Two coalitions of states have taken shape in the Horn of Africa, with extra-regional actors also playing a notable role. The division into opposing blocs is rooted in key questions of the region’s security and development: the national self-determination of peoples, the demarcation and delimitation of interstate borders, the right of landlocked states to access the open sea, and the establishment of a fair legal regime for water use, writes Maxim Shepovalenko, Deputy Director of the Centre for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies (CAST).
For global trade, the Horn of Africa is as significant a region as the Persian Gulf, while the Bab el-Mandeb, much like the Strait of Hormuz, functions as a regional chokepoint. Against the backdrop of the current crisis in the Persian Gulf, foreign policy dynamics in the Horn of Africa may appear less alarming, yet beneath the surface of relative calm lie mounting interstate contradictions which, under certain conditions, could escalate into an acute regional conflict with consequences for the international community comparable to those seen in the Middle East.
At present, two coalitions of states have emerged in the Horn of Africa , with extra-regional actors playing a visible role. The division between them is grounded in the key issues of regional security and development: national self-determination, the demarcation and delimitation of interstate borders, the right of landlocked countries to access the open sea, and the establishment of a fair legal framework for water use. The resolution of these issues is further complicated by internal civil strife in most countries of the region—conflicts that external powers actively exploit in pursuit of their own interests.
At the centre of the regional agenda stands Ethiopia—the economic powerhouse and military giant of the Horn of Africa. Alongside efforts to overcome internal instability driven by a series of ethnically charged civil conflicts, the country is addressing two major foreign policy challenges intended to secure its long-term development: regaining access to the world’s oceans—lost after Eritrea’s secession at the end of the last century—in order to boost foreign trade, and safeguarding national interests in the use of water resources to accelerate energy development, and with it, industrial growth.
As for the first issue, Ethiopia’s gateway to the outside world since the turn of the century has been Djibouti: approximately 95% of export and import cargo for Ethiopian consignors and consignees passes through its ports Each year, Ethiopia pays Djibouti between $1.5 and $2 billion in port fees, amounting to up to one-third of total Ethiopian annual export revenues. It is hardly surprising that this has generated a natural desire among Ethiopians to find an alternative model for organising foreign trade logistics. The first attempt came in 2024: on 1 January, Ethiopia and the then unrecognised Republic of Somaliland signed a memorandum of understanding under which Ethiopia would gain access to the sea via Somaliland’s territory in exchange for recognising its independence and sovereignty, as well as acquiring a stake in the national carrier—one of Africa’s leading airlines The memorandum provoked a mixed reaction from the international community, prompting Ethiopia to suspend its implementation and, following intervention and pressure from Turkey, ultimately to disavow the document signed with Hargeisa and conclude a corresponding agreement with Mogadishu in December of the same year.
Subsequently, Addis Ababa turned its attention to Eritrea’s Assab. Throughout 2025, Ethiopian media, social networks, and statements by senior state and military officials increasingly promoted a narrative centred on rectifying historical injustice and securing national interests in regaining access to the world’s oceans. The Ethiopian Ministry of Defence revised the country’s military-administrative structure, establishing two new operational commands in the north-eastern direction. The foreign ministry raised concerns about the fate of the Afar national minority in Eritrea, while Ethiopian intelligence services intensified contacts with an armed opposition group opposed to the Eritrean government—the Red Sea Afar Democratic Organisation Сноска Qasabadih Qafarih Dimokraasih Missoyna (QQDM) / Red Sea Afar Democratic Organization (RSADO).. All indications suggest that Ethiopia is preparing for a special operation to protect Eritrean Afars, which, at a certain moment and under favourable circumstances, could take the form of a liberation campaign into Northern Afar, establishing control over the city and port of Assab and much of Eritrea’s Southern Red Sea administrative zone, predominantly populated by Afar. Eritrea’s response to Ethiopian claims has been to seek patronage from extra-regional actors—Egypt and Saudi Arabia—and to establish relations with Ethiopian Tigrayans, who until recently were the fiercest enemies of Eritrea’s own Tigrayan elite. Asmara has even advanced a new political concept of a “sled”—“tsymdo” (ጽምዶ) in Tigrinya—envisaging the linkage of the two branches of the Tigrayan people divided by the interstate border. Through Ethiopian Tigrayans, Eritrea is also attempting to provide military support to Amhara nationalist extremists, with whom Addis Ababa has been engaged in armed confrontation since August 2023.
The second pressing issue for Ethiopia on the regional agenda is linked to the construction and commissioning of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam—“Hidase” (ሕዳሴ) in Amharic. During the dam’s construction, Egypt and Sudan expressed concerns about potential changes to water usage regimes for downstream countries. Despite Ethiopia’s cautious approach to the phased filling of the reservoir over several years, Egypt has not removed the issue from its bilateral agenda with Ethiopia and periodically escalates it, attempting to internationalise the dispute—whether through international organisations or by involving global actors whose mediation Cairo seeks. Egypt also opposed the January 2024 memorandum between Ethiopia and Somaliland. At the same time, Cairo has sought to persuade Ethiopia to accept what it views as a mutually beneficial trade-off: Ethiopian flexibility in the protracted dispute over Nile water usage in exchange for Egyptian flexibility on Ethiopia’s access to the Red Sea. This proposal was made against the backdrop of prior agreements to develop and modernise port infrastructure in Djibouti, Eritrea, and Sudan—namely the ports of Doraleh, Assab, and Port Sudan. For Addis Ababa, however, such an alternative is unacceptable.
