Why Ethiopia is Preparing to Invade Eritrea Next [49:54]

Transcript
0:00 · as catastrophic Wars continue to rage between Russia and Ukraine in Europe and between Israel and Hamas in the Middle
0:05 · East there were ominous storm clouds gathering over the Horn of Africa that Whisper of yet another cataclysmic War
0:11 · still to come soon this time between Ethiopia and Eritrea Ethiopian troops
0:17 · are currently massing themselves directly on the aitran border here at zalambessa a mere 100 miles away from
0:23 · the aitran capital of Asmara with additional deployments further to the southeast near the air train Port City
0:28 · of assab all is the current prime minister of Ethiopia's rhetoric has grown dramatically stronger and more
0:34 · assertive over the past month first elected to the office in 2018 ABI akmed has found himself as the leader of a
0:40 · Nation with both tremendous potential and tremendous vulnerabilities with a population of 126 A2 million people as
0:47 · of 2023 Ethiopia is the second most populous country on the African continent and by far the most populous
0:54 · one in East Africa with a population that is roughly equivalent to every single one of its Geographic neighbors
0:59 · combined mind and a population that is continuing to grow very rapidly by the end of this decade in 2030 the Ethiopian
1:06 · population has projected to grow to as many as 150 million people which will make Ethiopia the ninth most heavily
1:13 · populated country in the world by then with even more people than Russia but uniquely out of all the countries in the
1:19 · world that will be in the top 10 most populous states by 2030 only Ethiopia among them will be completely landlocked
1:26 · without any direct access to the global ocean in fact out of the the top 33 largest countries in the world today by
1:32 · population Ethiopia is the only one among them who is landlocked which makes Ethiopia by far the world's most heavily
1:39 · populated landlocked country the next most populous landlocked countries after Ethiopia are Uganda and usbekistan and
1:46 · they only have a fraction of the same population that Ethiopia does obviously this lack of direct access to the sea is
1:52 · a serious limitation on the ability for Ethiopia to conduct trade with the rest of the world as all of Ethiopia's
1:59 · Imports and exports must each flow through other countries that surrounded first who can leverage their Geographic
2:05 · position over Ethiopia in the form of charging taxes tolls and fees on allowing that trade to pass through them
2:11 · right now an overwhelming 95% of Ethiopia's entire trade volume consisting of both imports and exports
2:18 · flows exclusively through the deep water container Port of dorla within the neighboring small coastal country of
2:24 · Djibouti which is connected by an electric railroad that was only inaugurated in 2018 all the way to the
2:30 · Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa nearly 350 Mi or 560 km away this rail route
2:37 · and Port access in Djibouti is therefore Ethiopia's Lifeline to trade with the outside world and its single most
2:44 · important logistical artery but it hasn't come very cheap for them it turns out that the trade volume conducted by
2:49 · 126 million landlocked Ethiopians is large enough to account for about 70% of
2:55 · the entire Port of djibouti's commercial activity and jibuti has been able to leverage their Geographic position to
3:00 · charge the Ethiopians more than a billion dollar a year in annual port fees a sum that represents more than a
3:07 · quarter of djibouti's entire nominal GDP and a sum that is a high price to pay
3:12 · for Ethiopia a country where nearly 1/5 of the population continues to remain dependent on humanitarian food Aid at
3:19 · the same time the port of dorla itself within Djibouti is almost certainly safe for Ethiopia to continue using there's a
3:25 · Chinese pla base located only 2 miles to the west of the port while the United States France Japan and Italy all
3:31 · maintain their own military bases within Djibouti nearby as well nobody will ever attack Ethiopia's Port access here with
3:37 · so many big military great Powers bases nearby but that's not really what Ethiopia's fear is the bigger fear is
3:44 · the vulnerability of the railroad that connects Ethiopia to the port a railroad that various Rebel forces operating
3:50 · within Ethiopia that might be receiving foreign support could attack and sever which would in a Flash isolate the
3:57 · Ethiopian government from access to the port of dorla and Djibouti and block off 95% of the country's entire trade volume
4:04 · and for that reason Ethiopia would prefer to directly control their own ports to reduce this vulnerability
4:09 · during a televised speech on the 13th of October 2023 abman exclaimed with clear
4:14 · frustration that 150 million Ethiopians couldn't be expected to live within a
4:19 · geographic prison cut off from the ocean in their most important trade routes adding on to his remarks that quote
4:26 · whether you'd like it or not the prison will have to blast somewhere during that same speech he further warned by saying
4:32 · directly quote we can see that only a narrow strip of land separates us from the Red Sea it is crucial for the
4:38 · present leaders of Somalia jibuti Eritrea and Ethiopia to engage in discussions not just for the present but
4:45 · to ensure the lasting peace if this is not going to happen there will be no fairness and Justice and if there is no
4:51 · fairness and Justice it's only a matter of time we will fight end quote
4:57 · understandably these recent aggressive comments by the the Ethiopian Prime Minister accompanied by increasing Ethiopian troop buildups and airplane
5:03 · activity on the border with Eritrea has sent alarm bells ringing across the entire region from Eritrea to jibuti and
5:10 · Somalia three nations all with vastly smaller populations than Ethiopia and which like the Ethiopian Prime Minister
5:16 · so plainly stated block Ethiopia soon to be 150 million people access to the
5:23 · ocean through only narrow sparsely populated strips of land that potentially appear right for the taking
5:30 · where the world's attention is more heavily focused on the ongoing events in Gaza and Ukraine perhaps the Ethiopian
5:35 · Prime Minister senses that the opportunity could soon be near to finally break out from his country's
5:41 · Geographic prison and overcome one of Ethiopia's greatest weaknesses and handicaps by seizing parts or even the
5:48 · entirety of arrea through Force which would finally establish Ethiopian controlled ports directly on the Red Sea
5:54 · itself and reduce their crippling over Reliance on Djibouti for international trade in the process after all
