Addis Ababa’s alignment with the UAE and the RSF risks redrawing the Horn’s balance of power – and detonating Ethiopia’s own fragile internal order.
War is coming to the Horn of Africa, and Ethiopia is accelerating its arrival. While threatening Eritrea and confronting a widening insurgency at home, Addis Ababa is now helping the UAE-backed Rapid Support Forces (RSF) open a new front in Sudan.
Ethiopia’s increasing intervention comes amid setbacks for the RSF and shifting alliances. If Ethiopia succeeds, it could become a regional power, bridging East Africa and West Asia. Failure could turn it into the next post-Yugoslavia.
Western alignment and imperial inheritance
Ethiopia has long balanced defiance with dependence. It was one of only two African states to avoid formal colonization during the 1884–85 Berlin Conference. Yet its sovereignty survived through tactical partnerships with European powers.
With the help of European weapons and advisors in the late 19th century, the Ethiopian empire expanded into territory inhabited by Oromo (Oromia) and Somali people (Ogaden). When rebellion broke out in Ogaden (the Dervish Movement), Ethiopia conspired with Britain to quell the uprising and divide the land.
The 1960s brought renewed uprisings in Eritrea – then federated and later annexed – and in the Ogaden. Israel played a decisive role, providing counterinsurgency training against these largely Muslim regions, which Tel Aviv viewed as potential gateways for Arab nationalist influence.
The US provided support, given that rival Somalia was allied with the USSR. After the 1974 revolution installed the Marxist-Leninist Derg, Washington distanced itself. Israel, however, maintained covert cooperation. When the Derg collapsed in 1991, Eritrea moved toward independence, which it formally achieved in 1993.
Following 11 September 2001, Ethiopia again became central to US security strategy in the Horn. Washington directed hundreds of millions of dollars in military and counterterrorism assistance to Addis Ababa. In 2006, Ethiopian forces invaded Somalia with US backing, toppling the Islamic Courts Union and laying the groundwork for the prolonged Al-Shabaab insurgency, a Somali extremist group affiliated with Al-Qaeda.
A fractured neighborhood
The cozy relationship with the west now faces setbacks. In 2021, the US imposed sanctions on Ethiopia, allegedly for human rights violations during the Tigray War. Of course, the US cares little about human rights. Perhaps Washington saw Ethiopia as a destabilizing force in the region. Regardless, Addis Ababa had to look elsewhere for support.
Ethiopia had to find an ally that aligned with its policy towards neighboring Eritrea, Somalia, and Sudan. With Eritrea, historic animosity and border disputes have created a bitter rivalry. Ethiopia has accused Eritrea of backing rebels in the Amhara region and deploying troops on its territory. Rhetoric in Addis Ababa has periodically invoked Red Sea access, including reference to Assab Port – claims that carry no legal basis under international law.
Somalia is another longstanding rival. The 16th-century Ethiopian–Adal war and the 1977–78 Ogaden war remain foundational memories. Ethiopia frames its involvement in Somalia through the threat posed by Al-Shabaab. Strategically, however, Addis Ababa has little interest in a strong Mogadishu capable of reviving territorial claims over the Ogaden.
Sudan and Ethiopia have also butt heads, ever since the 1850s Mahdist State War. The Derg supported South Sudan separatists, and in the 1990s, at Washington’s urging, Ethiopia joined the Front Line States Strategy against Sudan.
Relations improved in the 2000s, but worsened as Ethiopia began building the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD). Sudan, along with Egypt, has complained that the GERD will lead to less water to the Nile, reducing agricultural output. Ethiopia considers it a sovereign development project and a pillar of national legitimacy.
Who would provide Ethiopia with the support it needed? China was one alternative, given its established relationship. Beijing accounts for half of Ethiopia’s foreign direct investment and provides training for the army.
But it does not share the same alignment when it comes to Ethiopia’s neighbors. In fact, China was one of the only countries that provided support to Eritrea during the war of independence. In 2021, Eritrea signed onto the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
China also has close relations with Somalia, given Taiwan’s support for Somaliland. Likewise, Russia has been working with Sudan since 2020 to build a naval base, and Eritrea was one of the few countries to support the invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Neither power offers the partisan security alignment Addis Ababa now seeks.
Enter the UAE.
Abu Dhabi in the Horn
The UAE is the fourth largest foreign direct investor in Africa and a decisive actor along the Red Sea corridor. For years, Abu Dhabi cultivated parallel ties with Eritrea, Somalia, and Ethiopia. Its military base in Assab supported operations in Yemen.
That posture shifted as Saudi–UAE tensions resurfaced over Yemen. In December 2025, a Saudi-led escalation targeted positions aligned with the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC), accelerating Abu Dhabi’s withdrawal from key Yemeni theaters. The rupture sharpened competition between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi across the Red Sea basin.
