Analysis:

Ethiopia and Eritrea: Lethal Punch-up

First, it was the Ethiopians who wanted to end the war and the Eritreans who dragged their feet, seeking "clarifications". Then the Eritreans, defeated in a savage battle at Badme in February, tried to settle. The battle had "clarified" the fact that Eritrea's economy and population were too small to take on its huge neighbor in full-scale war. But they were too late: now it is the Ethiopians who playing for time.

Within hours of his front-line buckling at Badme, Eritrea's president Isayas Afeworki said he accepted the peace plan drawn up by the Organization of African Unity (OAU) last year. But Ethiopia's Prime Minister, Meles Zenawi, now refuses to sign. Ethiopia says it accepts the peace plan in principle, but is resisting detailed OAU arrangements for military disengagement. The language used for domestic consumption suggests Mr. Melese wants total victory.

The two countries stumbled into war 16 months ago when they lost their tempers with each other over a small barren piece of borderland. Their relationship, forged when they were allies in the civil war against the Soviet-backed regime of Mengistu Haile Mariam, had been deteriorating for some time over economic issues. Both sides harbored conspiracy theories, but neither was ready for a full war. After some initial skirmishes, there was a period of phony war while both spent hundreds of millions of dollars on weapons. Then they dispatched their troops to the front, dug trenches along the 1,000Km (625 mile) border and fought dreadful set-piece battles.

Wars between countries have become rare. The Eritrean-Ethiopian conflict is incomprehensible to outsiders who see two of the world's poorest countries fighting over a square miles of barren, thinly-populated land. It is in fact an old-fashioned punch-up. Both Mr. Isayas and Mr. Meles speak of teaching the other a lesson. Mr. Meles describes Mr. Isayas as an arrogant, unstable dictator. The Eritreans believed that Mr. Meles, a Tigrayan from an area that borders Eritrea, would be overthrown by other Ethiopians if he took his country in to war. Both misread the other. There may be no formal democracy in Eritrea but most Eritreans support Mr. Isayas. Mr. Meles has become more popular because of the war, not less.

This popularity makes it hard for Mr. Meles to stop the fight. He might not survive a peace that gave Ethiopia few tangible gains. He is under immense pressure from his Tigrayans supporters to fight all until he can grab parts of the border area. But Ethiopia's demands remain vague. It has never spelt out its claims, saying it will submit them to international arbitration-though, at the same time, it says Eritrea must "vacate every inch of occupied Ethiopian land". It also wants Eritrea condemned as the aggressor.

Many people conclude that Mr. Meles's plan is to bleed Eritrea to death, securing the removal of Mr. Isayas. Ethiopia has about 16 times the number of people as Eritrea and its economy is eight times bigger. Asmera, the Eritrean capital, has been denuded by press-gangs seeking troops for the front. Foreign exchange is running low. But Eritreans nationalism is strong and it is inconceivable that the people or army would remove Mr. Isayas as the price for peace.

Unless the rest of the world applies pressure on Ethiopia to make peace, the war looks set to continue. But the huge battles with tens of thousand of causalities are unlikely to be repeated. Ethiopia will probably want to do just enough to keep as many Eritreans at the front as possible, forcing the government to spend its meager resources on weapons. That will impoverish an already poor land and so, in the long run, could be almost as lethal.