Ethiopia once again finds itself on the brink of another war. Countries such as the United States, Russia, the United Arab Emirates, Japan, and Qatar have begun officially expressing concern, with some boldly outlining their positions. Meanwhile, recent developments across the Horn of Africa in general, and in Eritrea, Sudan, and Somaliland in particular, are worth noting.
The Reporter Magazine’s Bewket Abebe spoke with political and security analyst Cameron Hudson to discuss these unfolding dynamics.
Cameron previously served in various diplomatic and security roles within the U.S. government, focusing on the Horn of Africa and the Sahel. His background includes working as a security analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Director for African Affairs on the National Security Council, and Chief of Staff to successive U.S. Special Envoys to Sudan. He frequently analyzes and comments on political and security developments across the Horn of Africa. EXCRPT:
RELATED POSTS
The Reporter Magazine: Recently, Washington appears inclined toward closer engagement with Asmara, including the lifting of sanctions that were imposed five years ago. Do you see specific reasons for Washington to view Eritrea as a far more valuable strategic ally in the region than ever before?
Cameron Hudson: My sense is that Washington is interested in ensuring Eritrea is not a threat to the region, believing a closer relationship can keep Asmara aligned and prevent new instabilities. Washington’s principal concern is Red Sea security: maintaining freedom of navigation and containing the threat from Houthi rebels across the Red Sea. That is its primary focus, and one way of addressing it is by ensuring strong, functional relationships with all neighboring states along the Red Sea.
Obviously, in the case of Sudan, there is a great deal of tension between Washington and Khartoum, which adds greater value to making sure that Washington has a functioning relationship with Asmara. While I don’t know that Washington is seeking a strong partnership with Asmara, it wants an open channel of communication which, frankly, it has not had for many years. But I see no indication that Washington is hoping to reform the regime in Asmara, change it in any way, or develop a particularly close strategic or security partnership. What they’re trying to do is gain a better understanding of Asmara’s perspective and ensure Asmara does nothing to cooperate with forces that could seek to destabilize the Red Sea.
Some analysts suggest Washington might be emboldening Asmara in its current standoff with Ethiopia via the TPLF.
I don’t see any evidence that Washington is cooperating with Eritrea from a strategic or security perspective. There’s simply no evidence of that that I am aware of at this moment.
From what I understand from the limited engagement that there has been with Asmara over the last year by the United States, there has not been serious conversation about political reform or security partnership. To the extent that there has been talk of any kind of cooperation, it’s been around the mining of critical minerals that might exist inside Eritrea, but nothing of a broader nature that I’m aware of right now.
And again, I think that if you look at the way the sanctions were removed and the relationship was normalized in the past few weeks, the United States didn’t take any specific action. It simply allowed an existing sanction to expire rather than renew it. So Washington has not taken any great effort to change the nature of the relationship with Eritrea; it simply didn’t take action to extend the sanctions beyond their expiration date.
We have seen also that Washington has demanded nothing in return from Eritrea. It has not asked for elections; it has not asked for Eritrea to cooperate with the human rights investigations that the United Nations has been leading; it has not asked for the release of political prisoners or for changes to its position toward religious minorities in the country. There’s a whole list of things that Washington could have asked Asmara to change or to show limited reform on, and it has asked nothing of Asmara.
We have to take that as an indication that Washington is not actually seeking a deep partnership. It’s looking for, at a minimum, a normalized relationship, but I don’t anticipate that we’re going to see a real deepening of strategic relations between the two countries anytime soon.
Is Washington these days actually making those potential demands you claimed it would make, were the relationship real, in its dealings with other countries? Has that approach not already changed in Washington’s current way of doing business?
That’s a great question, and it’s something I have commented on repeatedly: Washington is largely acting in a vacuum. It lacks a regional strategic perspective in the Horn of Africa and the Red Sea, and it has misunderstood the internal dynamics within the region.
For example, when Washington announced at the beginning of this year that it was going to mediate between Egypt and Ethiopia over the use of the Nile waters, it was surprised by the reaction it received from Ethiopia. Similarly, when it announced that it would likely normalize its relationship with Eritrea, it was surprised by the reaction from Ethiopia. It has also chosen not to engage Ethiopia over its recent support for the Rapid Support Forces in Sudan.
All of these countries have overlapping interests, and none of these countries is isolated. They are maneuvering across the entire region, projecting their interests, and intruding on the sovereignty of neighboring states.
