The Ethiopian Cable

Last week, a bombshell Wall Street Journal article revealed that Washington was exploring a reset in relations with Eritrea, with US envoy for Africa Massad Boulos having met privately with senior regime officials in Egypt. Any normalisation of ties now appears to be on ice, with the reaction to Boulos's meetings — facilitated by Egypt — having been met with short shrift. But the episode speaks to broader issues about American foreign policy in the Horn and the accelerating reconfiguration of the Red Sea political order, which will not go away simply because this particular overture may have stalled.

Another showdown over Tigray's political architecture is unfolding, with the future of the Tigray Interim Administration (TIA) once again at stake. For much of this year, fears of renewed war have loomed over Ethiopia's northernmost region, with the federal government mobilising substantial forces to the edges of Tigray.

Most nights in a number of dimly lit bars in Addis Ababa, one can hear a vibraphone hum over a syncopated bassline. The sprightly rhythm is unmistakably jazz, but the scales are Ethiopian; pentatonic, looping and melodic. Five decades after its pioneering by visionary musician Mulatu Astatke, Ethio-jazz remains in full swing, with its renaissance from the late 1990s persevering despite tough political and cultural conditions.

The sparks from the Middle East's conflagration have set Ethiopia's laboured fuel industry ablaze, and the country is grinding to a halt. Ongoing geopolitical and fiscal shocks emanating from the US/Israel war with Iran—and the spill-over across the Gulf—have left few regions untouched. With no satisfactory end in sight, the decades-old—if creaking—US-underpinned security architectThe sparks from the Middle East's conflagration have set Ethiopia's laboured fuel industry ablaze, and the country is grinding to a halt. Ongoing geopolitical and fiscal shocks emanating from the US/Israel war with Iran—and the spill-over across the Gulf—have left few regions untouched. With no satisfactory end in sight, the decades-old—if creaking—US-underpinned security architecture in the Middle East has been upended, as have the globalised hydrocarbon networks that long served as the financial lifeblood of energy-importing states.

Why have one mega-dam when you can have three more? Details are scarce, but Ethiopia has unveiled plans to build three more dams on the Blue Nile, just a few months after the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) was completed.

War has been averted in Tigray-- for now. In early February, tens of thousands of Ethiopian federal soldiers and heavy artillery streamed northwards, readying themselves on the edges of the northernmost region for seemingly imminent conflict.

Six general elections in Ethiopia have been held since the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) implemented its ethnic-federal system in 1995. Each has delivered victory to the incumbent government of the day — including, most recently, the deeply discredited 2021 polls held in the shadow of the Tigray war. Once again, with Ethiopia's 7th elections — scheduled for 1 June 2026 — fast approaching, few anticipate anything other than a coronation in a country mired in raging insurgencies, state contraction, and the threat of broader inter-state conflict.

Almost exactly 130 years ago, a vast Ethiopian army led by Emperor Menelik II outmanoeuvred and overran the invading Italian army at Adwa in Tigray, bringing the first Italo-Ethiopian war to a decisive close. By midday on 1 March 1896, thousands of Italian soldiers and Eritrean 'askaris' had been killed, sparing Ethiopia from the carving up of the African continent by European colonisers.

The first known reference to the Tekezé River is an inscription that describes the Axumite King Ezana boasting of a triumph on its banks near the "ford of Kemalke" in the 4th century AD. Emerging in the Ethiopian highlands near Mount Qachen in the Amhara region, the major rivers' tributaries flow north and west, forming part of the westernmost border between Eritrea and Ethiopia.