Whoever controls the headwaters of the Nile effectively holds a lever over the downstream states, with the power to reduce or increase the flow reaching them. Yet the most dramatic aspect of the situation lies in a stark contradiction: a country fractured at home and defiant abroad, engulfed in crises and grinding conflicts between separatist opposition forces and the Ethiopian army on several fronts — conditions that could bring the country within a step of fragmentation should the necessary catalyst emerge.
Ethiopia never stops shaking the chessboard of the Horn of Africa and the Nile Basin. With its announcement of plans to construct three major new dams on the upper reaches of the Blue Nile — Upper Mendaya, Karadobi and Beko Abo — upstream of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, the region now faces a transformation whose consequences extend far beyond irrigation engineering to the very foundations of survival for the two downstream states. The move raises urgent questions about the shape of a new regional order in which one party seeks to wield water itself as an instrument for altering balances of power and disrupting established strategic equilibria.
Ethiopia is a country preoccupied with dreams of empire and burdened by geopolitical complexes associated with its status as a landlocked state. Its intention to construct three new dams costing billions of dollars, which together with the existing dam would provide a storage capacity of some 200 billion cubic metres — equivalent to roughly four consecutive years of Blue Nile inflows — without an agreement with the two downstream countries raises profound doubts that these can simply be regarded as development projects, as Addis Ababa claims. Rather, they amount to a strategic hydrological weapon capable of granting Ethiopia unilateral control over the water lifeline of some 150 million people in Egypt and Sudan. Here, the geography of the river intersects directly with the philosophy of power: whoever controls the Nile’s headwaters acquires the ability to constrict or release the flow reaching the downstream states.
Yet the most dramatic element of this picture lies in a profound contradiction. Ethiopia is deeply fractured at home while behaving defiantly abroad. It remains immersed in severe crises and devastating internal conflicts, while the loyalties of its peoples are divided among competing fronts. Separatist and insurgent opposition forces have fought the Ethiopian army in Tigray, Amhara, Oromia, Ogaden, Afar and Benishangul-Gumuz, among other regions. The circle of tension continues to widen rather than recede as crises of political authority, security, representation, identity and relations between the capital and the regions accumulate. Despite all this, Ethiopia continues to pour its limited resources into enormous projects whose economic feasibility is open to question and whose consequences are harmful to its neighbours.
Regimes suffering from domestic fragmentation and ethnic conflict often resort to manufacturing an external enemy or embarking on a major adventure in order to unite a weakened home front and divert attention from failures affecting everyday life. The Ethiopian leadership’s insistence on challenging international law and imposing a hydrological fait accompli therefore amounts to a gamble with the future of an entire region in an attempt to repair a legitimacy that is eroding at home.
The greater absurdity in the approach of Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed is that, while he rejects the historical and acquired rights of the two downstream states in the Nile as he seeks to justify the construction of these dangerous dams, he repeatedly invokes what he claims to be Ethiopia’s historical right to Eritrea’s port of Assab and access to the Red Sea — and even makes historical claims relating to Eritrean and Somali territory. By this logic, there appears to be no objection to occupying the territory of neighbouring countries or tearing them apart on the grounds that Ethiopia possesses “historical rights” to their ports, seas and lands.
While Eritrea, Somalia and even Djibouti have reason to be concerned by Addis Ababa’s assertiveness, Egypt and Sudan reject any attempt to impose hydro-political hegemony and believe their position rests on solid foundations in international law governing transboundary rivers. These principles prohibit causing significant harm to downstream states and require cooperation in the implementation of transboundary water projects.
Egypt, which depends almost entirely on the Nile to secure its drinking water and agricultural needs, regards the new dams as an existential threat, particularly after experience has demonstrated, from Cairo’s perspective, that negotiations with Ethiopia have produced little beyond procrastination. Egypt’s foreign and irrigation ministers have repeatedly stated that the country will not permit the construction of new dams that threaten even a single drop of its water entitlement and that its water security constitutes a red line. Cairo has also stressed that it will take every necessary measure to protect the Egyptian people’s rights in the Nile and that it possesses the means to defend and safeguard its interests.
Sudan finds itself at the centre of the storm. It is already suffering the devastation of an internal war, yet it understands that tampering with the waters of the Blue Nile could undermine its food and water security and create catastrophic risks related to the safety of its dams and the regulation of water flows. This explains the firm Egyptian-Sudanese rejection of unilateral Ethiopian action. The absence of an agreement would effectively legitimise a law-of-the-jungle approach to the management of international rivers.
Another dimension cannot be ignored. Ethiopia, in the author’s assessment, is acting as the glove or claw of other regional and international powers — particularly Israel — operating from behind the scenes to contain Egypt, encircle it and stretch its strategic resources across its regional environment. Such an approach would help consolidate Israeli political and strategic influence in the Horn of Africa and the Nile Basin. Israel, through statements attributed to its ambassador in Addis Ababa, Avraham Neguise, has expressed support for Ethiopia’s efforts to obtain access to the Red Sea and to proceed with its dam projects, even at the expense of other states in the region.
The absence of political wisdom in Addis Ababa, combined with reliance on the logic of power at a moment of profound domestic fragility, is creating a slow boil — or, more precisely, playing with fire beside a powder keg that could ignite at any moment. Ethiopia’s strategy is now plain to see: an ill-calculated adventure that it may come to regret bitterly. Abiy Ahmed’s reliance on procrastination and the recycling of half-solutions, instead of cooperation, represents a clumsy attempt to manage crises whose implications reach far beyond Ethiopia itself.
Water is not merely a collection of liquid molecules flowing through rivers or seas. It is the geopolitical blood of nations, a foundation upon which states rise or fall. For that reason, the conventional rules of deterrence may change when the survival of states itself comes into question. At such a point, every option moves onto the table, and any unilateral step could impose an enormous cost on all parties — above all on Ethiopia itself.
Addis Ababa must understand that breaking the will of its neighbours or unilaterally changing the regional balance of power is beyond reach. Either the logic of cooperation and equitable agreements prevails, or policies of regional arrogance will drag the region towards a dangerous precipice whose consequences no party will be able to control.
* The writer is the Managing Editor of Al-Ahram Daily.
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