Abiy Ahmed vows Ethiopia will regain Red Sea access, stoking regional tensions

Ethiopia’s Red Sea Gambit: Ambition, Anxiety and a Region on Edge

For Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, the Red Sea is no longer a distant horizon. In a televised interview on September 1, he cast the country’s lack of coastline—lost when Eritrea gained independence three decades ago—not as a historical fact but as a fixable error. “The mistake made 30 years ago will be corrected,” he said, adding that remaining “a prisoner of the land” had become an existential challenge for a nation of more than 120 million.

The words were striking, even by the charged rhetoric of the Horn of Africa. Ethiopia’s army is among the largest on the continent. Its economy—among Africa’s biggest—still moves, inexorably, through one maritime funnel: Djibouti. That choke point carries almost all of Ethiopia’s imports and exports. For years, the arrangement has worked, sometimes uneasily, undergirded by rail and road links and a hefty bill in fees. But Abiy is now signaling something different—an impatience born of demographic pressure, a developmental push symbolized by the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), and a shifting regional chessboard.

Why the Sea Matters

In Addis Ababa, officials talk of the sea in practical, not romantic, terms: the cost of doing business, the friction of moving goods, the desire for industrialization. The GERD—Africa’s largest hydroelectric project—promises more than 5,000 megawatts of power. If Ethiopia really is to power textile hubs, agro-processing zones and tech corridors, the thinking goes, it cannot rely forever on a single corridor, especially as global shipping routes roil.

The Red Sea has been anything but calm. Missile and drone strikes from Yemen have disrupted traffic through the Bab el-Mandeb strait, with knock-on costs reverberating from Rotterdam to Mombasa. Insurance premiums spike with every headline. Ethiopia is hardly unique in wanting resilient logistics. It is unique, however, in being the world’s most populous landlocked country. That makes access to ports—Assab in Eritrea, Berbera in North Western State of Somalia, or deeper commitments in Djibouti—more than a policy option. To Abiy’s government, it’s a national mission.

Neighbors Hear a Threat

Not everyone hears it as a mission. In Asmara, Eritrean officials bristled when Ethiopia’s top military diplomat recently described Assab as a “national objective,” condemning what they called a toxic program of territorial claims. Eritrea fought a bloody war with Ethiopia from 1998 to 2000. The two sides reconciled in 2018, a rapprochement that helped propel Abiy to the Nobel Peace Prize. The subsequent conflict in northern Ethiopia, where Eritrea intervened against Tigrayan forces, left that detente deeply frayed. Today, trust is scarce.

Somalia, too, is watching closely. In October 2024, Addis Ababa signed a memorandum with North Western State of Somalia—an autonomous region that claims independence from Somalia—offering Ethiopia a pathway to naval access in exchange for potential recognition. Mogadishu called the deal a violation of its sovereignty. In its wake, a new alignment coalesced, with Somalia, Egypt and Eritrea tightening political and security coordination.

Somalia, Egypt and a New Security Geometry

Recent moves have poured fuel on the fire. Egyptian troops have begun deploying to Somalia as part of the African Union Support and Stabilization Mission (AUSSOM), a transition force intended to help Somalia confront al-Shabaab and maintain fragile security gains. Cairo says the deployment is at Mogadishu’s request and backed by the African Union’s Peace and Security Council. Somali officials, chafing at years of external dictates over their defense partnerships, welcomed the support and emphasized national sovereignty.

In Addis, the timing looks suspicious. Ethiopia and Egypt have sparred for years over the GERD, with Cairo fearing its impact on Nile waters. Now Ethiopian officials worry that Egyptian forces in Somalia could challenge or constrain Ethiopia’s 4,000 troops already stationed there. The geopolitics of one dispute—Nile water—seep into the politics of another—access to the sea. Borders on maps rarely contain anxieties.

Abiy’s Big-Bet Politics

Abiy frames his project-driven ethos as proof of capacity. If Ethiopia can build the GERD, he suggests, it can pursue other big ideas in five, 10 or 15 years. There is a constituency for that kind of ambition at home. Urban Ethiopians I’ve met in recent years talk about dignity as much as economics—the desire for their country to stand tall. The government has set about rebuilding a navy, despite Ethiopia being landlocked since the early 1990s. It sounds paradoxical, but not unprecedented: landlocked Bolivia famously maintains a navy as a political statement of its Pacific aspirations. In Ethiopia’s case, the navy would likely be moored in a partner’s port—a symbol of reach and an anchor for deals yet to be struck.

But rhetoric can outpace leverage. Djibouti already hosts foreign bases from the United States, China, France and others. The price of security and access is rising. Eritrea, wary and heavily armed, has little appetite for concessions it deems coerced. Somalia faces an insurgency, electoral pressures and fiscal constraints; it cannot be strong-armed without consequences. Ethiopia’s attempt to trade recognition for access via North Western State of Somalia has already hardened opposition in Mogadishu.

Possible Paths to the Water

There are non-military avenues. Ethiopia could deepen its existing arrangements with Djibouti through long-term leases, equity stakes in port operations, or build-to-operate industrial corridors that reduce friction for exporters. It could seek a multilateral port authority framework akin to economic “condominiums,” spreading cost and risk across the region. Berbera, in North Western State of Somalia, is being expanded with Gulf capital; one can imagine a complex tripartite structure that recognizes Somalia’s sovereignty while granting Ethiopia guaranteed throughput under international oversight.

Assab, in Eritrea, is closest to Addis by air and as evocative as any coastline in Ethiopian memory. Yet any deal there would require an improbable thaw in a relationship that zigzags between detente and distrust. For now, the hot rhetoric makes that unlikely. The more Ethiopia emphasizes “correction” of a historic mistake, the more Asmara hears a threat. In this neighborhood, words matter—and travel fast.

What the World Should Watch

Three signals will tell us where this is heading:

• Negotiation over hard assets: Does Ethiopia strike equity or lease deals in Djibouti, Berbera or—less likely—Assab? Follow the money, not the speeches.
• Military posture: Do Ethiopian forces reposition near the Eritrean border, or do we see new naval training arrangements with foreign partners? Watch for training missions, not just parades.
• Regional diplomacy: Do the African Union, IGAD or Gulf states step in to mediate practical access solutions that avert zero-sum signaling?

For global readers, the stakes stretch beyond one country’s longing for blue water. The Horn of Africa sits astride vital trade routes in a century defined by logistics, energy and climate stress. When a leader with a record of big bets calls a land border an “existential” constraint, the region listens. The rest of us should, too. Can Ethiopia convert its maritime aspirations into a rules-based, negotiated framework? Or will this become another chapter in a region where history is often written faster than it can be reconciled?

Abiy says the sea is a national survival issue. His critics hear an ultimatum. Somewhere between those positions lies a narrow channel wide enough for commerce and too narrow for war. It is the job of statesmen—and their partners—to find it.

By Ali Musa
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.