6:01 · Ethiopia's weakness of being the world's most heavily populated landlocked country is only a fairly recent
6:07 · phenomenon it was only reduced to this landlocked status in a flash a little more than 30 years ago when Eritrea
6:13 · itself became independent and seceded from the rest of Ethiopia and now 30
6:18 · years later it appears that Ethiopia is potentially preparing for a war to retake it a war that could easily end up
6:25 · becoming one of the 21st Century's most catastrophically cataclysmic because it could throw the entire delicate region
6:32 · of Eastern Africa into an apocalypse and in order to understand why it helps to
6:37 · start with how Ethiopia and eritrea's current borders came to be and why there is so much controversy between them you
6:45 · see Ethiopia is one of the world's most ancient civilizations dating back thousands of years ago to the kingdom of
6:51 · axom that at its apex in the thirr century dominated the entire Red Sea with a formidable Navy and was
6:57 · considered to have been one of the icient world's foremost great Powers alongside the Romans the Persians and
7:03 · the Chinese while going through many changes over the eons of time since then the modern-day state of Ethiopia was
7:09 · more or less created through a series of military campaigns across the mid to late 19th century and gradually assumed
7:16 · its currently recognized borders as a unified Imperial Empire by the end of the 19th century in
7:21 · 1898 during that time the Ethiopian Empire drove out two attempted foreign conquests one by the Egyptians who
7:28 · attempted to invade and subjugate Ethiopia between 1874 and 1876 and then another by the Italians who came
7:34 · marching in 20 years later in 1896 between 1869 when an Italian
7:39 · company first purchased the port of aab on the Red Sea Coast to 1889 the colonial Italian authorities steadily
7:45 · expanded their colony that they called Italian Eritrea up to modern-day eritrea's borders in 1896 they invaded
7:52 · Ethiopia from Italian arria with the intention of subjugating Africa's sole remaining independent nation into their
7:58 · still growing growing Colonial Empire but that Invasion turned into a complete disaster for them Ethiopia you see is by
8:05 · far the most mountainous country located in Africa with a complex series of valleys Lakes lowlands and very tall
8:12 · Highlands the political capital in the largest city of the country has long been in Adis Ababa and at an elevation
8:18 · of 88,200 Ft above sea level it is one of only four cities worldwide to
8:24 · currently have a population of more than a million people that's above 8,000 ft in elevation with the only other three
8:30 · all being found in South America with bogot Columbia keto Ecuador and laaz Bolivia further surrounded by a buffer
8:37 · of lowlands Adis Ababa and by extension the whole of Ethiopia is essentially a mountainous Fortress that has always
8:43 · been challenging for outside Invaders to conquer and occupy even technologically Superior Outsiders like the Italians in
8:50 · 1896 their failure to conquer Ethiopia then secured the Empire's continued existence based on Ethiopia's current
8:57 · borders for the next 40 years years to come a fact that cemented Ethiopia's Fame as the only state in Africa that
9:04 · managed to successfully fight off all of European colonialism and retain their own independence But ultimately as an
9:11 · Empire of its own independent creation Ethiopia has always had similar problems
9:16 · as many other modern African states that were born from European colonialism nonetheless all of the Towering
9:22 · mountains wide valleys large lakes and thundering rivers of the Empire have long divided the country geographically
9:28 · and restricted easy travel from one part of it to another which has encouraged the development of multiple different
9:34 · ethnic groups and languages over thousands of years of history that has made Ethiopia one of the most ethnically
9:39 · and linguistically diverse countries in the world today Ethiopian leaders have always struggled with keeping the whole
9:45 · thing together as a result and today there are nine different major ethnic groups within Ethiopia and more than 80
9:51 · different languages that are spoken from four separate major linguistic families the Imperial period of Ethiopia across
9:58 · the 19th and 20th centuries was dominated by the ethnic mhara the legacy of which is that the Amharic language
10:03 · Remains the primary lingua franka of Ethiopia today and is the language that's most used by the national
10:09 · government but the amharas are only the second largest ethnic group in Ethiopia today at only about 27% of the overall
10:16 · population the aromo were the largest ethnic group at about 35% of the entire country's population but the T graay
10:22 · represent about 7% in the Somali at a further 6% with dozens of others representing the final 25% on top of
10:29 · being extremely ethnically and linguistically diverse Ethiopia is highly religiously diverse as well
10:35 · Ethiopia was one of the very first countries in the world to officially adopt Christianity way back in the 4th Century ad a legacy that is continued
10:43 · today with the traditional Ethiopian Orthodox Church being followed by roughly 44% of the country and newer
10:48 · Protestant Evangelical Christianity being followed by a further 23% of the population bringing Christianity up to a
10:54 · total of about 2/3 of the modern population the remaining onethird of ethiop I's population mostly follow the
11:01 · Islamic faith a legacy of the country's close proximity to the Arabian peninsula in North Africa and different ethnic
11:06 · groups in the country largely follow One Faith or the other diomo and the Somali largely follow Islam while the T gray
11:12 · and the mhara higher up in the more geographically isolated Ethiopian Highlands largely follow Christianity a
11:18 · fact that has long contributed to a centuries long world view within the amhara community that they are effectively an isolated island of
11:25 · Christianity surrounded by a sea of Islam in 1930 Hal salasi an Ethiopian
11:30 · Orthodox Christian mhara ascended to the Imperial throne and though his Reign would be long he was nonetheless
11:36 · destined to become Ethiopia's final Emperor 5 years after he took the throne in 1935 the Italians under Bonito
11:42 · musolini and his fascist party decided to try their luck and invaded Ethiopia again and their quest to expand the
11:48 · Italian Empire and this time their technological superiority was simply far too great to handle the Ethiopians were