It’s quite a complicated political landscape in the Horn of Africa right now—one that I just don’t think Washington is taking into account. It certainly isn’t thinking strategically about how to balance all of the competing interests to achieve an outcome that it wants: stability.
As a result, I don’t expect Washington to demonstrate a new, sophisticated level of diplomacy toward these states. I expect it to continue attempting to solve regional problems in a vacuum, which will ultimately produce a set of short-term solutions—if it achieves even that—rather than long-term strategic progress.
Regarding U.S. recognition of Somaliland, you argue that it appears unlikely in the near term, while you argued that Somalia has played its diplomacy pretty well in recent months, you describe Somaliland officials’ engagement with Washington as a ‘failed lobbying effort.’ However, some other analysts see it differently. What leads you to such a conclusion?
The problem with Somaliland is that they have framed this as all-or-nothing: they haven’t said they want closer relations with United states. They said they want Washington to recognize their independence. Presumably, anything short of recognizing independence is treated as a failure because that is their ultimate goal. By setting the bar so high, they haven’t left themselves a lot of room to demonstrate progress.
I believe we currently have a very appropriate relationship with Somaliland, and I am not an advocate for disengaging with Somaliland. We should absolutely have a political, security, and commercial relationship with Somaliland, and we can do so without recognizing its independence.
We don’t have to accelerate the dissolution of Somalia, nor should we get ahead of the African Union to tell them which countries are African states and which are not. We can achieve all of our goals we have for Somaliland and our security in the Gulf of Aden through engagement without necessarily recognizing them.
Unless Somaliland gives an explicit ultimatum to the United States, we are under no pressure to change our position of engaging with Somaliland, Puntland, and Mogadishu simultaneously.
In one of your comments on the official announcement of the seven Ethiopian armed groups forming an alliance against Prime Minister Abiy’s (PhD) administration, you described the development as “a starter’s pistol for possible civil war in Ethiopia”. You also implied that it could “devolve into a wider regional war merging into Sudan and Somalia conflicts”. Could you elaborate on what you meant by that?
Well, the past week demonstrates what I meant by a ‘starter pistol.’ Within days of this announcement, you have seen Tigrayan forces in Mekelle and other cities in Tigray seized a number of regional airports. We are already seeing the start of a low-intensity conflict in Tigray and parts of Amhara and Afar. So, we are already seeing the operationalization of this security pact announced just a week ago, right?
That’s what I was referring to with the starter pistol metaphor. You can’t have this kind of political-military alliance calling for the overthrow of the government—that’s a very loaded statement to make. I didn’t expect them to make a declaration like that and then sit around to allow the government time to either defuse their efforts or prepare a defense. They acted as I expected: by launching at least an initial strike against the government. Now, we haven’t seen all regions join in yet; this doesn’t appear to be a fully coordinated effort, though it is partially coordinated. Still, it is a bit early to say whether this will grow into a full-fledged civil war across the country.
When I mentioned dragging in other regions, I meant that the landscape is now very different—the Tigrayans are allied with Eritrea, whereas previously they were opposed to Eritrea. We know, for example, that Sudan’s army has been supporting the Tigrayans—at least politically, and possibly with modest weapons support—since the end of the last war. We know other countries as well are involved in this. On the Somalia side as well, there is a risk of being dragged into conflict.
The overlapping set of interests across the Horn of Africa is not limited to national borders; it extends well beyond them, and each of these countries has stakes in its neighbors. If this conflict in Ethiopia continues to grow, it will very rapidly involve neighboring states that are either hosting Ethiopian troops or supporting the ethnic militia groups active inside Ethiopia right now.
In your understanding, how might this conflict merge with the situation in Somalia specifically?
What I mean with respect to Somalia is that Ethiopia’s ambition for access to the sea—extending its reach into Somaliland by creating ports or new infrastructure—plays directly into this regional calculation. Its goals of expanding trade routes and securing maritime access affect relations with both Somalia and Eritrea.
You criticized top U.S. foreign policy officials—from Secretary Rubio down to deputy and assistant secretaries, as well as senior advisors on African and Arab affairs—for paying little attention to the conflict in Ethiopia. What did you hope to see from Washington instead?
Well, I don’t know that I have high expectations of Washington. There’s a long history of the United States engaging in peacemaking in the Horn of Africa, and I would, of course, like to see it play that role again not because it is interested in anything other than peace. We have seen that Washington’s motivation for peacemaking in Africa tends to be rooted in other interests, rather than purely in peace or saving lives. It is usually driven by other interests: securing access to critical minerals, countering Chinese influence, or doing favors for allies. It is motivated by strategic interests rather than peace for its own sake.
