Eritrea may have attempted to undermine Ethiopia using every tool at its disposal. This may include military force, political disruption, backing insurgent factions, spreading propaganda, and engaging in regional manipulation. Yet, Ethiopia has not crumbled. On the contrary, in spite of significant domestic difficulties, Ethiopia persists in showing economic resilience, political adaptability, and an expanding ability to maintain security. Thus, the current narrative of Ethiopia is not that of a state conquered through a proxy conflict. Rather, it is the tale of a country advancing in economic resilience, political adaptability, and security capability.
Historically, Eritrea has viewed a powerful Ethiopia as a strategic threat. The recently reported alliance among the Amhara Fano, the Tigray Peoples Liberation Front (TPLF), and the Oromo Liberation Army ("Shene") serves as the newest example of this tactic. This coalition, more commonly known as "Tsimdo," is contracted to carry out Eritrea's bid.
Logic of the proxy war
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Without exaggeration, however, the strategic picture is alarming enough. It looks like a political hydra. Because they believe Addis Ababa to be the bigger impediment, three heads that have previously bitten each other are briefly moving in the same direction. In consequence, Ethiopia will be dragged into a proxy conflict where other parties might achieve strategic goals at the expense of Ethiopia. The backing of regional militias by Asmara shows transgressions of international standards of non-occupation and non-interference. From Ethiopia's perspective, such acts not only threaten its authority at home but also upset the precarious regional equilibrium.
From a narrow realism perspective, it would make strategic sense for Eritrea to help or foster Ethiopia's internal rivals if the goal was to keep Ethiopia from gaining complete dominance in the Horn of Africa. However, there is a significant inconsistency in this approach. It is possible that a weaker Ethiopia will not make Eritrea safer. Refugee flows, the spread of weapons, international crime, unchecked militias, and increased interstate instability are all consequences of fragmentation. To put it another way, a fire ignited to weaken a neighbor may eventually spread across the border and destroy the home of the person who started it. Because local actors have their own interests and may eventually pursue goals distinct from those of their foreign sponsor, proxy warfare is therefore intrinsically challenging to govern.
The Calculus of "the enemy of my enemy"
This is a political part of intervention. It functions through clandestine involvement and coalition building rather than overt confrontation. From a historical perspective, it is easy to identify the origins of numerous groups that reject the peaceful efforts of the federal government. Eritrean illusions of becoming "Singapore of the Horn of Africa" drives their desire to make Ethiopia weak and unstable. This is the classical reasoning behind the indirect strategy. Therefore, the purported "Tsimdo" alignment is important not just because three armed adversaries are working together, but also because it may lead to a security puzzle on multiple fronts.
This leads to the assumption that the federal government may have to deal with armed pressure in multiple areas at the same time if these confrontations are strategically coordinated. According to political scientist Stephen Walt's balance-of-threat theory, states and organizations typically band together, to oppose what they considered the biggest threat, which helps explain why seemingly incompatible parties would collaborate. In this instance, despite the parties' strong disagreements over Ethiopia's constitutional order, territorial disputes, identity politics, and the allocation of political power, the federal government may end up becoming the shared target.
The irony is that one may not always be friends with the enemy of his enemy. The political history and goals of Fano, TPLF, and OLA are essentially dissimilar. Conflicts over land, nationalism, federalism, political representation, and the future organization of the Ethiopian government shall not be resolved by their collaboration. Because they can agree on whom they oppose without agreeing on what should take the place of the current order, what unites them is their hatred towards the federal government, indicating negative rather than positive coalition.
This is the classic weakness of temporary coalitions. Machiavelli understood this political reality centuries ago. Alliances born of necessity tend to survive only as long as that necessity outweighs the partners' differing interests. Once the common adversary weakened, internal contradictions can quickly return. As the proverb says, "Two enemies may share a roof when the rain is heavy, but they may fight again when the sun comes out."
What is more important is that after alliance formations, contradictions have increasingly surfaced in the public domain. Rather than projecting a unified political and military front, representatives and supporters of various rival groups frequently shift blame onto one another for setbacks, criticize each other through the media, and advance conflicting visions of Ethiopia's political future. This reflects the classic dilemma of a negative coalition. Such alliances tend to be strongest when united against a shared adversary and weakest when confronted with the question: What comes after victory?