11:54 · still relying on foot Messengers to transmit Battlefield information while the Italians were using radio heavy
11:59 · artillery and airplanes they used to drop bombs and chemical weapons like mustard gas without any outside
12:04 · intervention stopping the Italians they overan Ethiopia this time in only a matter of months which caused the
12:10 · emperor to flee to Britain in Exile in the aftermath in 1936 the fascist Italians administratively merged
12:16 · conquered Ethiopia with their pre-existing colonies in Eritrea and Somalia to form what they simply called
12:22 · Italian East Africa but it wouldn't end up lasting for very long in 1940 Italy
12:27 · decided to enter World War II on the side of Nazi Germany and declared war on Britain and France which quickly LED
12:33 · them to invading and conquering the nearby colony of British Somali land in 1940 and adding it to the rest of
12:38 · Italian East Africa before the British launched their own Invasion into the area the following year in 1941 and
12:44 · brought Emperor Hal salasi back with them Italy of course ended up disastrously losing the second world war
12:50 · and all of their former colonies in East Africa consisting of modern day Ethiopia Eritrea and Somalia all ended up under
12:56 · British military occupation the British quick Aly restored Ethiopia's independence based on their current
13:01 · borders with Hal salasi reinstated as the emperor in 1944 but after 1945 there
13:07 · was a considerable amount of controversy over what exactly to do with the rest of Italy's former Colonial possessions in
13:13 · Eritrea and Somalia the British continued occupying both of them until 1950 when the former Italian Somalia
13:18 · became the UN trust territory of Somalia placed back under Italian Administration which eventually became independent a
13:25 · decade later in 1960 and then merged with a former British Somali land to become the United Republic of Somalia
13:31 · Eritrea however turned out to be far more controversial it had been an Italian Colony for nearly three4 of a
13:38 · century before World War II and expecting that the Communists would soon emerge victorious in the post-war
13:43 · Italian elections the Soviets initially argued that Eritrea should be simply returned back to Italy's control or
13:50 · become a Soviet trustee instead the eritreans themselves and most of the Arab world meanwhile who viewed the
13:56 · country as an extension of their own argued for aat Tran self-determination and Independence while Hal salasi the
14:02 · restored Emperor of Ethiopia argued that Eritrea could never be self-sufficient on its own and insisted that it should
14:08 · be annexed into Ethiopia instead which would also happen to ensure that Ethiopia would break out from its
14:14 · landlocked prison and control a direct Coastline on the Red Sea as an absolute monarchy hi solas's regime in Ethiopia
14:21 · was staunchly opposed to the spread of Communism and to the Soviet Union and that made him a natural Ally for the
14:27 · Americans in the following Cold War who decided to back his view that Eritrea should be given to Ethiopia and so at
14:34 · Washington's insistence the United Nations passed resolution 390a in December of 1950 that went into Effect 2
14:41 · years later in 1952 officially joining Eritrea with Ethiopia in a newly created
14:47 · country that was creatively called the Federation of Ethiopia and Eritrea in this Federation Eritrea was supposed to
14:54 · possess a very high degree of autonomy separate from Ethiopia with its own flag it's own police force control over its
15:00 · own Administration and taxes and so on but the Ethiopian Emperor would spend the following years continually
15:05 · whittling away at this autonomy the emperor eventually imposed the Amharic language of Ethiopia as the sole
15:11 · official language upon Eritrea in place of the indigenous Arabic into Gran languages which eventually sparked a
15:17 · full-blown armed independence movement in Eritrea that rose up against him in 1961 the following year in 1962 Hal
15:24 · salasi declared that the Federation of Ethiopia and Eritrea was being formally abolished and that the Ethiopian Empire
15:31 · was simply annexing all of Eritrea outright a development that didn't sit very well with most aitran armed arran
15:39 · insurgents and guerillas would rise up and continue to fight against the Ethiopian state for their independence
15:44 · for decades in the meantime the lines of the Cold War deepened around Ethiopia's neighborhood to reward the United States
15:51 · for supporting Ethiopia's annexation of Eritrea Hal salasi granted the Americans the right to establish a naval base on
15:57 · the coast at masawa in between the Strategic Suez Canal in the North and the narrow bab Elman Deb straight in the
16:03 · South along with a vast radio antenna Farm in the aitran capital of Asmara nearby a geographically ideal location
16:10 · to place one at due to its close proximity to the Middle East and the equator and high altitude at 7,300 ft up
16:17 · above sea level the Soviet Union meanwhile initially chose to counter America's close relationship with the
16:23 · Ethiopian Empire by supporting their biggest Regional rival Somalia a nation that laid cl to the ethnically Somali
16:29 · majority area of Eastern Ethiopia in a region known as the aadan in pursuit of a foreign policy in Mogadishu to
16:36 · establish a greater Somalia out of all the ethnically Somali majority areas in the Horn of Africa after emerging as the
16:42 · leader of the only country in Africa that had fought off European colonialism Hal salasi also carried with them a lot
16:48 · of diplomatic clout on the continent during the decolonization era of the 1960s which led to him successfully
16:55 · arguing that the new organization of African Unity should have their headquarters established in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa in
17:02 · 1963 decades later in 2002 that organization would evolve into the modern African Union and retain its
17:09 · headquarters in Adis Ababa to this day but eventually after decades on the throne of Ethiopia the by then
17:15 · 82-year-old autocratic Hal salasi was finally overthrown by a military coup in
17:21 · 1974 and he was dead by the following year the officers who overthrew him then appointed a major named mistu Hal arum
17:28 · as essentially the country's new dictator and they sought to radically transform the former feudal monarchy of
17:34 · Ethiopia into a communist Marxist leninist state that they called The People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia
17:40 · the new communist Ethiopia inherited the continuing war for independence going on in arrea that they similarly attempted
