demand multiples of it. Renewable energy systems depend on it, and even the invisible world of data relies on it. But supply does not respond to ambition. It responds to time, capital, and stability, and all three are in short supply.
So the gap widens. And when the gap widens, the map changes.
Eritrea’s Advantage Is Timing, But Timing Alone Is Not Enough
Eritrea is not starting from zero. That is its quiet strength. Bisha is producing, infrastructure exists, and export channels are already established, primarily flowing toward China, where the world’s largest smelting system absorbs concentrate.
This matters because the global copper challenge is not just about discovering resources. It is about bringing them online in time. Eritrea, if it moves with clarity, can position itself within that narrow window.
But timing alone does not create value. It only creates opportunity.
The Deeper Question: Who Benefits?
This is where the conversation must become honest. For decades, Africa has exported raw materials while importing finished value. Eritrea cannot afford to repeat this pattern without reflection.
Copper leaving the country as concentrate generates income, but limited transformation. The deeper question is not how much copper Eritrea has. It is how much of its value Eritrea keeps.
This is not an ideological question. It is a practical one. Are revenues transparent? Are workers protected and skilled? Are local industries growing around the sector? Is infrastructure improving beyond the mine itself?
If the answers remain unclear, then the resource becomes an extraction story, not a development story.
The Risks Are Real, And Ignoring Them Is Not Strength
There is a tendency in some narratives to dismiss criticism as external pressure. That is a mistake. A nation that believes in its sovereignty must also believe in its responsibility.
Eritrea’s mining sector faces real concerns, particularly around labor practices, governance, and transparency. These issues influence investment decisions, market access, and long-term credibility. In today’s world, resources do not move freely. They move through systems shaped by law, finance, and reputation.
If Eritrea wants to be a reliable supplier, it must also be a trusted one. Trust cannot be demanded. It must be built.
Geography Is a Gift, But Also a Risk
Eritrea’s access to the Red Sea is often described as an advantage, and it is. But geography alone does not guarantee success.
The same corridor that offers access to global markets is also exposed to regional instability. Shipping routes shift, insurance costs rise, and confidence fluctuates. In a tight copper market, reliability becomes as important as volume.
Eritrea’s long-term strength will depend not just on what it produces, but on whether it can deliver consistently, predictably, and without disruption.
A Narrow Path Forward
Eritrea does not need to become a global giant to benefit from copper. It needs to become disciplined.
The path forward is deliberate. It requires building transparency into revenue systems, investing in skills rather than just extraction, strengthening labor protections with credibility, expanding value gradually in line with capacity, and using mining revenues to support broader economic sectors.
This is not a quick transformation, but it is a durable one.
Conclusion: The Test of Maturity
Copper is not just a metal in this moment. It is a mirror. It reflects how nations manage opportunity, how they balance sovereignty with responsibility, and how they prepare for a future that demands more than raw extraction.
Eritrea stands at that edge. It has resources, position, and time, though not unlimited. What it does next will determine whether copper becomes another chapter of missed potential or the beginning of something more grounded, more self-reliant, and more aligned with the dignity of the nation.
The world is tightening. And in that tightening, Eritrea has a chance, not to follow, but to define its own path.
