This paper argues that the superpower rivalry in the Horn of Africa has played a major role in the outbreak of the 1974 revolution in Ethiopia. It contends the existing narrative in Ethiopian school history textbooks, which asserts that the 1974 revolution was caused entirely by the internal political, economic, and social upheavals. In fact, the internal factors were heavy enough to cause the revolution. Yet, the external factor, in the Ethiopian context, has played a key role in triggering the internal movements. Additionally, the paper argues that, instead of being a blessing, the Horn of Africa’s geostrategic importance has remained a curse and source of strife and rivalry among the peoples and states of the region by attracting superpower competition and involvement.
The geostrategic importance of the Horn of Africa has made the region a major scene for superpower contention in the last preceding decades. Historically, three main events shaped the character of the relations between the Horn of African states and the superpowers. These were the Eritrean conflict (1941-1991), the Ethiopian revolution of 1974, and the Ethio-Somali war of 1978/79. The Horn of Africa has always been remained as a field of contest among the superpowers due to its geostrategic significance.
The Geostrategic Importance of the Horn of Africa and Superpowers’ Interest in the Region
1. Introduction
The Horn of Africa embraces four countries namely Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia, and Djibouti. Historically, countries of the Horn of Africa, except Ethiopia, were colonized by European powers; namely Italy, Great Britain, and France since the 1880s. Eritrea stayed under Italian colonial rule for about a half-century. The French ruled Djibouti from 1969 to 1977. And the three colonial powers, Italy, Britain, and France partitioned Somalia into their spheres of influence. It was only Ethiopia that successfully resisted the colonial powers in 1896 at Adwa and was able to remain independent. The independence of the states of the Horn of Africa came mainly with the start of the Second World War. Accordingly, Somalia and Djibouti achieved their political independence in 1960 and 1977 respectively. Eritrea was liberated from Italian rule after the Italian army was defeated by the joint military forces of Ethiopia and Britain in 1941. But Eritrea was not granted independence like the two others. It was federated with Ethiopia in 1952 by the United Nations resolution (Bereket, 1980).
The Horn of Africa is strategically and economically an important area. The region has broader access to the sea. It is bounded by the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden, and the Indian Ocean. This makes the region a key place, interconnecting the three continents: Africa, Europe, and Asia. Its geostrategic importance has made the region a major scene for superpower contention in the last preceding decades. Historically, three main events shaped the character of the relations between the Horn of African states and the superpowers. These were the Eritrean armed rebellion, 1961-91, the Ethiopian revolution of 1974, and the Ethio-Somali war of 1977/78. The role of the foreign powers, particularly the USSR and the USA, was so great in escalating conflicts in the region.
This paper argues that the superpower involvement in the Horn of Africa has played a major role for the outbreak of the 1974 revolution in Ethiopia. It contends the existing narrative in Ethiopian school history textbooks, which asserts that the 1974 revolution was caused entirely by internal political, economic, and social upheavals. Indeed, the internal factors were heavy enough to cause the revolution. Yet, the external factor, in the Ethiopian context, has played a key role in triggering the internal movements. The start of Ethiopia’s diplomatic links with China and the Soviet Union on the eve of the revolution, to deter their military aid to the Eritrean insurgents, brought a disastrous outcome to the Imperial government. This event led to the deterioration of the long-aged US-Ethiopian relations while it had invited the Soviet Union to introduce revolutionary ideas into Ethiopia through the radical students and young army officers. Especially, the evacuation of the United States from Qagnew in the early 1970s meant a great blow to the Ethiopian imperial regime, which had relied heavily on US military aid since at least the mid-1950s. The US withdrawal was followed by the Soviet intervention in their place. As known, things had completely changed thereafter.
Additionally, the paper argues that, instead of being a blessing, the Horn of Africa’s geostrategic importance has remained a curse and source of strife and rivalry among the peoples and states of the region by attracting superpower competition and involvement. Using the region’s economic backwardness and political instability as an opportunity, the Soviet Union and the United States have intervened in the internal affairs of the Horn of African states. They supplied a considerable amount of arms for the escalation of conflicts in the region. This in turn brought about considerable damage to the region’s human life and property. Dozens of people in the region were starved, dislocated, and died in battles as a result of superpower-sponsored conflicts. The region lacked peace and stability and economic prosperity mainly because of the superpowers’ military and political interventions. In consequence, currently, the Horn of Africa is one of the most backward, unstable, and explosive regions of the planet earth.
2. The Geostrategic Importance of the Horn of Africa and Superpowers’ Interest in the Region
The Horn of Africa lies in a very strategic position. The region is a linking place of the three continents, Africa, Asia, and Europe, through its broader access to the sea. It is bounded by the Red Sea, Indian Ocean, and the Gulf of Aden. The strait of Bab el Mandeb, linking the Indian Ocean to the Red Sea, lies at the southern end of the Red Sea, while the Suez Canal lies at the other end. The opening of the Suez Canal in 1867 made the region even more important since the Red Sea became a vital line of communication connecting Europe and the Middle East (Bereket, 1980; Mandinka, 1982). Besides, their access to the sea enabled countries of the Horn of Africa to build ports. There are at least five best ports in the region that can provide military, security, and economic facilities. Somalia has the ports of Mogadishu, Kismayu, and Berbera. Historically an Ethiopian, the ports of Assab and Massawa lie along the shores of the Red Sea. And the port of Djibouti is a key place for a naval base and maritime commerce (Patman, 1990).
Economically, the Horn of Africa is a “mandatory” passageway for important maritime trade routes that cross the Red Sea, the Suez Canal, and the Gulf of Aden. Militarily, the region is an ideal place for naval and air security operations. Moreover, the Horn of Africa is a very important area due to its proximity to the key sea lanes linking the oil-producing countries with Europe and America (Mandinka, 1982). Oil, produced especially in the Middle East, flows into many parts of the world including East European countries through the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. All these things accounted for the geopolitical and strategic prominence of the Horn of Africa. Thus, since the beginning of colonialism, the great powers viewed the region as a key place for the protection of their commercial and military interests (Mohammed, 2021).