17:47 · to crush with Force while Somalia sensed an opportunity in the Revolutionary chaos and invaded Ethiopia in
17:54 · 1976 in an attempt to conquer the ethnically Somali majority area of the aadan but with Ethiopia now ruled by
18:01 · Communists and the Americans out of the country the Soviets decided to abandon their prior support for Somalia and
18:07 · switch sides over to Ethiopia the Soviets then organized a massive airlift of military equipment to Ethiopia worth
18:13 · around $ billion that was accompanied by Soviet military advisers and about 12,000 soldiers who came over from Fidel
18:21 · Castro's Cuba who together managed to decisively crush the Somali Invasion by
18:26 · 1978 that defeat was so great that it led to a Revolt in the Somali Army afterwards which was the spark that
18:33 · ignited the Somali Civil War that is still ongoing today a war that has long made Somalia the 21st century poster
18:40 · child of the failed state but while Ethiopia's territorial integrity was maintained including its control over
18:47 · the ongoing Insurgency in Eritrea the Communist regime's gross mismanagement of the Ethiopian agricultural economy
18:53 · combined with a drought led to an apocalyptic famine between 198 3 and
18:59 · 1985 that potentially killed as many as 1.2 million people within the country
19:05 · and was most heavily represented by deaths where active rebellions against his regime were ongoing in Eritrea and
19:11 · in Tigre that were largely denied assistance representing one of the worst famines of the entire 20th century
19:18 · unrest and anger at the Communist regime's response to the famine within Ethiopia grew and anti-government
19:24 · rebellions like the T people's Liberation Front in the t region who allied with the aitran insurgents began
19:30 · steadily gaining the upper hand in 1990 with the Soviet Union and the Eastern block actively collapsing Moscow decided
19:37 · to cut off their continued economic assistance to Ethiopia and the thousands of Allied Cuban troops all went home
19:42 · cutting off mistu 17-year long Communist Regime from its primary supporter
19:48 · afterwards the various anti-government forces operating across the country began rapidly gaining ground even further with the aitran Insurgent
19:54 · securing complete control over the entirety of arrea and pushing the Ethiopian Army out by May of 1991 and
20:01 · anti-government to Gran forces nearing the capital of Adis Ababa sensing that the gig was up mistu fled the capital
20:07 · for Zimbabwe where he was granted political Asylum and continues to reside to this day at the age of 86 despite an
20:14 · Ethiopian Court subsequently finding him guilty of genocide in absentia that carried a death sentence for which
20:21 · Ethiopia has repeatedly requested his extradition from Zimbabwe and which Zimbabwe has continually rejected for
20:27 · decades ever since the new Ethiopia that emerged after the collapse of Communism in 1991 became the
20:32 · federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia the Ethiopia that continues to exist today a new constitution was drafted to
20:39 · transform the entire country into an ethnically based Federation with powers devolved to 12 new ethnolinguistically
20:44 · defined Regional States and two chartered cities these 12 new regions were semi-autonomous states that were
20:51 · created within the country for all of Ethiopia's largest ethnic groups the aromo the amhara the Tigra the Somali
20:57 · the afar and so on but the very first leader of the new country who had governed until his death in 2012 was an
21:02 · ethnic tan named melis sawi from the T people's Liberation Front which caused a significant degree of angst within the
21:09 · ethnic mhara Community who had been the ones used to running Ethiopia and all of its various forms for the past several
21:15 · centuries initially Eritrea was the 13th region of this new Ethiopia created after 1991 but since the tigran and the
21:23 · errans had fought together as allies to overthrow the Communists and the aans now controlled their entire territory a
21:29 · referendum on Eritrean independence from Ethiopia was granted in April of 1993
21:34 · that was overwhelmingly approved by Eritrean voters which led to Eritrea
21:39 · being formally granted its independence by Adis saaba the following Month in May resulting in the first time that Eritrea
21:46 · had been truly independent in well over a century immediately upon that Independence in 1993 a man named Isaiah
21:53 · seori Rose to the position of arat tra's new presidency a man who is contined to
21:58 · remain aritra's president ever since right up until the current day more than 30 years later Isaiah has ever since run
22:05 · what is often regarded as one of the most extreme totalitarian regimes in all of contemporary history in arrea no
22:11 · elections have ever been held in the more than 30 years since Isaiah came to power there has never been a constitution there's never been a
22:18 · published government budget and there hasn't never even been a legislature literally all political power and
22:23 · authority within arria has been solely concentrated in the person of Isaiah SE turkey ever since 1993 and so it is his
22:30 · word and only his word that is law in the country in 2022 reporters Without
22:36 · Borders literally ranked the isaas regime in Eritrea as dead last in the entire world on its freedom of the press
22:43 · index with a score that was somehow even lower than North Korea and part of the reason why is that in many ways Isaiah's
22:50 · regime in Eritrea is even more totalitarian and hardcore than the Kims in North Korea which is why Eritrea
22:58 · nickname in the 21st century has sometimes been the North Korea of Africa for example all men and women in the
23:04 · country are forced to serve what's on paper an 18-month long mandatory conscription service within the aat Tran
23:10 · Armed Forces but in practice nearly everybody serves vastly longer than a
23:15 · mere 18 months there are virtually no available means for military conserts in nitraa to actually get themselves
23:21 · discharged while conscripts and their families face severe legal reprisals for desertion conscripts who do desert at
23:28 · any time will often have their parents or siblings houses and property confiscated by the government with
23:33 · orders further put into place then nobody else can give them shelter essentially forcing them into an
23:39 · indefinite legal state of homelessness so the fear of these reprisal and no
23:44 · means to actually get themselves discharged ultimately means that virtually all conscripts in arrea end up
23:50 · serving within the Armed Forces for indefinite periods of time that are often measured in the span of decades
