The Escalation of War in Ethiopia

The Escalation of War in Ethiopia africanistperspective.com

The coming proxy wars will be devastating for civilians and do little to improve governance and human welfare in Ethiopia and the wider Horn

102 points•mooreds•about 4 hours ago•86 comments•

#ethiopia #escalation #war #proxy #wars #civilians #little #devastating

86 comments

hn_submitabout 1 hour ago

The main culprit of poverty in Africa (and other countries) is the widespread corruption. It's the destroyer of all entrepreneurial and business activity in those countries. Any business is continuously being robbed, ransomed and conned into paying "protection" money by gangs and law enforcement alike. In addition the civil servants demand payment for the most trivial licenses you need to operate your business. These all add up and make any business unprofitable because you cannot pass on those costs to customers.

To combat corruption these countries need to educate their population of its effects plus hefty penalties, including capital punishment, to get it under control. The higher up the tree the more severe the punishment should be. Politicians and senior civil servants should always be put to death since their corruption has the greatest impact.

warumdarum35 minutes ago

Corruption depends on the rule of law. And you can not have rule of law, when the primary state-forming institution is the clan-family. Its just not possible. So any culture, that can not produce state-builders, is doomed to fail forever, with the history dotted with failures. Its hard to understand- but these states you see on the map, named and infamed- are not real. The clan who rules and the cityparts and cities they own and live in, that is the state. The rest- is conquered territories, ruled by other clan-families, who are subjugated and extracted from.

Which is why these countries are so much more prosperous when outsiders rule them, supressing the clan systems for anything more meritocratic.

acjohnson5510 minutes ago

> Which is why these countries are so much more prosperous when outsiders rule them, supressing the clan systems for anything more meritocratic.

That's generally not how colonization worked. Quite often, colonization intentionally created the large scale tribal identities. Allegiance to clans grows because of deep suspicion of extractive governments put in place by outsiders.

znpy24 minutes ago

You’re right, but you’re gonna get called a racist for writing that.

dayofthedaleks12 minutes ago

Hard to be a true state builder over the past 80 years without being capped by the CIA or else suborned to the soviets/bratva.

Which almost makes China's mercantilist foothold on the continent seem like an improvement.

gentlerain43 minutes ago

Who is going to educate the population when the elites in control of the country are fighting amongst themselves due to greed and selfishness?

Corruption isn't even fought by educating the masses, it just happens that at a given time, the country gets a less selfish leader who decides enough is enough and jails the culprits. This is how countries like Korea, Singapore did it

shevy-javaabout 1 hour ago

I read that theory multiple times, and on the surface it makes sense, e. g. corrupt oligarchs siphoning away money. But there are countries in Africa not governed by a dictatorship; I think a small country in west/middle Africa led by a woman some years ago. And they still found it close to impossible to break out of the poverty circle. You also can not easily compete with richer countries - they pump more money into their production while also swarming the local market with somewhat semi-affordable stuff that gets subvention from home. You need to re-think the local economy first and foremost and fix that. Granted, that's harder when dictators seize power, getting their weapons from outside factors, but I think it is possible to solve that problem too.

forgotTheLast29 minutes ago

OP is talking about corruption which is orthogonal to being a dictatorship. In fact the least corrupt subsaharan country is (by far) Rwanda, which is a de facto dictatorship.

And the impacts of corruption/cronyism/clientelism are not just money being siphoned at the top. It completely breaks any fair competition wether it's in economic markets or for jobs. Businesses don't succeed based on how competitive or innovative they are, simply based on who their founder knows and how much they're willing to pay in bribes, so your economic development stragnates. Important and influential positions are awarded not to the most competent but to the richest. Opening a small business requires you to bribe dozens of people, and good luck if you need to import or export goods.

reenorap10 minutes ago

They need a Bukkele to come in and suspend human rights and execute all the politicians associated with corruption and use the military to throw all the warlords and criminals in jail.

The people in those countries deserve to live a life free from corruption and the only way to do it is Bukkele-style

ceejayoz9 minutes ago

The strongman approach, notably, never leads to corruption and warlords.

csenseabout 1 hour ago

Interestingly, Ethiopia wasn't always poor and backward. Back in the classical era, Ethiopia (then known as Axum or Aksum) was a major power [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Aksum

oppaoppa29 minutes ago

That was back when Aksum had a large Greek minority and other minorities, and even in some periods of time had coinage with Greek writing.

