Addis Abeba — When Ethiopia's prime minister received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019, it reflected global optimism that one of the Horn of Africa's pivotal states had chosen institutional peace over militarized politics, reconciliation over coercion, and regional cooperation over zero-sum rivalry. That optimism has since evaporated.
The 2018-2019 peace agreement with Eritrea, which underpinned the Nobel citation, was never anchored in constitutional processes, parliamentary oversight, or public accountability. It remained a personalized pact between the two leaders, insulated from scrutiny and detached from institutions. Within a short period, the celebrated rapprochement morphed into a covert war alliance. By 2020, the language of peace had given way to the machinery of war, culminating in the devastating war in Tigray. What was hailed internationally as reconciliation became, domestically, a prelude to mass violence against Ethiopian citizens.
This pattern, expansive rhetoric paired with destabilizing outcomes, has since come to define Ethiopia's regional posture.
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The January 2024 Memorandum of Understanding with Somaliland followed the same trajectory, though without immediate war. Announced without legal clarity, regional consultation, or sensitivity to Somalia's sovereignty, the MoU was framed as a historic breakthrough to secure Ethiopia's access to the sea in return for Somaliland's recognition as an independent state. Instead, it triggered predictable counter-alignments. Somalia, viewing the deal as a direct challenge to its "territorial integrity", escalated diplomatically and sought external backing. Egypt, Ethiopia's principal rival over the Nile, moved swiftly, deploying troops to Somalia under an African Union framework. Through its own diplomatic miscalculation, Addis Abeba facilitated the military entry of its chief adversary into a neighboring country. Rather than strengthening Ethiopia's strategic position, the Somaliland MoU accelerated regional militarization and weakened Ethiopia's standing within continental peacekeeping arrangements.
Efforts to contain the fallout came late. In December 2024, Ethiopia and Somalia attempted to reset relations through the Ankara Declaration, reaffirming Somalia's sovereignty and territorial integrity while acknowledging Ethiopia's interest in assured sea access. By then, however, the strategic damage had already been done.
The regional environment has since grown more complex. Israel's recognition of Somaliland, the first by any UN member state, introduced a new and destabilizing variable. The move drew condemnations from Djibouti, Egypt, the African Union, and the European Union, among others. For Ethiopia, Israel's decision complicates an already delicate calculus. Addis Abeba has long maintained close but discreet ties with Somaliland while withholding formal recognition, a hedged posture captured by the late Prime Minister Meles Zenawi's remark that Ethiopia would be "neither the first nor the third" to recognize it. That ambiguity is now increasingly costly, narrowing Ethiopia's diplomatic room for maneuver.
At the same time, the Saudi-UAE rivalry has erupted openly in Yemen, with direct repercussions across the Red Sea and the Horn of Africa. Riyadh has moved to curtail Abu Dhabi's influence, ordering the withdrawal of UAE-linked forces and seeking to subordinate Emirati-backed factions. The hostility between the two states is no longer discreet but openly confrontational, reflecting what one regional expert called "a new order being defined." In the Horn, the UAE has built influence through ports, privatized security arrangements, and political financing in Somalia, Somaliland, Sudan and beyond, while Saudi Arabia increasingly positions itself as a counterweight. Ethiopia's close strategic partnership with Abu Dhabi now sits uneasily within this shifting alignment, particularly as Riyadh and Cairo converge on Red Sea and Horn of Africa security.
This tension became explicit when, this week, Somalia's Council of Ministers announced the termination of all commercial, security, and defense agreements with the United Arab Emirates, citing the need to safeguard sovereignty and constitutional order. The decision came barely a week after Ethiopia and the UAE signed a "comprehensive and strategic partnership" committing to the promotion and defense of each other's peace, security, territorial integrity, and economic interests. Somalia's move underscored how Ethiopia's neighborhood has become an arena for intersecting external rivalries, one in which Addis Abeba's room for maneuver is steadily shrinking.
Ethiopia's western frontier adds another layer of vulnerability. Sudan's civil war has fully internationalized, with the United Nations warning of sprawling arms, financial, and political networks threatening regional spillover. The UN has cautioned that such unregulated flows could ignite the next conflict not only in Chad or South Sudan, but potentially in Ethiopia itself. Egypt, through joint defense arrangements with Sudan, has leveraged this instability to exert additional pressure on Addis Abeba, while Eritrea's coordination with both Cairo and Khartoum along the Red Sea further constrains Ethiopia's strategic maneuverability.
These external pressures intersect with profound internal fragilities. Ethiopia's National Defense Force has been tested by prolonged domestic conflicts and political purges, particularly of experienced Tigrayan officers, while simultaneous wars in Oromia and Amhara overstretch resources and erode cohesion. The incomplete implementation of the Pretoria Agreement leaves core grievances unresolved, sustaining the risk of renewed conflict.
Yet against this backdrop of internal weakness, Ethiopia's leadership has increasingly framed Red Sea access as an existential national question. In a September 2025 statement, the Ethiopian National Defense Forces described denial of Ethiopia's claim over the Red Sea and the Port of Assab as having "no water-tight rationale other than banditry," calling the issue "the pain of our Ethiopia for over three decades" that has "diminished the honor of [the] nationhood." Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has argued that "any Ethiopian who thinks Ethiopia will forever remain a prisoner of geography is a dead person," while senior defense officials have repeatedly described sea access, particularly through Eritrea's Assab, as a "historical right and a matter of survival."
Decisions presented as "bold" or "historic" have repeatedly produced counter-alignments that advantage Ethiopia's rivals, particularly Egypt, which now exerts pressure from the east through Somalia and Djibouti, from the west via Sudan, and from the north through coordination with Eritrea. The cumulative effect is sobering. Sudanese entanglements, the Somaliland misstep, Red Sea tensions, Gulf rivalries, and unresolved domestic conflicts are converging to push the Horn of Africa toward deeper instability.
The case for a radical reversal
Ethiopia's foreign policy drift has collided with a hard reality: no state can project strength externally while fractured internally. Ethiopia today faces not a deficit of ambition, but a deficit of stability, cohesion, and institutional trust. In this context, assertive diplomacy divorced from domestic consolidation of peace and stability is not leverage but liability.
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A credible reversal must begin at home. Restoring internal stability through the full and faithful implementation of the Pretoria Agreement and ending active internal conflicts are not optional; they are the foundation of any sustainable foreign policy. Without domestic cohesion, external assertiveness only accelerates encirclement.
Second, Ethiopia must abandon personalized, ad hoc diplomacy in favor of institutional, predictable, and law-bound foreign policy instruments. Major strategic decisions, including those on ports, security partnerships, and regional alignments, must be anchored in constitutional processes, parliamentary oversight, and transparent public accountability. Predictability, not bravado, reassures neighbors and constrains rivals.
Finally, Ethiopia must recalibrate its regional posture from existential confrontation to strategic realism. Access to the sea is an economic and diplomatic challenge, not a casus belli. Framing it as a matter of survival militarizes diplomacy, alienates partners, and legitimizes counter-balancing coalitions. Ethiopia's long-term security lies not in coercive leverage, but in negotiated arrangements grounded in trust, reciprocity, and regional interdependence.
Ethiopia's descent from Nobel promise to regional precarity is not inevitable. But reversing it requires confronting uncomfortable truths: that peace was proclaimed without being secured, that ambition has outpaced capacity, and that internal fragility has been masked by external bravado. Until domestic stability is restored and foreign policy rebuilt on institutional foundations, Ethiopia's claims to regional leadership will remain fragile, and the Horn of Africa will continue to bear the cost of a peace that was promised, but never anchored.
