Ethiopia’s recurring conflicts with Eritrea are often explained as separate misunderstandings: a failed federation, a liberation war, a disputed village, a frozen border, a security crisis and now a disagreement over access to the sea.

Treated individually, each episode appears to have its own explanation. Viewed together, they reveal a durable political doctrine.

Successive Ethiopian ruling establishments have treated the sovereignty of surrounding peoples as conditional whenever it restricts the ambitions of the Ethiopian state.

The vocabulary changes with the government. Empire becomes unity. Annexation becomes national consolidation. Occupation becomes a border dispute. Territorial ambition becomes regional integration. A demand for somebody else’s coastline becomes economic necessity.

But beneath the changing language sits the same hierarchy: Ethiopia’s scale, history and strategic needs are presumed to create rights that neighboring states are expected to accommodate.

Badme was not the origin of this mentality. It was one of its clearest modern expressions.

The colonial mindset begins with hierarchy

Colonialism is not defined only by Europeans crossing oceans. It begins wherever one political center decides that another people’s territory, institutions and consent are subordinate to its own mission.

The colonizing power presents itself as the natural center of order. The smaller people are told that incorporation is historically inevitable, economically beneficial or necessary for regional stability. Resistance is described as rebellion, irrational separatism or hostility to unity.

That logic has repeatedly shaped Ethiopian state-building.

Modern Ethiopia expanded through conquest and centralization. Different peoples were incorporated into an imperial order that concentrated political meaning in the center. The state’s territorial reach was treated not as a historical product open to criticism, but as a sacred inheritance.

This is why the ideology survives changes in rulers. Monarchy, military socialism, ethnic federalism and the current centralizing project speak different languages, yet each can reproduce the belief that the Ethiopian state possesses a civilizational right to command its periphery.

Eritrea was not voluntarily absorbed

Eritrea’s modern relationship with Ethiopia cannot be understood honestly through the language of natural unity.

In 1952, Eritrea was federated with Ethiopia under a UN arrangement that preserved Eritrean institutions and autonomy. Haile Selassie’s government gradually dismantled that federal order. Eritrean political institutions were suppressed, autonomy was eliminated and Eritrea was formally annexed in 1962.

This was not a misunderstanding between equal partners. It was the destruction of an agreed political arrangement by the stronger state.

Eritrea’s armed struggle therefore did not emerge because a naturally Ethiopian province suddenly became confused about its identity. It emerged because incorporation had been imposed and political avenues for defending Eritrean autonomy had been closed.

The war for independence was resistance to annexation.

Yet the imperial narrative reversed the relationship. Ethiopia became the defender of unity, while Eritreans resisting forced rule were portrayed as separatists threatening a legitimate national order.

This reversal—expansion described as unity and resistance described as aggression—would return repeatedly.

Independence did not erase the imperial imagination

Eritrea achieved de facto independence in 1991 and formal independence after the 1993 referendum. The legal question was settled. The psychological question inside sections of Ethiopia’s political class was not.

For many Ethiopian nationalists, the loss of Eritrea was experienced not simply as the recognition of a neighboring nation, but as the mutilation of Ethiopia. The coastline was spoken of as something Ethiopia had lost, as though prior annexation had created permanent ownership.

This language matters. A person can lose his property. An empire cannot “lose” a people who never consented to belong to it.

The continuing description of Eritrean independence as Ethiopia’s loss reveals the unresolved assumption: Eritrea is still imagined through what it once provided Ethiopia rather than through the sovereign will of Eritreans.

Badme was occupation, not merely confusion

The 1998–2000 border war is frequently compressed into the phrase “the Badme dispute,” as if two equally uncertain governments simply disagreed over a poorly marked line.

The war was real, devastating and marked by decisions and abuses that deserve honest examination on all sides. But what followed the war is legally clear.

Under the Algiers Agreement, Eritrea and Ethiopia accepted a final and binding boundary process. In 2002, the Eritrea–Ethiopia Boundary Commission issued its delimitation decision. Badme fell on the Eritrean side.

Ethiopia did not simply fail to acquire Badme. It maintained control over territory that binding arbitration had awarded to Eritrea and resisted implementation of the decision for years.

That distinction matters. The central postwar fact was not Ethiopian disappointment. It was occupation sustained after a ruling both parties had agreed would be final.

Addis Ababa demanded dialogue and adjustments after the verdict, effectively treating the agreement as binding only until it produced an unwanted result. Eritrea insisted on implementation before normalization.

Internationally, Ethiopia’s noncompliance gradually became background context. Eritrea’s refusal to accept indefinite occupation became the visible problem.

Once again, expansion was normalized while resistance was pathologized.

Occupation was converted into a public-relations advantage

The “no war, no peace” period produced an extraordinary narrative inversion.

Ethiopia held territory awarded to Eritrea, yet it increasingly presented itself as the pragmatic actor seeking dialogue. Eritrea was portrayed as rigid, isolated and irrational because it insisted that a binding ruling be implemented.

The stronger state transformed its refusal to comply into evidence of flexibility: everything could be discussed. The smaller state’s insistence on the agreement became evidence of extremism: nothing could be discussed until the ruling was honored.

This is a familiar imperial technique. The aggressor creates a new reality, then demands negotiations based on that reality. If the injured party refuses, it is blamed for obstructing peace.

Dialogue becomes a mechanism for renegotiating what law has already settled.

Isolation continued the conflict by other means

The struggle did not remain on the border. It moved into diplomacy, media, international institutions and competing relationships across the Horn of Africa.

The 2009 UN sanctions on Eritrea were formally based on allegations concerning Somalia and the unresolved border dispute with Djibouti, not on Badme itself. Historical accuracy requires stating this plainly.

But formal justification does not exhaust political context.

