Ethiopia’s pursuit of sea access will be diplomatically driven, but it’ll resort to military means in self-defense if it’s attacked by the Asmara Axis, with there being a high likelihood that it’ll defend Somaliland from aggression too.
It's hard to see how Ethiopia's attempts to play on Somali ethnic/tribal divisions to achieve its strategic goal of sea access can be merely "peaceful," since it relies, in effect, on breaking Somalia apart.
Ethiopia bungled its relationship with the Eritreans and, through general incompetence, was unable to bring to bear its huge comparative size to retain Red Sea access. Now it's trying to capitalize on intra-Somali tensions to regain some kind of littoral presence.
According to Wikipedia, Heilie Selassie was trying to get his hands on Somaliland once he was restored to power in Ethiopia in 1941:
"The emergence of political parties was initiated with Haile Selassie’s return to the Ethiopian throne in May of 1941, where to immediate effect he set out on the acquisition of Eritrea and Somaliland into the Ethiopian state. This political perspective was synonymous with the organization known as 'Mahbar Feqri Hagar Eretra’ (Society for the Love of the Land of Eritrea) which would then become the Unionist Party in 1944. Most Eritreans during this time did not favor the alignment of the Ethiopian crown and Eritrea."
If the supposed Egypt-Eritrea-Somalia axis (which sounds like something destined for utter ineffectiveness) really does move militarily against Ethiopia, that's one thing. But the project being described here sounds pretty dubious to me, even if the strategic logic is broadly understandable.
Spot-on analysis by Mr Andrew Korybko. Very convincing and makes perfect sense.
It's hard to see how Ethiopia's attempts to play on Somali ethnic/tribal divisions to achieve its strategic goal of sea access can be merely "peaceful," since it relies, in effect, on breaking Somalia apart.
Ethiopia bungled its relationship with the Eritreans and, through general incompetence, was unable to bring to bear its huge comparative size to retain Red Sea access. Now it's trying to capitalize on intra-Somali tensions to regain some kind of littoral presence.
According to Wikipedia, Heilie Selassie was trying to get his hands on Somaliland once he was restored to power in Ethiopia in 1941:
"The emergence of political parties was initiated with Haile Selassie’s return to the Ethiopian throne in May of 1941, where to immediate effect he set out on the acquisition of Eritrea and Somaliland into the Ethiopian state. This political perspective was synonymous with the organization known as 'Mahbar Feqri Hagar Eretra’ (Society for the Love of the Land of Eritrea) which would then become the Unionist Party in 1944. Most Eritreans during this time did not favor the alignment of the Ethiopian crown and Eritrea."
If the supposed Egypt-Eritrea-Somalia axis (which sounds like something destined for utter ineffectiveness) really does move militarily against Ethiopia, that's one thing. But the project being described here sounds pretty dubious to me, even if the strategic logic is broadly understandable.