The latest prevocational operations also offers an even more crucial test. The provocations by TPLF and its ally near Shererina and Raya area showed that political declarations do not automatically translate into military gains. Regardless of conflicting accounts about casualties and battlefield shifts, the anticipated large-scale strategic breakthrough against the federal government failed to materialize. Instead, the ENDF and regional security forces demonstrated their ongoing capacity to mobilize, respond, and retain the strategic upper hand. The key takeaway is that an insurgency capable of creating instability is not necessarily one capable of overthrowing the state.
The criminal economy underneath the politics
One additional dimension that merits considerably more attention is the matter of war economies. Reports indicate that Eritrea is undermining Ethiopia's economic stability through covert means, such as encouraging illicit cross-border commerce and unofficial currency trading on the black market. Eritrean linked networks are allegedly disrupting the value of the Ethiopian Birr by running informal currency exchange operations near the northern frontier, where they provide above-market rates for foreign currencies.
Findings from inquiries suggest that high-value merchandise is being trafficked out of Ethiopia into Eritrea, bypassing customs controls and stripping Ethiopia of essential earnings from foreign currency. Smuggling, sometimes linked to the Eritrean Defense Forces (EDF) and allied militias, finances operations and maintains influence in border regions. These illicit flows destabilize Ethiopia's economy by weakening its fiscal capacity, inflating prices, and eroding trust in formal institutions. Eritrea's resource extraction, currency manipulation, and informal trade suggest a deliberate or opportunistic effort to undermine Ethiopia's economic sovereignty and bolster Eritrea's regional advantage.
Nevertheless, the broader political economy theory of conflict shows that when violence creates economic rewards for armed entrepreneurs, war can take on a self-perpetuating nature. If war turns into a means of making a living, peace becomes an economic danger. The weapon is no longer just a political tool; it has become a resource for certain actors to gain both influence and financial benefit.
Propaganda as the battlefield
Eritrea's interference extends into the realm of information and identity politics. "Control the narrative, and you multiply the power of the gun," is its maxim. Hence, manipulating narratives around ethnicity, regional autonomy, and nationalism, Eritrea has reportedly amplified internal divisions within Ethiopia's federal system. Information campaigns, propaganda, and media networks sympathetic to Asmara have contributed to shaping perceptions about the legitimacy of Ethiopia's central government and its policies. These propaganda strategies exploit Ethiopia's internal polarization, particularly along ethnic and political lines, thereby undermining cohesion and public trust. In this sense, interference operates not only through physical presence but also through the symbolic and discursive realm of identity politics, a key factor in Ethiopia's complex political landscape.
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Ethiopia must break the cycle
Eritrea may have tried to weaken Ethiopia through military aggression, political meddling, proxy forces, and propaganda operations. However, the evidence now emerging points to a result very different from what such an illusion plan would anticipate. Tsimdo remains politically fragile, lacks any integration, and fractured by deep-seated disagreements. The federal security apparatus has adapted rather than being broken down. The economy has held up instead of collapsing. The political framework remains a subject of contention, yet it persistently pursues institutional solutions. Ethiopia continues to hold a pivotal role as a regional power, and its strategic influence could not be easily nullified by means of proxy conflicts.
The greatest victory, ultimately, will not be the defeat of one rivalry group by another. It will be the creation of an Ethiopia, in which no domestic actor needs a foreign patron, an armed militia or a propaganda war to secure its political future. The alternative approach taken by the federal government carries notable political weight. Instead of relying solely on military action, Addis Ababa has progressively framed peace, negotiation, and political engagement as a viable path forward. This establishes a key political distinction from armed groups that persist in using force to achieve their aims.
The key takeaway, then, is not that Ethiopia has no difficulties. It is that Ethiopia has shown something more significant than invulnerability: resilience. That may be the ultimate failure of the proxy strategy. The intended target was weakening Ethiopia with each crisis. Instead, Ethiopia is learning to grow stronger because of them. The storm came to shatter the tree. The tree bent, lost limbs, and bore wounds. Yet, it did not fall. While the storm still rages, its roots are sinking deeper.
Legesse Tulu (PhD) is an Ethiopian diplomat, senior government official, and policy communicator currently serving as Ambassador of Ethiopia to Djibouti and Permanent Representative to the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD). He previously served as Minister of the Government Communication Service under Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed.
