Dividing the Red Sea Amongst Many

Published with Permission from Defense & Foreign Affairs Special Analysis Journal

There’s more at stake for the international trading community — and regional states — than just skirmishing with Yemen. Saudi Arabia and the UAE are indirectly at war with each other, and, with Israel, against Türkiye; while Eritrea and Ethiopia prepare for war. 

By Gregory R. Copley
 Editor, GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs.

Every trading nation on earth has a vital interest in the security of the Red Sea-Suez sea lane of communication (SLOC). Few, however, are watching the realities of a highly explosive emerging situation there, and the effect it will have on them. 

Distraction because of the global trade and tariff war, the collapse of the People’s Republic of China, and the erratic sputtering of the Russia-Ukraine war cannot be a legitimate excuse for ignoring this rapidly-developing crisis. 

Firstly, the long-anticipated renewal of war between Eritrea and Ethiopia is just a matter of a short time to eruption. But who is aware of which nations are backing each side? And what are the results expected to be? Will it finally fracture Ethiopia? Could Eritrea become the master of all, or most, of Ethiopia? And what ramifications could this war have on Red Sea-Suez trade? In terms of timescale, it should be noted that Eritrea mobilized its entire defense capability in February 2025. 

Secondly, what impact does the probable Ethiopia-Eritrea conflict have on the rivalry to control the Red Sea between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE)? They will be on opposite sides in the coming conflict after years of a seeming alliance between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi in their war against Yemen (largely North Yemen) over more than a decade. 

Thirdly, how is the ongoing internal war in Ethiopia shaping the regional outcome, with Prime Minister Abiy Ali Ahmed virtually isolated in the capital, Addis Ababa, and directing all foreign aid and investment to the greater Addis Ababa region? This is the bloodiest war currently underway in the world, with probably more than a million dead in the past 18 months in ethnically and ideologically driven warfare. It is shaping up to broaden to include the anticipated new Ethiopia-Eritrea conflict. 

Fourth, what are the rôles of Türkiye, Egypt, Russia, the People’s Republic of China, Sudan, Somalia, and Iran — all primary players in the situation — as the situation moves into more direct, kinetic warfare? What are the short- term as well as the long-term effects on sub-Saharan Africa, given the impact of conflict on the trade routes, often for illicit purposes, through the Horn of Africa states into Continental Africa? 

And, finally, are the US and Europe still focusing on the region only through a narrow version of the lens of the Israel-HAMAS, Israel-Türkiye, and Israel-Iran (including HizbAllah) conflicts? Significantly, the greater Red Sea situation is indeed part of the conflict in which Israel, and the US, is involved. The US and Israel are actively engaged in the “war against the Houthis” because they believe that the Yemenis (and not just the Houthi clan movement) are acting at the behest of Iran, which is an over-reach which has possibly profound ramifications. 

The Israel-Türkiye confrontation is indeed a critical aspect of the greater Red Sea-Suez situation (becoming more profound as Türkiye, now dominating Syria, is also working to challenge Israel from the South and West), as is the Israel-Iran confrontation (in which Tehran has capitalized on Yemen’s attempt to break free from the Saudi-led attacks on the “Houthis”). From all this it is clear that the situation is heavily interwoven, and that there is no single issue, perhaps other than the Ethiopia situation, which provides a key to restoring the status quo ante. 

The Türkiye-Iran competition itself is returning at a profound level, too, which causes the US, Russia, the PRC, and the European states (which have largely ceded foreign policy initiatives to the European Union) to begin to re-evaluate how they will, or how they can, deal with both states. But the Ankara-Tehran competition is being played out extensively in the Red Sea region. The Iranian clerics and the West have painted themselves into a corner over the Iranian nuclear weapons issue, which is ultimately a sideshow which must be resolved so that Washington and Israel can dispense with that issue as a distraction to dealing with Türkiye. 

There are other discreet players in the region, attempting to mediate the outcome. Particular among those is the Sultanate of Oman. 

These five points each require detailed follow-up, and there are other tangential issues which are thrown up by the interlocking situations. 

The Situation in Ethiopia is Coming to a Head, Again 

Central to everything is the instability inside Ethiopia, a situation which has been evolving since the overthrow and regicide of Emperor Haile Selassie I in 1974 and 1975 respectively. 

Ethiopia was subsequently reduced from being a major Red Sea power to being internally weakened and separated from that sea by the creation of the State of Eritrea, which took over not only the traditional lands of Eritrea but also Ethiopia’s Red Sea ports. Djibouti, also once part of Ethiopia, was not returned to Ethiopia when the French occupiers more-or-less departed, but was “given” independence by France, even though modern Djibouti’s leaders have discussed their desire to return to the old Ethiopian framework. But many felt they profited by the events begun in 1974 to overthrow the Imperial Government and align Ethiopia with the Soviet Union. 

Egypt, then and now, felt that the submission of Ethiopia elevated Cairo’s largely-undisputed domination of the Red Sea. And Türkiye, particularly in recent decades, has felt that the time was right for Ankara to return to a position of influence, even domination, of the Red Sea and Horn of Africa, through Somalia, Ethiopia and Eritrea, and Sudan (and even attempted, through the Muslim Brotherhood [Ikhwan], dominated by Türkiye) to control Egypt. In other words, the current Turkish President is not attempting to “restore” the Ottoman glory of, say, 1900, but much earlier, when it dominated the Levant, as well as North Africa, including Egypt, and much of Arabia, down to the Indian Ocean. 

Today, Türkiye not only dominates the fragile Somalia Government, but has significant influence over the Abiy Government in neighboring Ethiopia. Saudi Arabia is attempting to counter both Turkish and UAE influence in the Horn, given that this affects Saudi Arabia’s influence over the Red Sea, on which it is one of the most significant littoral states. This is not to ignore Türkiye’s attempt at revived influence in the Balkans and, for example, Libya, but that is not central to this report. 

