The Ethiopian Offensive: Where Does it End?

Global Intelligence February 9, 1999

Ethiopia launched an offensive against neighboring Eritrea on February 6, ostensibly aimed at retaking
the disputed border area around the town of Badme. The problem for international organizations
attempting to broker a peace treaty between the two countries is that the dispute is not that simple.
Ethiopia has not expended an estimated $300 million on arms since last June simply to retake a desolate
patch of rocks. Rather, deep divisions between the two countries on economic issues, and particularly
over landlocked Ethiopia's access to Eritrean ports, suggest that Ethiopia may be prepared to take a
more substantial portion of Eritrean territory before the fighting is over.

Analysis:

Normally Stratfor saves its commentary on broadly publicized events for its Weekly Analysis, but the
current conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea begs that the question be asked: Where does it end?
Ethiopia launched an offensive on February 6, aimed ostensibly at retaking the disputed area around
Badme, which has been occupied by Eritrean forces since the two countries' first clashed last

May. Ethiopian forces opened a second front on February 8, with an attack on Eritrean forces near the
town of Tsorona, on the border 60 miles south of Asmara. Fighting was also reported around Alitena

and Zalambessa to the east of Tsorona, and Ethiopia claimed its artillery had destroyed an Eritrean radar
station near the central front town of Adi Quala.

Also on February 8, Ethiopian troops reportedly opened a third front in the east, around Burie, and
Ethiopia deployed ground attack aircraft to support troops attacking on the Badme and Tsorona fronts.
Eritrea claims that Ethiopia has supported its ground troops with helicopter gunships as well. Interestingly,
on January 12 the Eritrean Foreign Ministry told Agence France Presse that Ethiopia would launch a three
front attack sometime between mid-January and mid-February. Eritrea claimed to have received the
information from "news leaked by various sources, including Western intelligence sources."

Foreign countries and multilateral organizations have attempted fruitlessly to broker a peace treaty
between Ethiopia and Eritrea, ever since a U.S.-brokered moratorium on air-strikes helped fighting taper
off last June. The latest plan, put forward by the Organization of African Unity last November, was
accepted by Ethiopia but was met with a series of questions and criticisms by Eritrea. The 11 point plan
called for Eritrea to withdraw from the territory it occupied last May, after which a peacekeeping and
observer force would be sent to the region and the border would be neutrally defined. The UN and the
OAU have called for a cessation of hostilities, as have a number of countries, including Russia.

The Russian Foreign Ministry issued a statement on February 8, calling for the warring parties to
"immediately cease all combat actions, which undermine the international community's peacemaking
activities." Russia stated that it was willing to help facilitate the peaceful resolution of the dispute, which
Moscow argued could only be settled by political means under international law. Moscow's plea was
particularly odd, considering the role Russia played in facilitating the resumption of hostilities. Russia
supplied Ethiopia with approximately eight Sukhoi Su-27 fighter-bombers, and supplied Eritrea with five
to ten MiG-29s. The aircraft were reportedly delivered in mid-December, accompanied by some 20
Russian flight instructors in Eritrea and approximately 100 foreign instructors in Ethiopia, including
Russians and possibly Latvians or Ukrainians.

Since last June, Ethiopia also reportedly purchased Mi-8 transport helicopters and Mi-24 attack
helicopters from Russia, while Eritrea purchased several Italian helicopters. Ethiopia was already armed
with MiG-21 and MiG-23 fighter-bombers, and Eritrea already had six Italian MB-339 training and light
attack aircraft. Since last June, Ethiopia reportedly purchased from 100 to 210 T-55 tanks from Bulgaria,
and field guns and multiple rocket launchers with ammunition from China. Ethiopia also reportedly
reopened the ammunition factory in Addis Ababa. Eritrea reportedly purchased $50 million worth of
rockets and missiles from Romania, brokered and financed by sympathetic Arabs. Additionally, a
shipment of 40 trucks and a large number

of tank engines, bound from England to Eritrea, was seized by Belgian customs on February 8. All told,
Ethiopia is estimated to have spent approximately $300 million on arms since last June, with Eritrea
spending an unknown but likely proportionate amount.