So, I would like to see a return to genuine peacemaking, but I’m afraid we’re not going to see that under the Trump administration. What we’ve seen from the Trump administration regarding Ethiopia is primarily an interest in commercial diplomacy.
You made a similar statement in one of your comments, where you stated that Washington is currently more interested in securing its commercial arrangements in its relation with Ethiopia. Could you elaborate on that, and which commercial arrangements are you referring to?
Take, for example, the deals to sell Boeing airplanes to Ethiopian Airlines, or involvement in the USD12 billion airport construction project. Washington views Ethiopia primarily as a market of over 130 million people, a place with double digit economic growth where the U.S. can assert itself economically to develop a much closer partnership. The belief in Washington is that closer economic ties will naturally create political leverage, security ties, and ancillary benefits that it wants.
There are very few places on the African continent where the United States can engage in multi-billion-dollar investments. This is the scale of investment that the United States wants to make, and given the economic size and limited immediate opportunities in most African countries, those kinds of investments just aren’t possible. But they are possible in a country like Ethiopia. So, Washington is quite keen to use this as a model to demonstrate the power of commercial diplomacy to drive a closer political and security relationship between our countries.
However, there is a clear risk to that strategy. If Washington does not actively try to prevent emerging conflicts and the growing instability that seems to be emerging across the region, its economic investments will be put at risk. Those economic investments are not strong enough to prevent war from breaking out. It takes a concerted strategy and dedicated diplomacy, which we simply haven’t seen from Washington.
Previously, we had a special envoy for the Horn of Africa who traveled continuously between Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti, and South Sudan to understand how all the regional dynamics fit together. Right now, we simply don’t have that focus. We are not looking at the Horn of Africa through a regional lens, nor are we accounting for how these conflicts are interconnected. By focusing strictly on economic benefits, we are ignoring competing factors that could undermine overall U.S. goals in the region.
Ethiopia has long been one of Boeing’s top clients, even during times when bilateral relations weren’t particularly smooth. How does that kind of commercial interest deter the US government from genuinely engaging in peacemaking and conflict management?
The peculiarity of US diplomacy right now is that the people who are leading our government, who are leading our diplomatic efforts, are not really diplomats. They don’t have a history, a track record, or a career in diplomacy. These are all business people, largely speaking. This comes from the president—from President Trump all the way down. There is a sense within the Trump administration that everyone in the world, everyone in Africa, is as interested in getting rich as they are. And that if we can just get rich together, then that will create friendship and cooperative arrangements such that we won’t want to go to war because we’ll be too happy and content making all this money together.
They have applied this lens, this model, to Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. They have applied it in Libya; they have tried to apply it in Sudan; and I think this is the model that they are bringing to Ethiopia: that if we all share in the riches together, then that will create a closer relationship and distract us from all of these petty grievances and political problems that divide our countries and divide societies.
But the fact of the matter is that that’s not right. If you look at the weakness of the peace agreement in the Congo and the DRC where they are still fighting despite signing a peace agreement, you will see that when you ignore the root causes of what drives people to conflict, it doesn’t matter how many tons of minerals you’re pulling out of the ground or how many business deals you’ve made—if you haven’t addressed the core grievances of the affected communities that are doing the fighting, then ultimately any business deal or commercial investment is only going to delay an inevitable return to war.
And maybe the Trump administration is okay with that because the inevitable return to war will happen when they’ve left office, and it will be for the next person to resolve. But I don’t see that this is a model that is going to work particularly well in the Horn of Africa.
In light of your criticism of U.S. Ambassador Ervin Massinga’s recent statement regarding the crisis in Ethiopia—specifically a perceived lack of neutrality, in which you stated Washington is working toward an outcome that benefits Prime Minister Abiy—what would a more constructive U.S. approach look like?
I made that comment because it stands in stark contrast to the response from the United States at the start of the last war in Tigray. There was a much more comprehensive understanding of the root causes of the disagreement between political factions inside Ethiopia. The United States played a dedicated role in trying to bring about and mediate a peace deal to end the conflict and limit the civilian casualties that were occurring.
