By: Solomon Geda
As the Horn of Africa undergoes a seismic geopolitical shift, a familiar script is being dusted off in Cairo. The recent military pacts involving Egypt, Somalia, and Eritrea have sent ripples of tension across the region. While presented under the guise of "sovereignty" and "regional stability," a deeper look into the historical record reveals a more calculated ambition: the permanent containment of Ethiopia as a landlocked, and thereby weakened, state.
The Land locking of a Giant
For Ethiopia, the most populous landlocked nation on Earth, sea access is not a matter of luxuryit is a matter of survival. However, Ethiopias current geographical isolation is not a mere accident of history; it is the result of a deliberate, eight-decade-long strategic blockade orchestrated primarily by Egypt.
Since the late 1940s, Egypt has viewed a maritime Ethiopia as a direct threat to its perceived hegemony over the Nile Basin. Cairos logic has remained remarkably consistent: if Ethiopia gains access to the sea, its economy will flourish, its naval power will grow, and its capacity to utilize its natural water resourcesspecifically the Blue Nilewill be unstoppable.
A Legacy of Sabotage
The historical receipts are clear. In the 1950s, Egypt was a vocal opponent of Ethiopias reunification with its coastline during United Nations deliberations. By the 1960s, Cairo became a sanctuary and a source of funding for separatist movements, not out of a sense of solidarity with their cause, but to sever Ethiopias connection to the Red Sea.
This strategy of "encirclement" was most evident in 1977. During the Ethio-Somali war, Egypt provided substantial military hardware to the aggressors, hoping to see Ethiopia fragmented and permanently cut off from the coast. Today, the theater has changed, but the actors and the intent remain the same. The sudden military buildup and the deployment of Egyptian hardware to Ethiopia's borders are modern iterations of this 80-year-old containment policy.
Beyond the Rhetoric: The Quest for Prosperity
Ethiopias recent Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Somaliland is a legitimate pursuit of economic diversification. It is a quest for a commercial port and a naval base to protect its trade in one of the world's most volatile shipping lanes.
Egypts attempt to internationalize this bilateral issue and use Somalia as a proxy for its Nile-related grievances is a dangerous gamble. It risks turning the Horn of Africa into a theater of external power competition, undoing decades of regional integration efforts.
The Way Forward
For the international community, it is vital to recognize that regional peace in the Horn of Africa cannot be achieved by suffocating Ethiopia. A landlocked Ethiopia, stifled by high port fees and strategic dependency, is a recipe for long-term instability.
To break this cycle, three things must happen:
Diplomatic Clarity: The African Union and the UN must see through Cairos rhetoric and discourage external interference that exacerbates local disputes.
Regional Cooperation: Ethiopias neighbours must realize that a prosperous, maritime Ethiopia is an engine for regional trade, not a threat to sovereignty.
Equitable Resource Sharing: The Blue Nile should be a bridge for cooperation, not a justification for a maritime blockade.
History shows that chains forged to hold back a nation eventually break. Ethiopias return to the sea is an inevitability of geography and economics. The only question is whether it will happen through a spirit of regional partnership or through the collapse of a century-old strategy of containment.
