By David Yeh
Ethiopia’s Potemkin Party Chief Abiy Ahmed’s recent military boasting parading Ethiopia’s alleged ownership of advanced fighter jets while deriding neighboring countries as militarily backward is not a projection of strength. It is an exhibition of political insecurity, historical amnesia, and moral detachment from the lived reality of the Ethiopian people.
This rhetoric arrives at a moment of deep national contradiction. Abiy Ahmed has publicly acknowledged that Ethiopians funded only 10% of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), a project relentlessly marketed for years as the ultimate symbol of popular sacrifice and national self-reliance. That admission alone dismantles a central pillar of government propaganda. If the people paid only a fraction, then the remaining ninety percent came from foreign sources giving renewed credibility to former U.S. President Donald Trump’s once-dismissed claim that the dam was largely funded externally.
Instead of addressing this discrepancy with transparency, the Ethiopian leadership pivots to militarized theater. Jets replace answers. Threats replace accountability.
A Bankrupt State Pretending to Be a Superpower
Ethiopia today is not an emerging power. It is a country that has defaulted on its sovereign debt, is negotiating with international creditors from a position of weakness, and remains dependent on food aid to feed millions of its citizens. Inflation erodes purchasing power, youth unemployment remains chronic, and public services are stretched thin or absent altogether. This is the daily reality of ordinary Ethiopians.
In this context, extravagant military expenditures are not strategic investments, they are acts of fiscal negligence. A state struggling to meet basic obligations cannot credibly justify prestige weapons while its population faces poverty, hunger, and uncertainty.
Military Spending Over National Development
Under the Prosperity Party, Ethiopia’s budgetary priorities have become unmistakable. Defense and security expenditures have expanded dramatically, while investments in education, healthcare, housing, and productive employment lag behind national needs. Funds that could: Build schools and universities, expand healthcare access, Invest in agriculture and food security, and Create jobs for millions of unemployed youth are instead consumed by warfare, militarization, and internal repression.
National development is not defined by slogans or speeches, it is defined by budgets. Ethiopia’s budget tells a clear story: guns are prioritized over bread.
Poverty for the Many, Comfort for the Few
As living standards deteriorate for the majority of Ethiopians, the political elite remains insulated. While citizens endure rising prices, food shortages, and shrinking opportunities, the leadership enjoys comfort, mobility, and privilege. Sacrifice is preached from podiums but practiced selectively.
This widening gap between rulers and ruled erodes legitimacy far more rapidly than any external threat. A government cannot demand unity while presiding over widespread exhaustion. It cannot invoke patriotism while ignoring suffering. Military bravado does not lower food prices. Fighter jets do not create jobs.
History Already Settled This Debate
Abiy’s fixation on air superiority betrays a profound misunderstanding of Ethiopia’s own history. The Derg regime was one of the most heavily armed governments Africa has ever seen. Backed by the Soviet Union, it possessed massive mechanized ground forces and a dominant air force equipped with MiG-21s, MiG-23s, MiG-25s, Su-22s, and strategic bombers. On paper, the Derg was invincible. In reality, it collapsed.
How the EPLF Destroyed the Myth of Military Supremacy
The Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF) demonstrated that legitimacy, organization, and popular support matter more than hardware. Through discipline, battlefield intelligence, and adaptability, it systematically neutralized Ethiopia’s air and land superiority.
By the early 1980s, Ethiopian aircraft were forced to operate at higher altitudes, reducing effectiveness. Supply lines were disrupted. Mechanized divisions were defeated by smaller, more agile forces.
In 1984, during some of the fiercest fighting of the war, dozens of Ethiopian aircraft were destroyed, with Eritrean accounts citing 33 aircraft in 18 minutes. The precise number is less important than the outcome: Ethiopia’s air force failed to defeat the EPLF. The Derg did not fall because it lacked weapons. It fell because it lacked legitimacy.
Baseless Taunts Toward Eritrea
Abiy Ahmed’s insinuations toward Eritrea are especially hollow. Eritrea does not define its security through speeches or public displays of weaponry. It never has.
Contrary to dismissive political rhetoric, Eritrea already owns SU-35 fighter jets and has possessed advanced air capabilities for years. It simply does not parade them for domestic applause or use them to distract from internal crises.
Eritrea’s defense posture is rooted in deterrence and restraint lessons learned from defeating a far stronger Ethiopian state than the one Abiy now governs.
No Neighbor Is Threatening Ethiopia
Perhaps the most revealing flaw in this militaristic narrative is that it responds to a threat that does not exist. Ethiopia’s neighbors are not preparing for war. They are not mobilizing for invasion. They seek stability, economic cooperation, and peace.
War rhetoric under these conditions is not defensive, it is performative. It serves internal political needs, not national security.
You Cannot Bomb Poverty or Intimidate History
Ethiopia’s crisis is not external. It is internal and structural. A government that: Defaults on its debt
Depends on food aid, Oversees widespread poverty, Prioritizes military spending over development, and substitutes rhetoric for accountability does not become strong by acquiring new jets. No aircraft can fix hunger. No military parade can erase economic failure. No threat can substitute for legitimacy.
Ethiopia has walked this road before. The Derg believed weapons ensured survival. History proved otherwise. Power without legitimacy is temporary. Power without memory is dangerous. And power without responsibility is doomed. The Horn of Africa does not need louder threats or costlier weapons. It needs sober leadership, honest priorities, and peace. History is watching. And it remembers.
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