23:56 · which has led to widespread accusations of the Isaias regime utilizing what is essentially a 21st century slave Army
24:03 · where one in five people in the country are indefinitely trapped in and a big part of why the isaas regime in rraa
24:10 · became this way was that almost immediately upon Independence in 1993 his regime in Eritrea and the new
24:16 · government in Ethiopia didn't exactly trust each other very much between 1993 and 1998 relations began warm enough and
24:24 · Eritrea continued granting Ethiopia the rights to continue use their parts in masawa and assab assab being the more
24:30 · critical of the two is before aat tr's independence it accounted for around 70% of Ethiopia's entire trade volume but at
24:38 · the same time after Eritrea was granted Independence the new international border between Eritrea and Ethiopia was
24:44 · never properly demarcated both sides in the 1990s interpreted older colonial era treaties defining the border between
24:51 · Italian erria and Imperial Ethiopia differently which led to a series of disputed territories between them that
24:57 · both new countries claimed the most important of which was the largest chunk of disputed land in the west around the
25:03 · town of bod in 1998 a series of military skirmishes between Ethiopia and Eritrea
25:09 · developed around bod that rapidly escalated into a full-blown war that would last for the following two years
25:16 · both sides would end up throwing just about everything they had into the war over those two years and they each lost
25:21 · significant amounts of blood and treasure with an estimated 100,000 people losing their lives as a direct
25:28 · result of the Fighting by the summer of 2000 Ethiopia was the one in control of all of the disputed territories and
25:35 · their army was beginning to advance into erat tra proper which sparked international calls for a ceasefire this
25:41 · culminated with the United Nations mediating an Armistice between Eritrea and Ethiopia with the algers agreement
25:47 · that was signed in December of 2000 in which both parties agreed to set up a border Commission in collaboration with
25:53 · a permanent Court of arbitration based in the haue that would determine the final legally accepted border between
25:59 · the two countries so then in April of 2002 the commission announced their final verdict which determined that most
26:05 · of the disputed territory including the town of bod that sparked the war in the first place belonged in fact to arat tra
26:12 · despite the fact that all of the disputed territory was still under the control of the Ethiopian Army Ethiopia
26:19 · had fought for years and paid tens of thousands of lives to gain control over these territories and a big chunk of the
26:25 · territories were just to the north of Ethiopia's t region while the T people's Liberation Front the government that
26:31 · dominated Ethiopia at the time saw them as an extension of the t region itself and refused to give them up so they
26:37 · basically just refused to accept any of the findings of the boundary commission and kept their soldiers in place
26:43 · occupying all of the disputed territories instead which kept relations between themselves and arrea tense for
26:49 · years the land dispute between them essentially became a frozen conflict with neither side backing down neither
26:55 · side agreeing to end the official state of war between between them and both sides keeping their respective borders
27:00 · locked down with no permissions for anyone to cross and soldiers placed on high alert for the next 16 years after
27:08 · 2002 until 2018 this was the dangerous situation that remained Frozen in place
27:14 · between Ethiopia and arria while Eritrea further severed Ethiopia's access to
27:19 · their pors in masawa and assab that they had been using between 1993 and 1998 and
27:24 · with Somalia still trapped in a seemingly NeverEnding chaotic Civil War this is why Ethiopia began to rely so
27:31 · heavily upon the port of dorla within Djibouti during the 2000s as it was really the only geographically available
27:37 · Lifeline to trade with the outside world but things seemed like they were finally beginning to change in Ethiopia in 2018
27:43 · with the election of a new prime minister ABI ammed obi's father was an ethnic aromo and his mother an ethnic
27:50 · mhara and so he represented the very first aromo in Ethiopia's Millennial long history to manage to rise to the
27:56 · position of the country's leadership despite the aromo having long been the country's largest single ethnicity
28:02 · within only a matter of weeks of assuming the office ABI suddenly announced that Ethiopia would end up
28:07 · finally honoring the results of the 2002 border commission that awarded most of the disputed territory with Eritrea to
28:14 · arrea Obby pulled the Army out of all the territories that the commission had awarded to arrea 16 years previously
28:20 · agreed on a transfer of all those territories to Eritrea and a formal peace agreement finally ending the state
28:26 · of war between them that had been ongoing for the past 20 years ever since 1998 relations were fully restored and
28:33 · flights between them opened for the first time in decades well ABI expected that an exchange for finally settling
28:39 · the conflict Eritrea would return Ethiopia's access to their ports at asab and masawa again just like they used to
28:45 · have for decades previously back in the 1990s and for all of these efforts at making peace with aritra in 2018 ABI
28:52 · ammed was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize the following year in 2019 a prize that
28:58 · would very quickly age like finely curdled milk because as it soon turned
29:03 · out resolving the decades long border dispute with Eritrea didn't also mean a sudden and end to all of Ethiopia's many
29:10 · other problems as well especially Ethiopia's internal problems ever since
29:15 · 1991 there have been fears that Ethiopia could One Day end up following a similar path as Yugoslavia dead and collapse
29:23 · into a freefor all ethnicity based civil war between all of the countries doz of different groups who all want power for
29:30 · themselves the amhara continue to be angry that after centuries in charge of Ethiopia they had no longer been the
29:36 · ones calling any of the shots ever since 1991 the aromo were still largely upset
29:41 · that despite being the largest ethnic group they had never been granted most of the country's power and continued to
29:46 · feel disenfranchised the Somali to a degree continued to gaze towards Somalia