The bottom line, for Türkiye, is that Israel is the critical impediment to the restoration of the Ottomanist empire. 

But it is the situation inside Ethiopia which is very much at the core of the security of the Red Sea-Suez SLOC. 

To perhaps over-crystalize the situation, it could be said that Saudi Arabia is seen by Prime Minister Abiy as his economic lifeline, and Türkiye is his security lifeline, largely through the provision (at a price) of unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAVs) in the form of Bayraktar TB-2 aircraft.  

Essentially, although Dr Abiy has had, as his power base, the Oromo population of Ethiopia, in fact he has now alienated much of the Oromo, and most of the rest of Ethiopia’s 80 or so ethnic and linguistic groups. He now only truly “controls” greater Addis Ababa, and has most of the inward investment directed toward projects in greater Addis Ababa, the national capital region. The impact has been profoundly visual, as he attempts to have Addis showcase as a “new Dubai”. 

But the fighting inside the country, against Abiy, has continued unabated, and he has alienated neighboring Eritrea, which is preparing again for war with Ethiopia. Dr Abiy won his Nobel Peace Prize in 2019 on the basis of his peace accord with Eritrea. 

That accord is now shattered. 

In the meantime, because Prime Minister Abiy targeted the Amhara people of Ethiopia after he had completed, in late 2022, his war against the insurgent Marxist forces of the Tigré (Tigray) Popular Liberation Front (TPLF), the country is still in the midst of a civil war. It is estimated that the death toll from this has exceeded one-million dead in the past 18 months. 

The fact that Dr Abiy does not actually — or reliably — control much territory around the overall Ethiopian nation-state implies that the new war against the Amhara is not going well for him. But it is not going well for the three major Amhara Fano military groupings, either. 

The four Fano army groups (from the Amhara regions of Gojjam, Gondar, Wello, and Shewa/Shoa) have made significant battlefield gains against the dispirited Ethiopian National Defense Force units, with extremely substantial defections from the Government forces to the Fano groups over the 18 or so months until this point in April 2025. But the Fano, for all their success on the battlefield, failed to gain any political agreement between these three Amhara military units. 

Indeed, they have neither been able to develop a unified political command, defining political-strategic objectives acceptable to all Ethiopian ethnicities, and nor have they been able to cooperate sufficiently to take Addis Ababa from Dr Abiy. Various Fano supporters essentially — and defensively — resort to Amhara nationalism and the concept of the Amhara as the rightful rulers of Ethiopia in its entirety. This has limited their ability to return to the vision of the late Emperor Haile Selassie I (himself an Amhara of Shoa) of a unified and harmonious Ethiopia. 

Today, the main Fano military units control significant Amhara region territory, and are discreetly backed by the Government of Eritrea. Meanwhile, Eritrea, with its long Red Sea coastline (including some coast and ports which were historically part of Ethiopia, not Eritrea), is supported strategically by the UAE, whereas Dr Abiy is supported by Saudi Arabia, which houses some 500,000 Ethiopian expatriate workers who remit money regularly back to their Ethiopian families. 

So, in a new war between Ethiopia and Eritrea, it should be expected that the Fano would support Eritrea and vice-versa. But the other part of that equation is whether the TPLF and the Tigrean population — adjacent to both the Amhara region and Eritrea — would support the Abiy Government. In all probability, they would, because a war between Ethiopia and Eritrea would encroach primarily on Tigrean lands. 

Would the UAE actually support Eritrea, then, in such a war? Almost certainly not directly, but the UAE does control key assets in the Red Sea and near-abroad Indian Ocean where the Red Sea joins it, including control of the Yemeni island territory of Socotra. 

Who would the US support? 

Entrenched groups within the State Department of the US have supported the Marxist TPLF, largely as a result of policies originating with the US Barack Obama Administration (2009-17), and continuing under the Joseph Biden Administration (2021-25). The question now is whether, under the new US Trump Administration, with Mark Rubio as Secretary of State, the White House will be able to prevail over the entrenched (and anti-Trump) bureaucracy in the State Dept. which continues to follow the Obama-Biden line. 

And if it abandons support for the TPLF, who would Washington support? The status quo candidate, Dr Abiy? That is probable, given the fact that the Amhara movements have failed to make their case to the new US Government, nor to the European governments, which are still — following “old Washington’s” diktat — supporting the extreme Marxist TPLF. And it is worth bearing in mind that the pro-TPLF policy of Obama-Biden had little to do with greater US strategic interests. 

So the pan-Ethiopianists, including the Amhara, have some heavy lifting to do, and to do quickly. Would the UAE help make their case in Washington and in Europe? And could it do so in light of the fact that Saudi Arabia has currently bet on Dr Abiy and, therefore, against the restoration of a united Ethiopia with a coastline on the Red Sea? 

At present, the Fano groups have acted in a very short-term fashion, rebelling against the Abiy Government’s genocidal policy toward them, and have failed to appeal to the rest of the world for understanding. And the Abiy Government, by keeping virtually all foreign media reporting away from Ethiopia, has begun to restore the impression that it speaks for “Ethiopia”, which it demonstrably does not, due to its support for Oromo-led genocidal actions against the Amhara, the supporters of Ethiopian identity, and the adherents of the Ethiopian Tewahedo Orthodox (Christian) Church. Now, through coercion, the Abiy Administration is co-opting the Church leadership, further muddying the situation. 

Right now there is no impediment to new and far-reaching conflict, with few, if any, long-term plans in place.

Editor’s Note : Views in the article do not necessarily reflect the views of borkena.com

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