For Sudan, amid its ongoing civil war, the issue of Nile water usage is currently of secondary importance; far more pressing is the longstanding dispute over the Al-Fashaga triangle in the northern sector of the Sudanese-Ethiopian border. At the outset of the Tigray crisis, Sudan seized the territory while Ethiopia was preoccupied, thereby violating the compromise agreement of 2007. Four and a half years later, Ethiopia responded in kind, recognising that Sudan, too, was preoccupied elsewhere. The issue remains unresolved to this day. Moreover, one side in Sudan’s civil war—the regular armed forces led by Commander-in-Chief and Chairman of the Transitional Sovereignty Council, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan—accuses Ethiopia of supporting the opposing Rapid Support Forces under General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (Hemedti), possibly not without grounds. In turn, Addis Ababa has its own grievances against Khartoum regarding alleged covert support for the Tigrayan political elite in its confrontation with the federal centre. The old and familiar practice of fighting fire with fire remains as widespread as always in the region.
In relations with Somalia, beyond the Somaliland issue, Ethiopia’s primary concern is securing its south-eastern borders in the Ogaden: the Ethiopian-Somali border remains porous to armed formations of the Salafi group Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen operating on both sides. To this end, Ethiopia deploys not only peacekeeping contingents under the African Union framework in Somalia, but also supporting units of its own armed forces numbering up to 5,000 personnel , and works closely with Kenya’s military and intelligence services to prevent infiltration by al-Shabaab militants into its border regions.
Regarding the south-eastern vector of Ethiopian foreign policy, Addis Ababa is less concerned with the development of Somali-Egyptian and Somali-Turkish military and technical cooperation—including the deployment of Egyptian and Turkish troops in Somalia—than with the overall weakness of the Somali federation and its inability to counter Islamist extremism without external support.
Finally, Ethiopia faces yet another issue: the presence on its territory—in the northern border areas of the Tigray regional state—of a 20,000-strong Eritrean military contingent, deployed there at the outset of the Tigrayan armed uprising under the aegis of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front . Initially, this suited Addis Ababa, as it diverted significant forces of the Tigrayan rebels, but after the signing of the Pretoria and Nairobi peace agreements in November 2022, it became one of the problematic aspects of their implementation for the federal government. With the onset of a narrative-shaping campaign in preparation for the possible establishment of control over Assab, it has effectively become one of the motivating factors for a potential military operation.
The above set of issues in Ethiopia’s foreign policy agenda—as the regional centre of military and economic power—largely determines the configuration of bilateral and multilateral relations in the Horn of Africa.
In seeking access to the sea—whether through a long-term lease of a coastal strip in the Gulf of Aden via Somaliland, or through establishing control over Eritrea’s Assab in the southern Red Sea—Ethiopia relies on the support of the United Arab Emirates and Israel. For the UAE, this concerns the creation of a trade route into East and Central Africa; for Israel, it is about countering Iran and its proxies—the Houthis—in the region. The Emiratis, who have long and actively developed logistics networks in Somaliland and Puntland and were previously expelled from Assab by Eritrea, are prepared to support either of the scenarios under consideration by Ethiopia. The Israelis, however, are more likely to back the Somaliland option than the Eritrean one, owing to their particular—albeit unofficial—relations with Asmara. On the issue of Nile water usage, Ethiopia largely acts independently, cooperating with the UAE in the Sudanese dimension and relying on Israel’s tacit consent more broadly.
In its relations with Somalia, Ethiopia takes into account Egyptian, Turkish, and Eritrean support for Mogadishu, while itself benefiting from mutual understanding with Israel and the UAE regarding Somaliland, and from cooperation with Kenya in countering al-Shabaab and supporting regional elites in the south-western federal states of Somalia in their complex relations with the central government. In relations with Eritrea, Ethiopia likewise acts independently, without overt external backing—apart from possible tacit support from the UAE—while having to consider Asmara’s ability to appeal to Cairo and Riyadh in the event of escalation.
In sum, the Horn of Africa today features two military-political coalitions: on one side, the regional leader Ethiopia, supported by the UAE, Israel, and Kenya, as well as the partially recognised Somaliland; on the other, Ethiopia’s opponents—Somalia, Sudan, and Eritrea—backed by Egypt, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia. Djibouti maintains a policy of positive neutrality in its relations with all regional and extra-regional actors. Overall, the military-political situation in the region is characterised by a fragile equilibrium on the brink of peace and war.