Finally, since last June, both Eritrea and Ethiopia have been carrying out massive troop recruitment and
training. Troops amassed on the border have grown from approximately 120,000 Ethiopian and 47,000
Eritrean soldiers last May to an estimated 320,000 Ethiopian and 270,000 Eritrean soldiers and militia
members at present.

So peace efforts have failed and combat has begun. What next? To answer that, the question that must be
asked is, what is the fighting really about. On the surface, the battle is over a desolate patch of rocks
caught between contradictory colonial demarcations of the border. If that was the case, international
peacemakers should have a rather easy time in brokering a settlement. But it's not that simple, explaining
the failure of the efforts to date. The fundamental disputes between the two countries revolve around
trade. Ethiopia has argued that Eritrea, with a centrally controlled economy, enjoyed an unfair advantage
in bilateral trade with the open Ethiopian market. Moreover, landlocked Ethiopia resented high fees
imposed by Eritrea for use of its Red Sea port of Assab. And Ethiopia has refused to accept Eritrea's
currency in business deals. Add to this escalating national chauvinism dividing the two countries, and their
dispute becomes substantially more intractable than a simple border issue. Of course, if the border dispute
is only superficial, where does the conflict end? If Ethiopia retakes the Badme region and moves no
further, it will only have succeeded in realigning the trenches. Nothing fundamental will have been
addressed, let alone solved. There is an option at the other extreme, the reconquering of Eritrea, which
won its defacto independence in 1991, after three decades of civil war. The independent Ethiopian
newspaper Genanaw on January 9 reported that an unnamed Ethiopian military officer told a meeting of
defense officials

that, if Ethiopia starts the war, the army should go beyond Badme to Ras Kassar, on Eritrea's border with
Sudan on the Red Sea. The officer reportedly added that "the EPLF (Eritrean People's Liberation Front,
which governs Eritrea) and polio would be eradicated from Africa by the year 2000." This is a thin lead,
but there are other indications that Ethiopia may not stop at Badme. Ethiopia has lived up to Eritrea's
prediction of a three front offensive, with the central front offensive at Tsorona occurring at the entrance to
a plain that leads to Dekemhare, which in turn guards access to Asmara. The new offensive in the east has
the potential to sever Eritrea's narrow coastal province of Denakil, which contains the port of Assab, from
the bulk of Eritrea.

The U.S. apparently holds open the possibility that Ethiopian troops may move against Asmara, as the
San Diego Union Tribune reports that the amphibious assault ship Boxer and the amphibious

transport dock Cleveland have been in the Gulf of Aden, off the coast of Djibouti and Somalia, for about
a week. On board the ships are Marines from the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit. Though no evacuation
of the estimated 370 Americans still in Eritrea had been ordered at the time of this writing, Pentagon
spokesman Lt. Col. Vic Warzinski acknowledged to the San Diego Union Tribune that "these folks would
be convenient" if an evacuation was needed.

All Ethiopia would gain from the recapture of Badme would be a realignment of the battlefront. All
Ethiopia would gain from a complete conquest of Eritrea would be a resumption of the 30 year

civil war. However, an Ethiopian move against Denakil would offer a trophy worth defending -- Red Sea
access. Addis Ababa has spent a great deal to retake some rocks, and not enough to take and hold a
hostile country, but it may have the wherewithal to drive to the sea. One wild card is the new Russian jets.
Ethiopia and Eritrea spent considerable resources on combat aircraft that they can not have learned to fly
in a month and a half, let alone assimilate into their armed forces. Ethiopia, the apparent aggressor in this
current conflict, must have known this in planning for combat. Yet the tempo and outcome of the battle
could be decided by the deployment of the MiGs and Sukhois. So the question is, what exactly do the
contracts of the foreign flight instructors cover? And considering that there are reportedly Russian pilots in
Eritrea and possibly Ukrainians or Latvians in Ethiopia, the answer to this question could be quite
interesting.