For Washington today, or certainly for our ambassador, to fully back the government side in this conflict—essentially blaming the Tigrayans for this—reflects a lack of nuance. I’m not saying that the Tigrayans don’t bear a great deal of responsibility, but I think we have to take a longer-term look at what the political trends have been, how the Pretoria agreement has been implemented over time, and why the Tigrayans have the level of disgruntlement that they have today. What actions has the Abiy government engaged in over recent weeks and months that might have antagonized the Tigrayans even further? I believe there is a more nuanced approach that US diplomacy could take, such that we could be a force for good and a force for mediation in the emerging conflict.
Instead, we’ve taken a very different approach from the one we’ve taken in years past, which is to fully endorse the government position. Again, I suspect we have done this because we are more interested in making sure that our commercial interests in Ethiopia are not disrupted, and that we maintain a very close commercial relationship with the government of Ethiopia given what is at stake in the bilateral relationship.
In doing so, we are closing the door to diplomacy, where the United States in particular has a unique role to play. I don’t think many other countries in the world have the political leverage or the history of peacemaking in Ethiopia that we do to bring about a mediated settlement. So, we seem to be backing a war in Ethiopia right now, or at least the government’s attempts to put down a war, rebellion, or whatever we’re calling this conflict right now. And I would argue that this puts an unnecessary constraint on US diplomacy.
In your observation, what is Washington’s current assessment of the power dynamics in Ethiopia? Which actors do you think the U.S. currently prefers to align with to advance its interests?
I think it’s very clear that Washington has backed Prime Minister Abiy’s position as the one who signs the commercial deals. They’re backing him in the coming conflict. When we look back at the last few months, the United States didn’t say anything about the Ethiopian elections that took place this summer—the fact that elections did not occur across the entire country, that a great deal of irregularities were reported, or that political space was closing alongside a lack of media freedom. On all the things the United States would normally comment on regarding the lead-up to and conduct of elections in a country, Washington remained completely silent.
Similarly, during the national dialogue, the United States normally would have provided funding and experts to help create, shape, and conduct a process such that it was a genuine effort to take into account the views of the entire population—again, to really address the core issues of ethnic federalism that lie at the heart of the emerging conflict.
The United States did none of those things. We made no comment on the quality of the national dialogue; we simply endorsed the outcome by endorsing Prime Minister Abiy’s administration.
So, the United States, through what it has said and what it has left unsaid, has demonstrated time and again that it is prioritizing its bilateral relationship with the incumbent in Ethiopia at the expense of all other regions of the country. Again, that reflects a short-term and very myopic strategy from Washington.
There have been official engagements between senior U.S. and Ethiopian military leadership over the past few months. Key interactions include visits by Ethiopian defense delegations to the Pentagon, high-level diplomatic security talks, and visits to Addis Ababa by top U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) officials. How do you view these engagements beyond ordinary routine diplomacy?
There are two ways to look at those engagements. One—as you suggest—is to view them as quite ordinary, since Ethiopia is not the only place AFRICOM and senior defense leaders have visited. They have traveled to Puntland, Somaliland, Ethiopia, and, of course, Djibouti, so they are active across the entire region. The US military is trying to maintain cooperative relationships wherever possible to preserve regional stability, which remains its primary concern.
Of course, it would engage all of these actors at an operational level as a preventive measure—hoping to sustain both stability and operational capability, particularly regarding regional counterterrorism operations. Ultimately, the engagement with Ethiopia can be understood through the routine lens of regional military engagement.
The other way of looking at it and that strikes me as noteworthy is the timing of this engagement by the United States. We have been seeing the storm clouds gather in Ethiopia for many months. The fighting that has emerged here was very predictable—and was, in fact, foreseen by many of us who follow these issues closely. The antagonism toward the regions by the Abiy government, the frustration of the regions, and the growing militancy of the regions have all been on display for anyone willing to see it, including the United States military. And yet, throughout this entire period, the US military has chosen to continue to engage, as well as deepen and enhance the level of security cooperation with Ethiopia. We’ve called it a strategic partnership, and we have actively been trying to deepen this security relationship—so much so that we have lifted previously imposed restrictions on weapon sales to Ethiopia that dated back to the time of the Tigray conflict.
That would all, again, be normal except for the fact that we have been seeing all sides in Ethiopia, including the government, preparing for a new military battle inside the country. I think you have to ask the question: Has Washington been enabling the current conflict that is emerging? Have we been giving a tacit green light to Abiy’s government to take the moves that it has taken—for the drone strikes that have occurred [ mainly in Tigray, Amhara, and Oromia] and for the other kinds of provocative military moves that we have seen from the government over the course of the last several months? I think it’s a question worth asking, and many of us who watch what AFRICOM has been doing have questioned whether now is the appropriate time for deepening a strategic security partnership with Ethiopia as preparations for war are being made.