Moreover, the Horn of Africa is the source of immense natural resources such as lakes and river basins. For instance, the region has five principal drainage systems; among which the Nile River system exists. The Nile is the longest river in the world. It has had a wider meaning to the regional as well as the international community in terms of economic and security matters. Therefore, controlling the Horn of Africa has been a primary agenda of superpowers’ foreign policy due to the region’s geostrategic importance and its natural resources. The superpowers have rivaled in the region throughout the Cold War period to control the strategic places, seaports, naval, and air bases for economic and military superiority. In return, the Horn African states have received a considerable amount of financial and military assistance from the superpowers, often used to escalate conflicts.
Robert Patman (1990) noted that, for a powerful state to intervene in the affairs of another there must be a “motive and opportunity” (p. 8). Therefore, the main motives behind the superpowers’ intervention in the Horn of Africa have been related to the economic, military, and security interests. In particular, the need to dominate the regional trade and acquisition of naval superiority, through sea access and control, were the primary sources of superpower contention in the region. The opportunities for superpower intervention in the Horn are multifaceted. They mainly emanated from the region’s historical, economic, political, and social problems. At least, three major factors were responsible for the superpower intervention in the Horn of African affairs.
First, the region has been a place of political conflict and rivalry. The “irredentist” ambitions of Somalia and the secessionist movement in Eritrea were instrumental in increasing the possibility of superpower confrontation and involvement in the region. Moreover, the region has been an area of political turmoil due to the prevalence of centrifugal forces such as the Tigrean Peoples Liberation Front (TPLF), the Western Somali Liberation Front (WSLF), and other dissidents, which were not strong enough by themselves to challenge the power of the Ethiopian regimes except the foreign power assistance. In such cases, the foreign powers got opportunities to side either with the governments in power or the dissidents (ibid.).
Secondly, countries of the Horn of Africa are economically poor. Although nominally sovereign, states of the Horn of Africa have largely been dependent on foreign aid. The various economic sectors, and the military, political, and administrative institutions of the states were built with the assistance of either the USA or the USSR. Different regimes in the Horn of Africa were able to rule their respective nations with the blessing of either of the two superpowers. This has provided the superpowers an opportunity for intervention in the Horn’s internal affairs.
Thirdly, the 1974 Ethiopian revolution created opportunities for superpower rivalry in the Horn of Africa. Fundamentally, the revolution was caused by the introduction of revolutionary ideas from the Soviet Union through radical Ethiopian students and army officers. The Soviets had already started to replace the US’s position in Ethiopian internal affairs before the outbreak of the revolution. Then, after the Derg took power in 1974, the Soviet Union used the opportunity and was able to play a decisive role in every political, economic, and military affair of Ethiopia until 1991. The revolution was a crucial event in the history of northeast Africa, particularly in shifting the superpowers’ approaches to intervention toward new African allies. In the early 1970s, the Soviet relation with Egypt and Sudan had becoming deteriorated. The US relationship with Ethiopia also deteriorated in the same way. The two powers, then, shifted their relations with new allies abandoning their former ones (Amare, 1989).
The superpowers have competed for ideological, military, and economic supremacy in the Horn of Africa throughout the Cold War period, 1945-91. The Soviet military presence in a certain area in the Horn could be considered by the US officials as threatening to their regional security. And the reverse was also true if the US build-up arms in a certain base in the Horn. They thought that their superiority in the region would be guaranteed through an increased transfer of arms to their respective proxies (Mandinka, 1982). They also worked tirelessly to have effective military balance in the region by establishing naval bases. The United States used the Qagnew station in the Red Sea from the early 1950s to the 70s. They later left the area for the Indian Ocean after they had constructed a new naval base there on the island of Diego Garcia. The USSR, on its part, had built its naval bases in the coastal lines of the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea areas in the 1960s and 70s (Schwab, 1978).
The superpower conflict had a disastrous impact on the Horn of African peoples and states. Both the Soviet Union and the United States had armed different rival groups in the Horn either overtly or covertly. The Soviets armed the Eritrean rebels, and the Somali and Ethiopian governments at different times. The United States, on its part, had armed the Ethiopian and Somali governments; despite their presence in the Eritrean armed rebellion was not overtly observable. Different conflicting forces, therefore, had made the region a place for brutal wars and political crises by using the modern weaponry they have received from the big powers. In consequence, the casualty in terms of social life and economy was very great. Millions of people in the Horn have died, starved, and dislocated as a result of superpower-sponsored violence during the last half a century.
3. The Role of the Superpowers in Escalating Conflicts in the Horn of Africa
3.1 The Superpowers in the Eritrean Conflict
Eritrea is situated adjoining the Red Sea, one of the most strategic places in the Horn of Africa. During the progress of the Second World War, the British came to Eritrea in 1941 as a liberator of the region from the colonial yoke that had been imposed by the Italians since the 1890s. They were successful to dislodge the Italians out of Eritrea and Ethiopia together with the local patriots. Then, they administered Eritrea for the next ten years until the federation was adopted by the United Nations resolution in 1952 (Tekeste, 1997). In the meantime, the Eritrean issue had become an international agenda concerning its future fate. The case was sent to the UN in 1948 when it was impossible to be resolved by the four powers namely France, Brittan, USSR, and United States. This was a period when the world was divided into the capitalist and communist blocs under the newly emerged superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union. Thus, the newly liberated Eritrea had become an arena of the East-West contention (Bereket, 1980; Patman, 1990).
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