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PaperclipPerfector  9mo ago (text post)   1727 thread views

Transnational Thursday for January 25, 2024

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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Ethiopia and Somalia

“Could Ethiopia and Somalia go to war?” Al Jazeera asks with perhaps a little too much bluntness. Good question. Hopefully not, but Somalia has rejected arbitration, has turned back an Ethiopian plane attempting to land in Somaliland (which raises the question of how real any of this is sine Hargeisa doesn’t fully control their own airspace) and has certainly been rattling its saber as much as possible:

The Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud later stepped up the rhetoric saying: "We will defend our country, we will defend it by all means necessary and seek the support of any ally willing to help us."

He also called on youths "to prepare for the defence of our country".

The president has described Ethiopia as his country's "enemy".

"We have resisted their [Ethiopia's] invasion before. We defeated them before and we will again," he said on 12 January, according to state-owned broadcaster SNTV.

But Ethiopia dosn’t want to back down either; they’ve claimed for some time that access to the sea is an “existential” issue for them (the same claim they make about the GERD dam, though to be fair that kind of makes sense). Somalia has openly said “we are ready for war,” but it’s not clear they actually are - they’re stretched thin with Al Shabaab (ironically Ethiopian troops are one of the largest groups in the African Union peacekeeping force assisting them) and while Ethiopia is also dealing with various conflicts, its military is much larger and better practiced.

Keep in mind this is not the first time the two countries have gone to war, and a conflict is furthermore complicated by ethnic Somalis being one of the largest demographics in Ethiopia. They don’t all necessarily want to be part of Ethiopia but claims of discrimination from other Ethiopians are very common.

Egypt, overjoyed to find other countries that hate Ethiopia too, has been loudly crowing that they will back Egypt to the hilt. Turkey has offered their support too and Somalia claims Eritrea is on their side as well (though Afwerki has yet to publicly comment), while other neighboring countries have been mostly quiet thus far.

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