A year after leaving Mogadishu, Ethiopia and the UAE agreed to strengthen bilateral defense and military cooperation under a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). In 2021, an Al Jazeera investigation found the UAE was providing support to Ethiopia to fight in Tigray, with over 90 flights carrying military equipment. In 2025, the UAE announced a $3-billion railway to connect Berbera, Somaliland (claimed by Somalia) with Ethiopia. Last November, another MoU was signed, emphasizing cooperation in air defence.
As the UAE–Saudi rivalry kicked off in late 2025, Addis Ababa and Abu Dhabi reaffirmed their strategic partnership, emphasizing the importance of security collaboration. On 12 January 2026, Mogadishu formally severed all agreements with the UAE, annulling port concessions, security arrangements, and defense cooperation deals. The decision eliminated one of Abu Dhabi’s primary Horn footholds.
Ethiopia and the UAE now need each other more than ever. Without bases in Somalia, the UAE needs Ethiopia to deliver equipment to the RSF in Sudan, which has only become more urgent as the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) progresses against the RSF.
An SAF victory also poses a challenge to Ethiopia. No longer fighting the RSF, Sudan might attack the GERD, which is only 10 kilometers away from the border. Ethiopia also prefers the RSF, which provided support in the Tigray War. In contrast, during the Tigray War, the SAF took over the disputed Al-Fashaga area.
It is within this framework that reports emerged of Ethiopian training for thousands of RSF fighters near the border.
External projection, internal strain
This month, news broke out that Ethiopia was hosting a secret military base to train up to 10,000 RSF fighters – a game changer for both the UAE and Ethiopia.
With the base, a new front has opened in the Southeast Blue Nile State. With most fighting in Sudan occurring in Kordofan, the SAF now has to devote resources here. Already, the RSF and allied Sudan People’s Liberation Movement–North (SPLM–N) have captured the strategic town of Deim Mansour in Blue Nile.
As for the base, it is just 100 kilometers south of the GERD. If the RSF and SPLM–N capture more of Blue Nile State, Ethiopia will have a buffer. Moreover, a full RSF victory would extend Ethiopia’s influence up to the border with Egypt, which also opposes the GERD.
But opening a new front is risky for Ethiopia. The RSF and SPLM–N are moving slowly, failing to seize the city of Kurmuk as some predicted. Ethiopia’s support for the RSF also opens itself up to attack.
Last month, the SAF destroyed a 150-vehicle convoy crossing from Ethiopia. If the SAF seizes the region, nothing would stop them from crossing the border to attack the RSF’s camp. Rather than having a buffer in Sudan, Ethiopia might find the SAF on GERD’s doorstep.
Meanwhile, Ethiopia’s internal balance remains precarious.
A front in Sudan also deprives Ethiopia of military resources to domestic insurgencies. The Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) still controls most of the Tigray region. Many fear war will break out again, as Ethiopia sends troops to the region.
There is also the Fano militia, an ethnic Amhara group that helped fight in Tigray for Ethiopia, but turned against Ethiopia when it tried to dissolve the group. The Fano is now seizing and raiding towns as Ethiopia diverts troops to Tigray.
The Oromo conflict has also been going on for over 50 years. The Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) and TPLF were 140 kilometers away from the capital during the 2021 Addis Ababa offensive. The OLF has recently threatened to go to war if its demands are not met.
Meanwhile, the Ogaden National Liberation Front has threatened to attack oil facilities. There has also been sporadic conflict in Gambela and Benishangul-Gumuz, where the RSF’s training base is located.
Projecting force into Sudan diverts attention and capacity from a fragile domestic equilibrium. History offers sobering parallels. The Soviet Union’s 1979 intervention in Afghanistan did not cause its collapse alone, but it accelerated internal fractures already underway. Ethiopia faces its own centrifugal pressures.
A new alignment
No longer able to rely on unquestioned US backing, Ethiopia has turned decisively toward the UAE. With Abu Dhabi pushed out of Eritrea and now formally expelled from Somalia after Mogadishu annulled all agreements in January 2026, the Emiratis incur limited strategic exposure through this partnership. Ethiopia absorbs the greater risk.
Addis Ababa has undoubtedly benefited from Emirati investment, arms transfers, and political backing. Support for the RSF could secure a buffer along the Sudanese frontier, shield the GERD from a hostile Sudanese army, or, at a minimum, prolong Sudan’s war long enough to neutralize any immediate threat.
In the most ambitious scenario, an RSF-dominated Sudan would project Ethiopian influence to Egypt’s southern flank and reshape Nile basin politics.
But the same move could destabilize the Ethiopian state itself. Intervening in Sudan while insurgencies persist in Tigray, Amhara, Oromia, and Benishangul-Gumuz stretches an already fragile federation. External projection does not resolve internal fracture.
In the Horn of Africa, overreach carries consequences.
Source: thecradle.co
