By Yilma Adamu
Ethiopia’s response to the United States’ proposal to mediate the dispute with Egypt over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam reveals a troubling strategic complacency. The apparent belief that Washington’s initiative can simply be ignored until it fades away is a serious error.
If Ethiopia is to come out winner with the United States and the wider Western alliance, it must begin with an honest assessment of geopolitical reality. Egypt’s diplomatic reach, public relations machinery, and institutional depth far surpasses Ethiopia’s. Cairo is regarded by Western capitals and wealthy Arab states as a strategic linchpin in the Middle Eastern, Red Sea, and to some extent African security architecture. That status affords Egypt influence Ethiopia currently lacks.
Meanwhile, Ethiopia is internally fractured, economically strained, and diplomatically unmanned with capable voices. Add to that, a government at war with significant portions of its own population has limited credibility abroad. One cannot also forget the damage Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s erratic Horn of Africa engagements have caused, further alienating neighbors.
Equally damaging has been Ethiopia’s uncritical alignment with the United Arab Emirates at a moment when regional power balances are shifting. This has placed Addis Ababa on the wrong side of emerging realities, even as Egypt’s fortune has strengthened.
Ethiopia’s foreign policy must therefore be recalibrated – not on the basis of aspiration, but of capacity. Heavily indebted and dependent on Western financial systems, the country has little leverage to extract concessions through defiance, whether from the West or from China, which has historically proven unreliable in defending partners at its own expense.
Strategic approach, able diplomacy, and realistic engagement are the viable path forward. Not silence or bravado.
Editor’s Note : Views in the article do not necessarily reflect the views of borkena.com
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The GERD is a political weapon used by the Oromo regime of Abiy Ahmed and its barbaric leadership to normalize ethnocentrism and genocide against the Amhara people. The US and its European allies must force the juggernaut Oromo Clan and its folly leadership to sale GERD to the USA.
Decisions made on Nile river affects Egypt and Sudan more than any other nation.