Ethiopia Analyzes the ‘Perpetual War Doctrine’ of Eritrea’s Regime
A new analysis published by Pulse of Africa and circulated via AllAfrica examines what its authors describe as a “perpetual war doctrine” pursued by the government in Asmara, the capital of Eritrea. The piece, originally attributed to the Ethiopian News Agency (ENA), revisits the long history of armed confrontation between the two Horn of Africa neighbours and frames it as a structural feature of Eritrean state policy rather than a series of isolated disputes.
Tensions between Ethiopia and Eritrea date back to the 1993 Eritrean independence referendum, which ended decades of guerrilla struggle against the Ethiopian state. The relationship collapsed into open warfare five years later, when a border dispute over the town of Badme triggered a conflict that claimed tens of thousands of lives between 1998 and 2000. A peace agreement signed in Algiers in December 2000 froze the confrontation but left many underlying issues unresolved.
A diplomatic breakthrough came in 2018 when Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed made peace with Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki, a move that earned Abiy the Nobel Peace Prize. The rapprochement collapsed, however, after war broke out in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region in November 2020. The Ethiopian federal government, along with allied Eritrean troops, fought against the Tigray People’s Liberation Front in a conflict that lasted until a ceasefire in November 2022.
The Pulse of Africa analysis frames those events as part of a longer pattern in which Asmara, in the Ethiopian view, treats militarisation and confrontation with neighbours as a governing strategy. As AllAfrica reported in carrying the piece, the authors argue that this orientation has outlasted changes of leadership in Addis Ababa and shaped the regional security environment for three decades.
Sources
This report was written from coverage published by the following news organisations. Follow the links for the original reporting.