If it was the intention of Washington from the very beginning to back the Ethiopian government in whatever conflict was going to emerge, then perhaps the engagement strategy by AFRICOM and other military leaders was a normal part of that strategy. I cannot say. But as a former diplomat, I know that one goal of diplomacy is to keep your options open. By backing the Abiy government in the way that we have—both in the lead-up to the conflict and in recent statements—we have limited the diplomatic role that the United States can play in trying to bring about an end to or containment of this conflict. In the long run, that is going to be a regrettable policy choice.
Do you believe Washington has greenlit Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s moves toward this war?
I think that we have not given an explicit green light, but I would say that through the things we have said and the things we have left unsaid, we have sent a sufficient signal to prime minister Abiy that he can likely engage in these military operations and not fear consequences from the United States. I would frame it that way.
Again, that is not necessarily the intention of the United States. Because the US is not acting strategically and is instead pursuing a very narrow set of commercial interests, deepening the security relationship is viewed as a rational way to curry favor with the government so that we can sign business deals worth billions of dollars.
Viewed through the lens of commercial diplomacy and financial investment, backing the Abiy regime in all matters—security, political, and commercial—is a winning strategy for doing business with that government. It is not, however, a winning strategy if your goal is to prevent war and instability in the country—but that is clearly not the priority for the United States.
Does Washington maintain any strategic interests in Ethiopia apart from securing commercial agreements?
The United States is interested in regional stability, but there is a difference between regional stability and peacemaking. Regional stability often acknowledges the role of a hegemon in the region. The policy that the Trump administration is pursuing right now is not so different from the policy the Bush administration pursued in Ethiopia 20 years ago with respect to Meles Zenawi. Meles Zenawi was not a democratic leader; he ruled the country with an iron fist, and human rights and media freedom were under threat. But Meles was also a regional hegemon who could project power across the region—sending peacekeepers to Sudan and South Sudan, or military forces to battle al-Shabaab in Somalia. He did much of the work in the region that the United States wanted to have done but was unwilling to do itself. We supported Meles as a regional hegemon because it served US interests. I fear we are doing that once again with the Abiy government—supporting a hegemonic role for Prime Minister Abiy because it serves our commercial interests, but personalizing our support in a way that limits our ability to play a diplomatic role across the region going forward.
Secretary Rubio has repeatedly pointed out the significant role external backers are playing in prolonging the war in Sudan. How likely do you think it is that the U.S. will apply practical pressure on these foreign actors?
It is very unlikely that we’re going to see Washington take practical steps to block any of the foreign backers of the war in Sudan. An obvious reason for that is that all of those countries—Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Turkey—are in fact allies of the United States. We are not going to take action against those countries.
What you have seen from US mediator Massad Boulos in recent weeks and months is a focus much more on the army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF)—engaging the belligerents and putting pressure entirely on the people fighting the war, not on the people supporting the war. There have been some sanctions against Colombian officials and business people providing mercenaries, but there has been no effort to constrain the people paying for those mercenaries, which is coming from the United Arab Emirates. So, it is very unlikely that we will see Washington use its leverage over allied states to contain their support for either side in this war.
Let’s turn now to the Il-76 cargo flights landing in Ethiopia. Unofficial reports have previously alleged that these flights originate in Abu Dhabi and carry military equipment bound for the RSF. You seem particularly certain of this, stating that they’ve been “arriving in a steady stream for months.” What verified information leads you to such a conclusion?
Look, it is a statement of fact that those airplanes have been flying in for months and months. That is without dispute. What do they contain? Are they empty? We have seen social media reports and informal ground reports of weapons in Assosa, weapons traveling across the border, and verified accounts of drone flight paths leaving Ethiopia, crossing into Sudan, and striking targets inside Sudan.
Do we have the full picture? No. Do we know enough to know that there is substantial support coming from the UAE, landing in Ethiopia, and some amount of the support making its way into Sudan? Yes, absolutely—without a shadow of a doubt. Satellite reports show an RSF troop buildup in Assosa, including barracks and tents capable of housing thousands of fighters. These are indisputable established facts, and we have seen no response from the government of Ethiopia to explain the presence of these forces, flights, or the base in Assosa. And I suspect that what we have seen thus far is simply the tip of the iceberg.
