As one war comes to a close, the ingredients for the next are being set in place. If everything goes according to plan, Eritrea will completely withdraw its troops and the pre-existing Ethiopian administration will be re-instated. The border will then be delineated and demarcated on the ground.

This could have been done without Eritrea’s invasion, without death, without destruction. But demarcating the border will not remove the real fuel that made this conflict burn with such intensity.

In fact, the primary fuel for this conflict – Eritrea’s prestige politics and its accompanying militaristic excess – has been re-stocked in abundance. Furthermore, one of the underlying causes of the war; Eritrea’s attempt to maintain access to the Ethiopian economy, and Eritrea’s ludicrous demand to have Ethiopia redeem its old Birr notes with hard currency (over $500 million dollars) remains unresolved.

Skeptics reading this will say “But how can prestige be a major factor in causing war?” Well, the Eritrean dictator said as much himself in an interview with foreign correspondents in 1998. This is a leadership that decided it was worthwhile to throw away the lives of thousands of Eritreans on the slim chance that Eritrea’s borders could expand slightly into areas that were never administered by Eritrea. While this is a bad enough reason for starting a war, the reason the war continued for so long is even worse. Eritreans were dying by the thousands simply to defend their dictator’s stupid boasts that he wouldn’t withdraw “even if the sun didn’t rise.”

Eritrea’s behavior has historical parallels. The cause of World War I is largely ascribed to Germany’s turning away from a foreign policy based on economic interests to a foreign policy dominated by the politics of prestige. For 25 years, Bismarck, the famous chancellor of Germany, followed a policy of maintaining alliances with at least two of the regions five major powers. But his successors undid this policy and instituted an aggressive policy that demonstrated Germany’s intention to be a major player in the global power game. This policy led to the isolation of Germany from her neighbors. The real national interests of Germany became obscured behind the hysteria of national pride and the focus on military power. In these circumstances, war was inevitable.

In the Horn of Africa, Eritrea is similarly trying to behave as a major power. Despite the delusional folly of its ambitions, it is involved in every political conflict in the Horn of Africa as well as in the entire Eastern and Central Africa region. In addition to invading Ethiopia, Eritrea currently supports the Djibouti armed opposition, is courting the former PM of Somaliland, has formed a military alliance with Hussein Aideed, declared its intention to overthrow the government of Sudan, and is intervening in Ethiopia’s internal affairs by arming and training Ethiopian opposition forces.

The Eritrean dictator is constantly lecturing people about how Eritrea “will not be pushed around.” This fixation with the politics of prestige (as opposed to the politics of national interest) has led Eritrea into its current graveyard spiral. Rather than building alliances with its neighbors based on mutual interest, Eritrea decided to build one of the largest armies in the region – far out of balance with legitimate defense needs. “Nobody pushes Eritrea around!” was and still is a common slogan in Eritrea and among the Eritrean elites in exile.

The facts of course, indicate that none of Eritrea’s neighbors are interested in “pushing Eritrea around” Eritrea is a small and, insignificant country. Without its army and without its braggart leaders, it would simply be a poorer version of Djibouti. (But at least Djibouti has democratic elections and is at peace with its neighbors).

Ethiopia must resist following Eritrea into a national prestige competition. There is a temptation to press ahead with the war until the Eritrean army is largely destroyed and rendered ineffective for years to come. But this is a false door. We should not let temporary emotional feelings dominate over long term national interest.

Eritrea is in the long–term far less important to Ethiopia than are Kenya, Sudan, and Somalia. Strengthening relations with those countries is a much more important priority than re-establishing relations with Eritrea. For the foreseeable future the best policy is to ignore Eritrea and let them wallow in the aftermath of their foolish actions.

The coming cold war

But although Ethiopia’s ideal strategy toward Eritrea should be “benign neglect,” the government of Eritrea has demonstrated a clear intention to do whatever it can to destabilize the region and promote the disintegration of Ethiopia.

Ethiopia should thus respond in kind, and it should respond with maximum effect. In particular, Eritrea’s Afar opposition should be given unlimited support.

In the coming years, Ethiopia and Eritrea will be in a position similar to North Korea /South Korea or India/Pakistan. The big loser in this cold war will be the people of Eritrea. It would be quite ironic if the insane order that dispatched Eritrean troops into Badime leads to Eritrea losing the entire Afar coastline from Djibouti to Massawa.

Accountability

It is pointless to dream about better relations with Eritrea while the current dictator is still in charge, and while Eritrea’s culture of blind obedience suppresses any forces for democratic change within the country. There is currently a wave of conspiracy theories floating through Eritrea where the elite and the intellectuals are pretending that the war started because Ethiopia set a trap for Eritrea, or Ethiopia wanted to capturing Assab, or Ethiopia wanted to annex Eritrea. Never mind the voluminous facts and logic that show how preposterous this is. It is a conspiracy of stupidity. Appeal to facts, appeal to reason, is worthless in this type of climate.

Considering the total lack of accountability in Eritrea, it would have been better for Ethiopia to insist on reparations from Eritrea for the war that it caused. This should have been a clause in any peace treaty. Punitive measures should have been included that would clearly assign responsibility where it belongs – to the Eritrean leadership and its dedicated elite followers who champion Eritrea’s new culture of blind obedience.

But the Ethiopian government has mishandled the diplomatic negotiations and allowed Eritrea to escape accepting responsibility for this conflict. Ethiopia adopted a very soft position from the start, and has maintained this mild stance throughout the conflict. All Eritrea had to do was agree to re-establish the May 6 1998 status-quo. That was it. Despite the suggestions and unsolicited advice from many observers, the Ethiopian government repeatedly declared its intention to cease-fire as soon as Eritrea gave the signal that it would withdraw. Thus the Eritreans held the key to ending the war, and Eritrea was the country that the mediators were trying to appease. Eritrea was given the power to decide unilaterally when the war would end.

Ethiopia never updated its position to reflect the new situation after Operation Sunset. Ethiopia did not insist on imposing a cost on Eritrea for starting the war.

CONCLUSION: Prestige over national interest

By focusing on prestige, Eritrea has destroyed its relations with its neighbors and retarded its economic prospects for years to come. The people of Eritrea will continue paying for this senseless war long after the jingoist hysteria fades away.

The power game (of which the Eritrean dictator appears to be an addict) requires that Eritrea maintain a massive army and spend its meager resources trying to destabilize Ethiopia. Eritrea claims that it is fearful that Ethiopia is going to forcibly take over all or part of Eritrea.

This simply indicates a lack of common sense in Eritrea. Now that Eritrea has been ejected from Badime and has been forced to agree to withdraw its troops from the remaining areas, the Eritreans should learn their lesson well: “If you are afraid of the lion then don’t spend all your time poking at it.”

- Dagmawi