Also, Aksum probably overlaps much more with Eritrea than with Ethiopia. Aksum was also mostly surrounded by desert, mountains, at least one volcano, and the sea, and its territory tended to be close to the sea, also for trade. Surprisingly isolated from the rest of Africa south of the Sahara.

card_zero36 minutes ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethio-jazz

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock-Hewn_Churches,_Lalibela

??? This comment was dead the second I posted it, how/why is that? Oh, visible again now, fair enough.

Maybe I should have included some context: these are a couple of Ethiopian cultural things that I think are neat. Uh, that's about it, really.

miohtama39 minutes ago

Same is for Songhai empire, a great power most Western people have never heard of

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Songhai_Empire

oppaoppa26 minutes ago

What is the Songhai empire known for, apart from size, gold and slave trading? Any great architecture or scientific achievements?

andruby31 minutes ago

Civilizations flourish and falter. Mesopotamia, Babylonia, Egyptians, Romans, …

Given (enough) time, it’ll also happen to the ones at the peak now.

Merhawie27 minutes ago

Aksum ≠ Ethiopia. Aksum was a major power of its time, but the Ethiopia of today is very different.

macleginnabout 1 hour ago

I am glad that this topic gets more attention, but the article itself doesn't provide any real analysis and could use some proof-reading. In its current shape, it's borderline engagement farming.

jt2190about 1 hour ago

Wars are expensive, and the money has to come from somewhere:

> Lots of countries — including Egypt (the Nile/wider Red Sea supremacy), Eritrea (Ethiopia’s desire for access to the sea), Sudan (Ethiopian support for the RSF), Somalia (historical enmity/Ethiopian support for Somaliland), and Saudi Arabia (as benefactor of Egypt/Sudan/Eritrea axis) — have good reasons to keep Addis Ababa weak and preoccupied with unending domestic wars. These dynamics, coupled with the geography of war in Ethiopia mean that Addis Ababa will struggle to keep arms and fighters from easily moving across its borders with Sudan and Eritrea.

> On its part, the Ethiopian state will likely continue to enjoy support from the United Arab Emirates; and maintain the capacity to produce the weapons needed to keep rebels at bay. Ominously, divisions among elites in Tigray and other regions mean that the rebellion may not clear the threshold needed to incentivize a quick resolution either militarily or at the negotiating table. Therefore, slow-burning, but still catastrophically deadly conflicts may be on the cards.

> …

> Notably, a prolonged conflict will likely also be significantly civilianized. Careful to avoid being overstretched, the Ethiopian state may decide to deputize regional militias and other violence entrepreneurs in its fights against subnational armed groups. To this end, it will lean heavily on divisions across armed groups and within the regional states that have witnessed rebellions.

Part of a unifying the nation will be convincing these players that they will do better with a peaceful, stable Ethiopia.

shevy-javaabout 1 hour ago

Both countries are not super-rich and some of the arabic countries constantly destabilize the area - we could see this in Sudan and elsewhere. Ask where all the various terrorist groups got high-quality weapons.

The war between Eritrea is Ethiopia is especially stupid. The main issue is access to the ocean/water which Ethiopia wants. Since it is the bigger country, it wants to bully its way through. Eritrea has only about 6 million people; Ethiopia has almost 140 million people. IMO there should be a diplomatic solution. Give Ethiopia access while not giving up land, negotiate payments (should be reasonable for both sides), invest into the corridor for both sides to profit. To me it seems as if Ethiopia has committed to the decision to wage war though. It's similar to Putin in that he committed to both genocide and expansion of land. Though Eritrea is really very small compared to Ethiopia; I don't see them being able to offset Ethiopia.

Merhawie17 minutes ago

Eritrea/ns have historically, significant cost, demonstrated that they will resist Ethiopian occupation (see 1961-1991 and 1998-2000 conflicts). Ethiopia could re-negotiate access (see 1993-1998 agreements), however Ethiopia (state) argues for "access" in English while arguing for "ownership" in Amharic. Eritrea/ns are reasonably suspicious.

bilbo0s34 minutes ago

That's an outdated take at this point though right?

I mean pretty much everyone, today, (Nigeria, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, South sudan, etc etc), has settled on Kenya being the answer to all those questions. No one wants to access the sea in the Eritrea direction anymore since everything going on in Kenya is making Kenyan coastal access such a no-brainer. (And all of that was even before the Iran war showed that making your shipping dependent on the Eritrea route, and mideast chokepoints in general, is just, I mean, I'll be diplomatic and call it "ill-considered"). Now, with the newest attachments being considered for the LAPSSET corridor, going through Eritrea is just insanity by comparison.

So even without the geography problem, there is still war is my point. Now, of course, you could argue it's still a geography problem since the proxy-masters are mostly concerned about getting rid of the dam long term. But that's another issue is all I'm saying.

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