Ethiopia was an influential regional ally with substantial diplomatic access. Eritrea entered the sanctions era after years of unresolved occupation, hostility and international portrayal as the uniquely destabilizing actor in the region.

The result was a convenient division of roles: Ethiopia’s refusal to implement the boundary ruling rarely produced comparable punishment, while allegations against Eritrea entered an international environment already prepared to treat Asmara as guilty.

Eritrea consistently denied supporting al-Shabaab. Later monitoring did not establish continued Eritrean support, and the UN sanctions were lifted in 2018.

The point is not that every allegation was invented in Addis Ababa or that every Eritrean policy was beyond criticism. The point is that international pressure operated selectively inside a political order where Ethiopia’s violations were treated as manageable and Eritrea’s conduct as evidence of inherent criminality.

The propaganda formula

The formula has remained remarkably consistent:

  • Ethiopian strategic ambition is described as necessity.
  • Neighboring sovereignty is described as an obstacle.
  • Resistance is described as aggression.
  • Ethiopian military or diplomatic pressure is described as stabilization.
  • The smaller state’s defensive posture is used as proof that it is dangerous.
  • International institutions are asked to manage the reaction rather than confront the original hierarchy.

This formula does not require a single centralized conspiracy. It survives because Ethiopian officials, nationalist intellectuals, aligned media voices and external partners often share an assumption: Ethiopia is too large and important to be constrained in the same way as its neighbors.

That is precisely the colonial assumption.

The Red Sea rhetoric removes the disguise

Current Ethiopian rhetoric about sovereign access to the sea makes the underlying doctrine easier to see.

Commercial access is available through negotiation. Ethiopia already trades through neighboring ports. It can seek lower costs, diversified corridors, infrastructure partnerships and long-term leases without challenging another state’s ownership.

But sections of Ethiopia’s political class speak as though landlocked geography itself is an injustice committed by neighboring countries. Population size is invoked as though more people create greater territorial rights. Historical maps are revived as though imperial possession never expires.

The question is framed not as, “What mutually beneficial agreement can Ethiopia negotiate?” but as, “How can a country as large as Ethiopia be denied a sovereign coastline?”

The second question already rejects equality. It assumes that a smaller neighbor’s sovereign rights may be overridden by a larger state’s declared need.

If demographic scale creates ownership, then every small African state lives by permission of its largest neighbor.

“Regional integration” can become the language of empire

Regional integration is desirable when sovereign countries enter it voluntarily. Shared infrastructure, trade corridors, energy exchange and open markets could benefit the entire Horn of Africa.

But integration led by threats, territorial entitlement or military imbalance is not integration. It is absorption under modern branding.

An empire does not always announce itself with annexation. It may begin by demanding privileged access, control over strategic decisions, permanent security arrangements or the right to intervene whenever the center claims instability.

The test is consent.

Can the smaller state say no without being threatened, sanctioned or portrayed as an enemy of development? If not, the proposed partnership is hierarchical.

Ethiopia’s neighbors recognize the pattern

The colonial mindset does not threaten Eritrea alone. Any neighboring state becomes vulnerable when Ethiopian need is treated as superior to sovereign equality.

Somalia has confronted agreements made over territory it considers subject to its sovereignty. Sudan has experienced recurring border tensions. Eritrea faces renewed sea-access rhetoric. The details differ, and each dispute must be judged on its own facts, but the political habit is recognizable.

Addis Ababa repeatedly treats regional borders as negotiable when they frustrate Ethiopian strategy, while presenting resistance as irresponsibility by smaller states.

This does not mean Ethiopia is uniquely evil or that its people share one expansionist ideology. It means its state tradition contains an imperial inheritance that must be named rather than hidden behind the language of unity and development.

The target is a doctrine, not a people

Criticism must remain disciplined.

Ethiopia contains many peoples with their own histories of conquest, marginalization and resistance to central domination. Ordinary Ethiopians do not collectively design regional aggression. Many have suffered from the same state tradition being criticized here.

The target is not an ethnicity, religion or population. It is an expansionist doctrine reproduced by ruling establishments and nationalist movements that treat the Ethiopian state’s ambitions as morally superior to the consent of surrounding peoples.

Indeed, Ethiopians seeking a democratic and peaceful future have reason to oppose this doctrine. Imperial projects consume their children, redirect public resources and give governments an external enemy through which to suppress internal accountability.

A peaceful Ethiopia that respects its neighbors would also be freer internally.

Eritrea must answer with sovereignty and clarity

Eritrea should not answer imperial thinking with ethnic hatred or indiscriminate hostility. That would strengthen expansionist elites by allowing them to present aggression as national defense.

The answer is a clear distinction between cooperation and submission.

Eritrea can negotiate trade. It can develop ports for regional commerce. It can pursue roads, rail, energy projects and economic agreements that serve both populations.

But it cannot accept the proposition that Ethiopia possesses a natural right to Eritrean territory because it is larger, landlocked or historically accustomed to control.

Trade is negotiable. Sovereignty is not.

The empire survives through euphemism

Ethiopia’s rulers have repeatedly changed the language used to justify hierarchy.

Eritrea’s autonomy was dismantled in the name of unity. Annexation was defended as national integrity. Badme was retained under the language of dialogue and practical adjustment. Regional pressure was presented as security. The coastline is now discussed through development, integration and demographic necessity.

The words are modern. The assumption is old.

Ethiopia’s needs are treated as permanent. Its neighbors’ rights are treated as negotiable.

That is why Badme cannot be understood as an isolated border mistake. It belongs to a longer political tradition in which Addis Ababa assumes that agreements, borders and sovereignty must bend around Ethiopian power.

The empire never disappeared merely because its rulers changed names. It will end only when Ethiopia accepts the principle it has repeatedly demanded for itself: no people and no territory exist as the property of another state.