29:52 · well the Tans who were largely the ones in power between 1991 and 2018 wondered after 2018 if they could eventually
29:59 · return despite only representing about 7% of the country's total population there were many ethnic Deans within the
30:05 · t region after all who saw obi's handing away of the disputed territories to Eritrea in 2018 as a severe political
30:13 · betrayal because they saw those territories just to their North as rightfully belonging to te and so the te
30:20 · people's Liberation Front or tplf the party that governed within the t region and the party that had dominated
30:26 · Ethiopian WI politics until 2018 condemned the peace treaty then the
30:31 · following year in 2019 ABI aked dissolved the ethnically based National Coalition government that had been
30:37 · ruling the country ever since the collapse of Communism and replaced it with a brand new party that he called
30:42 · the prosperity party which the tplf in the t region refused to join tensions
30:48 · between the Ethiopian federal government in the t region then began to escalate and it erupted into a fullscale war
30:54 · between them in November of 2020 the so called Tay war that followed would end up raging across the whole of Ethiopia
31:01 · for the following 2 years until November of 2022 a war that saw the Ethiopian
31:07 · federal government Ally itself with Eritrea and amhara militias against the tplf and the t region and the Oro
31:15 · Liberation Army or Ola a militia who controlled pockets of territory across Ethiopia's Oro region that war would end
31:22 · up costing everyone involved incredibly dearly hundreds of thousand thousands of
31:27 · soldiers at a minimum were mobilized by both of the coalitions involved to fight nobody knows exactly how many lives were
31:34 · lost as a result of the fighting but there is an estimate from gent University who researched the conflict
31:40 · in depth that concluded upwards of 600,000 people across Ethiopia and
31:46 · Eritrea were killed by the te war in only the 2 years of fighting between
31:51 · 2020 and 2022 which if accurate would make the te War one of the the 21st Century's top
31:58 · three bloodiest conflicts and on top of the potentially catastrophic loss in human life the war also cost the
32:05 · Ethiopian State an estimated $20 billion worth of economic damage as well the war
32:12 · finally concluded with a peace treaty signed between the Ethiopian federal government and the tplf in Petoria South
32:18 · Africa in November of 2022 the TP agreed to completely disarm while Federal
32:23 · Ethiopian Authority was reestablished across most of the T region but even after that devastating war ended other
32:30 · internal conflicts within Ethiopia remained the Oro Liberation Army has continue to wage an Insurgency against
32:36 · the government with pockets of control across the Oro region remaining while both the amhara militias and the isaas
32:43 · regime in Eritrea who fought alongside ABI amman's forces against T felt
32:48 · betrayed by the prime minister's peace agreement signed in ptor because they wanted to finish the job and destroy the
32:54 · tplf in the t region once and for all the fact that the tplf was allowed to
32:59 · continue existing was seen by Eritrea and the mhara militias with suspicion the war had concluded with the amhara
33:06 · militia known as Foo in de facto control over large swaths of the amhara region
33:11 · and the Western most part of the t region and with the aitran Armed Forces still in control over some sections of
33:17 · Northern Tigra as well fono views its movement of amhara nationalism as the same thing as Ethiopia nationalism and
33:24 · so their primary goal is to return the amhara to the leadership position within the country that they enjoyed for
33:29 · centuries until 1991 when the TPL left the tigran took over abiad's Federal
33:35 · Ethiopian government meanwhile espouses the unity of all Ethiopians and advocates for Ethiopian national
33:42 · identity as being Supreme Over Regional ethnol linguistic and religious identities as such his government has no
33:49 · tolerance for regional separatism or Regional Supremacy movements within Ethiopia which is part of what's brought
33:55 · the government into conflict with the tplf in the t region the OA in the aromia region and now the fono in the
34:02 · mhara region as well tensions between the federal government and fono escalated dramatically in April of 2023
34:09 · when Abi's government attempted to force the fono to disarm themselves which they refused to do tensions escalated further
34:16 · to the point where fono began an armed Insurgency against obby's federal government which Obby responded to with
34:22 · drone and artillery strikes and sending the Ethiopian Army in to deal with them so by the middle of 2023 Ethiopia's
34:29 · Federal Authority had been restored across most of the t region but the government was continuing to fight separate Wars against the OA in the
34:36 · aromia region and against the fono in the amhara and Western te regions while relations with Eritrea who continue to
34:43 · also occupy parts of Northern Tigra were continuing to deteriorate as well especially as Eritrea never ended up
34:49 · graning Ethiopia their desired Port access in either assab or masawa something the Nai had apparently
34:55 · expected would have happened by now five years later after he first signed the peace agreement with Eritrea back in
35:00 · 2018 ob's government in Ethiopia fears that Isaiah SE work's regime in Eritrea
35:06 · is attempting to destabilize Ethiopia by supporting both aono and the OA militarily a hypothetical capability
35:13 · made all the Easier by the fono militia's control of Western te and the direct access by land into Eritrea that
35:19 · that grants them something that Abby's Federal Ethiopian government would like to relieve them of and something the
35:24 · funo Won't Give Up voluntarily these Fe were potentially evidenced in May of 2023 when a group of amhara extremists
35:31 · assassinated the head of the amhara regional branch of obby's prosperity party an assassination that the
35:37 · Ethiopian government claims received direct support from Eritrea ABI akmed publicly warned Eritrea from interfering
35:44 · in Ethiopia's Internal Affairs following that assassination and behind closed doors he reportedly warned aritra in
35:51 · generals against supporting the amhar and militias that he is currently fighting against and then a few months
35:56 · later later after all of this internal chaos came ABI amed's increasingly bellicose rhetoric towards Ethiopia
36:03 · finally acquiring access to the Sea as well in October of 2023 he first suggested the neighboring coastal
