Hager Wodad Los Angeles

A letter rests, its contents a quiet plea for reason. Across a sealed border, the dust rises from armored columns and the muffled thunder of distant artillery. This is the stark duality Ethiopia now faces: a formal, peaceful overture for sovereign sea access lies unanswered in Asmara, while Eritrean forces maneuver inside our sovereign territory, from the expanses of Northern Ethiopia to the troubled lands of Amhara, even conspiring in brutal attacks alongside Tigrayan militants in Tselemti. We are caught in a double bind—one hand extended in peace, the other forced to parry a dagger in the dark. In this moment of profound tension, the simplistic cry for war is a seductive poison. It offers the catharsis of action but promises only mutual ruin. Instead, Ethiopia must pursue a path of immense discipline: a dual-track strategy of principled persistence and defensive deterrence, rigorously separating the existential economic question from the immediate security threat, while mastering how they inform a single, sober national purpose.

The diplomatic track begins with understanding that Asmara’s silence is not a full stop, but a semicolon in a long, difficult narrative. Eritrea’s regime is psychologically and politically wired for perceived siege. An outright, gracious acceptance of our proposal for talks on Assab and maritime access was always unlikely. Their non-response is a tactical move, designed to preserve maximal bargaining power and assess our resolve. Therefore, our foreign ministry must not see a closed door, but initiate a sustained, multi-layered diplomatic campaign. First, we must formalize and elevate the proposal. By carefully publicizing its core principles—a commitment to legally binding, mutually beneficial agreements on port leases, fees, and shared infrastructure—we accomplish two critical goals. We demonstrate transparent, peaceful intent to Africa and the world, seizing the moral high ground, and we place subtle but significant pressure on Eritrea’s isolated government. The international community, weary of Horn of Africa conflicts, must see Ethiopia as the pragmatic actor seeking economic solutions, not military adventures.

Simultaneously, we must activate every channel. “Track 1.5” diplomacy, using respected former statesmen and trusted regional intermediaries, can probe Asmara’s unstated fears and red lines. Concurrently, we must internationalize the issue not as a grievance, but as a legitimate imperative. To the AU, UN, and key capitals from Washington to Beijing, Abu Dhabi to Ankara, our message must be clear: a landlocked nation of 120 million seeks a peaceful, commercial resolution to a fundamental economic bottleneck. This is not a revanchist claim, but a plea for stability through integration. Crucially, we must accelerate and loudly champion our alternatives. Every progress on the Berbera corridor, every efficiency gain in Djibouti, every study on Lamu must be heralded. We must show, through action and announcement, that Ethiopia’s development is unstoppable. The goal is to make Eritrea’s intransigence a costly miscalculation for them—to transform Assab from a weapon they withhold into an opportunity they are missing.

Yet, diplomacy cannot be blind to the tanks on the ground. The incursions in the north are a blatant violation of sovereignty and the spirit of the Pretoria Cessation of Hostilities Agreement. They require a firm, unequivocal response—but one calibrated to de-escalate, not provoke a wider war. War is not an option; it is a failure of statecraft that would cataclysmically set back both nations for generations. Instead, our response must be a model of integrated deterrence.

The immediate step is a formal, detailed dossier to the UN Security Council and the African Union Peace and Security Council. We must document the presence of Eritrean Defense Forces in our regions, their joint operations with Tigrayan militants, and the resultant instability. This is not “whining”; it is holding a regime accountable before the institutions of global order. We must demand emergency sessions of IGAD and the AU. The framing is vital: this is not about sea access. It is about a neighbor violating international law and undermining regional peace. We separate the issues to isolate Eritrea’s aggression.

Militarily, our posture must be defensively robust. Reinforcements to the ENDF in affected areas should be framed and deployed as protective shields—consolidating positions, securing populations, and denying further advance. The message is one of steadfast defense, not preparation for invasion. Alongside this, we must wage a form of strategic political warfare. We should support—quietly but consistently—the increasing international scrutiny of Eritrea’s domestic horrors: the indefinite national service, the suffocated press, the systemic human rights abuses. By aligning with global calls for reform, we raise the regime’s cost of isolation and sharpen the contrast between Ethiopia’s difficult but open path and Eritrea’s hermetic tyranny.

The long-term genius of this strategy lies in the careful, almost imperceptible, linkage of these two tracks. We never publicly threaten to take Assab by force. Instead, through private, high-level channels, a simple, irrefutable logic can be conveyed: A de-escalation along our shared border and a withdrawal to recognized lines would naturally create the conducive atmosphere for the transformative economic partnership we have proposed. Your current path of aggression only guarantees your continued isolation and our accelerated pursuit of alternatives. We make peace the profitable option.

This is the essence of outmaneuvering, rather than outfighting. The Asmara regime’s currency is perpetual crisis. We must refuse to be its source. By relentlessly pursuing peaceful port diversification, we undercut their leverage. By responding to incursions with multilateral legal and diplomatic pressure, we deny them the bilateral clash that justifies their militarization. By keeping the door to Assab open, we appeal to the Eritrean people’s future longing for normalcy and prosperity, over their leader’s present addiction to conflict