36:09 · countries like Eritrea jibuti and Somalia could exchange shares of their ports for equivalent shares in his own
36:14 · country's Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam Ethiopia's greatest engineering Mega project and the largest hydroelectric
36:21 · Dam on the African continent that has cost more than $5 billion to construct and which will be capable of providing
36:27 · enormous amounts of energy for both Ethiopia and surrounding countries too once it's fully completed but Djibouti
36:34 · Eritrea and Somalia have all so far rejected these offers insisting that the sovereignty of their ports is not a
36:40 · subject that's open for negotiation perhaps to foreshadow the current crisis in Ethiopia's Coastal Ambitions the
36:47 · Ethiopian Navy was disbanded back in 1996 only 3 years after the independence
36:52 · of arrea in 1993 left the country landlocked but shortly after ass assuming power in 2018 abied announced
36:59 · the restoration of the Ethiopian Navy as a branch of the country's armed forces in 2019 the new Ethiopian Navy currently
37:06 · maintains its headquarters on Lake Tana where the Blue Nile originates from but in the future it's almost a certainty
37:12 · that ABI and his government view the Ethiopian Navy's rightful place on the Red Sea again just as it used to be for
37:19 · decades between the 1950s and the 1990s with the refusal of Eritrea jibuti or
37:24 · Somalia to consider exchanging shares of their ports for shares of Ethiopia's dams and Ethiopia's continued massive
37:31 · and costly overreliance on the port of Djibouti for all of its international trade it might seem tempting for
37:36 · Ethiopia to decide on rolling the iron Dice and attack Eritrea at a time when the International Community May hardly
37:43 · even notice or care in November of 2020 Obby launched his war against the tplf
37:48 · in the t region in the midst of global attention being focused on the American presidential election and now he may
37:54 · choose to launch another war against aatr while International attention is fixated on the other Wars going on in
38:00 · Gaza and Ukraine there were still even further concerns that the world might not end up particularly caring if
38:06 · Ethiopia launches an attack on Eritrea anyway because of how internationally isolated and despised the totalitarian
38:14 · regime of Isaiah saeri is already many other countries around the world may not particularly care if the regime that
38:20 · utilizes a modern-day slave Army that ranks even lower than North Korea on
38:25 · numerous human rights abuses gets removed from Power especially while Global attention is more focused on
38:32 · bigger uncertainties concerning the ultimate futures of Gaza and Ukraine and ABI akmed is probably aware of that he
38:39 · could send the Ethiopian Army into Eritrea with the stated objectives of pushing aritra's continued occupation in
38:45 · the te region out and liberating errans from their oppressive totalitarian regime but with the actual quiet
38:52 · objective of reconquering parts or even all of the country and reincorporating training it back into Ethiopia again
38:58 · like it was for most of the second half of the 20th century if it does end up coming to war like it seems in might
39:04 · uncertainties abound on all sides the aitran are only 3.7 million people
39:10 · against Ethiopia's 126.5 million but the atrans are far more unified than the chronically
39:17 · internally unstable Ethiopia is Isaiah's fery and forced slave Army might not end
39:22 · up having the greatest Affinity to protecting their dictator who has forced them into Decades of servitude but they
39:28 · might also rally around him against an Ethiopian attempt to re subjugate them aerotrans fought a long and bloody
39:34 · Insurgency against Ethiopia for decades voted overwhelmingly for independence from Ethiopia in 1993 and tens of
39:42 · thousands of them sacrificed their lives fighting against Ethiopia in the war between 1998 and 2000 so it's almost a
39:50 · certainty that virtually none of them would be very thrilled about the Ethiopian Army returning to reimpose
39:56 · their authority over them again and while the timing of the war now could be advantageous to Ethiopia in some ways it
40:02 · could also be disastrous in others the country was wrecked by the te war that raged between 2020 and 2022 and suffered
40:10 · over2 billion do worth of economic damages and likely hundreds of thousands of deaths Ethiopia is therefore
40:17 · currently engaged in negotiations with the IMF to secure billions of dollars worth of loans to help itself rebuild
40:23 · following that war and so launching another war against Eritrea could simultaneously jeopardize those
40:29 · negotiations and cause even further economic damages that the country would struggle to dig itself out from moreover
40:36 · an outright unilateral conquest and annexation of parts or all of arrea by Ethiopia would likely be met with at
40:43 · least some International condemnation and sanctions but obi's government May calculate that the price would be worth
40:49 · it anyway in exchange for securing the long-term goals and benefits that would come from a breakout of its landlocked
40:55 · state and the acquisition position of a coastline with Ethiopian military units currently massing themselves near the
41:00 · border with Eritrea a collision course between them is appearing increasingly likely if an invasion does end up
41:07 · following it is likely that Ethiopia's initial attacks would be heavily concentrated on the Southeastern front
41:12 · near the aat Tran Port of assab which would likely be a primary Ethiopian wartime objective to capture assab of
41:19 · course had been the primary Port that Ethiopia used back when rraa had been a part of the country between the 1950s
41:24 · and the 1990s and it continued being the primary Port of Ethiopia used after Eritrea became independent until the War
41:31 · Began in 1998 but asb's geostrategic importance has increased even further
41:36 · very recently since 2015 in that year Eritrea allowed the United Arab Emirates
41:42 · to establish an overseas Naval and air base in assab a base that enabled the amadis to launch rapid attacks on the
41:48 · houthis in Yemen very close by from the United Arab Emirates then dumped a ton of money into modernizing all of the
41:54 · facilities in assab to sustain a these military objectives in Yemen modern Barracks a brand new pier and a brand
42:00 · new air strip capable of handling modern Fighters and bombers but then as the war in Yemen continued dragging on with no
42:06 · end in sight the United Arab Emirates began to withdraw from the war in 2019 and so they began to withdraw from their
42:13 · base in assab as well by 2021 there was reportedly very little trace of the United Arab Emirates former presence in
42:19 · assab at all besides for all the work they put into modernizing it this meant that after 2021 assab has been basically
42:26 · a fully capable port and Airfield just sitting there for a modern military to use which is why there's been frequent
42:33 · discussions between Eritrea and Moscow over establishing the Russian Navy's presence in assab ever since a
42:39 · hypothetical development that would place the Russian Navy near the bab Elman Deb Strait and on both sides of
42:45 · the Suz canal through which Russian oil tankers travel towards important markets in India and China and thus if the
42:52 · Russian Navy ever established itself in assab Moscow would be highly incen device to ensure AER tr's continued
42:58 · Independence in order for them to continue hanging on to assab and so before that can ever happen Ethiopia
43:04 · might rationalize that it would be better for them to be the ones to seize control over the port of assab first in
43:10 · order to own a fully modernized port on the Red Sea that can become the new Home Port of the Ethiopian Navy From aritra's
43:17 · perspective assab is a distant and remote part of the country located 300 M
43:22 · away from the aitran core around the capital city of Asmara there is only a single road that connects aab back to
43:29 · the aat Tran core across this large and mostly empty distance meaning that arrayo will find it to be very
43:35 · logistically challenging to support and resupply aab during an attack or a Siege it will be even more difficult when you
43:41 · consider that at its narrowest point this single Road between assab and Asmara is fewer than 5 miles away from
43:48 · the Ethiopian border implying that all Ethiopian forces would have to do is Advance about 5 miles into AA TR
43:56 · sever the road and block the ability for errea to resupply aab At All by land
44:01 · which would then Grant the Ethiopians the ability to lay Siege to an assab with greatly depleted supplies and
44:07 · resources ABI aed's War aims may be limited to Simply capturing aab and finally establishing an Ethiopian
44:14 · controlled port on the Red Sea nearby to the Strategic bab element Deb Strait through which 9% of the world's oil
44:20 · supply is traded but he might also decide to go further and expand Ethiopia's War aims to restore the
44:25 · entire entirety of Eritrea back beneath Ethiopian control again establishing Ethiopian control over a very long
44:32 · coastline with the Red Sea in the process just like the Ethiopian Emperor Hal salasi managed to do diplomatically
44:38 · back in 1952 there were already historical arguments and claims being made by several figures within the
44:44 · Ethiopian government that Ethiopia's natural borders are the Red Sea with maps being shown during recent Ethiopian
44:51 · televised addresses dating back to the ancient Kingdom of axom and to hi salasi Empire in the Communist era during the
44:57 · 20th century when rraa was fully controlled from Adis Ababa abak met himself is ultimately a leader who
45:04 · believes in a glorious future for Ethiopia and he has repeatedly stressed recently that Ethiopia's future
45:10 · greatness or failure will be determined by whether or not the nation can acquire access to Ports and its own
45:16 · international trade or not for long periods of its history in the past Ethiopia has indeed controlled
45:22 · significant amounts of Coastline and maintained a powerful Navy that has at times dominated the trade routes of the
45:28 · Red Sea but the way that many Ethiopian nationalists view things currently is that Ethiopia's rightful access to this
45:35 · sea was stolen by Italian colonialists in the 19th century with their establishment of Italian Eritrea it was
45:42 · then given back to Ethiopia by the United Nations in 1952 and then lost again with the stroke of a pen in 1993
45:49 · when arrea was granted its independence by the tplf or the Tans the party who
45:55 · came to govern e Ethiopia following the collapse of Communism and a party that aakman and other Ethiopian nationalists
46:01 · have since come to blame for allowing arrea to ever become independent something that they view is only a
46:07 · recent historic mistake that deserves to be fixed in a similar way that Vladimir
46:12 · Putin viewed the sudden loss of Crimea in 1991 with the collapse of the Soviet
46:17 · Union as a historic error that they needed to fix by 2014 sooner or later
46:24 · ABI amed's warnings and threat may end up coming true by 2030 150 million
46:30 · Ethiopians will be trapped in what he has referred to as their Geographic prison and the nation will be the only
46:36 · one of the top 30 most populous worldwide to be landlocked unless something is done about it for thousands
46:43 · of years it has been well understood that Maritime access is one of the greatest advantages and sources of
46:48 · wealth and prosperity that a country can have a study from the United Nations in 2018 indicated that access to the Sea
46:55 · can account for up to 25 to 30% of a country's entire gross domestic product
47:01 · a study that ABI akmed himself has frequently cited to emphasize that Ethiopia's own lack of direct access to
47:07 · the sea is a severe handicap on Ethiopia's future obet's government in Ethiopia views that in order for
47:14 · Ethiopia to emerge as a prosperous nation in the 21st century it must achieve internal stability and must
47:21 · harness the power of its rivers through Mega projects like the grand Ethiopian Renaissance Day and it must secure
47:27 · direct access to the Sea even if it comes at the expense of the territorial Integrity or even the independence of
47:33 · Eritrea as ABI akman himself stated during that speech in October of 2023
47:39 · 150 million Ethiopians will not be expected to live trapped within their Geographic prison forever and sooner or
47:46 · later the prison will blast out somewhere to regain their lost access to the Sea again expect that they will do
47:53 · so shortly and be prepared to seal War erupt over this issue in the not too distant future now something that I've
48:00 · begun to notice about myself is that despite being a very busy person I always seem to have small little gaps
48:05 · across my days that I end up filling by browsing through the recent news on Reddit Tik Tok or Twitter and while that's fine in small doses I also
48:12 · usually find myself believing that I also don't have enough free time to do certain things that I really want to do
48:18 · like learning more about how our complicated World actually works learning new things especially new
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