The “Two Waters” Delusion: How Ethiopia’s Prosperity Party Fabricates a National Crisis to Mask Expansionist Ambition

by B. Tekle

I. Introduction: The Cartography of Coercion

1.1 The Prosperity Party’s Doctrine: Manufacturing an Existential Linkage

The ruling Prosperity Party (PP) of Ethiopia has engineered an utterly false, piece of political cartography: the so-called “Two Waters” narrative. This doctrine strategically fuses the national project to harness the Blue Nile (manifested in the construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, or GERD) with the aggressive, non-negotiable demand for sovereign Red Sea access. By achieving the former, rooted in the equitable use of transboundary resources, the PP attempts to lend moral and political authority to the latter, a fundamentally expansionist and illegal geopolitical claim.

This rhetorical synthesis was solidified in the blunt, provocative language of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali, who declared in October 2023 that the Red Sea constitutes Ethiopia’s “natural border” and that sea access is an “existential issue”. This rhetoric attempts to elevate a historically complex logistical and commercial challenge, the expense of relying on foreign ports, into a fabricated matter of national survival that justifies any means necessary, including the threat of force, to achieve a “rightful position along the Red Sea”.

This assertion of an existential threat serves a dual purpose. Domestically, it provides a powerful rallying cry, mobilizing nationalist sentiment to distract from Ethiopia’s acute internal challenges, including severe economic instability, persistent post-conflict security fragility, and deep ethnic fracturing. Externally, it is a deliberate policy choice informed by a chilling assessment of the current global geopolitical climate. Analysis suggests that the PP’s aggressive posture was motivated in part by the observed efficacy of “forcible border changes,” referencing “Russia’s example” as a model where revisionist foreign policy challenges the post-WWII international order and settled borders. This calculated adoption of revisionist methodology transforms the maritime demand from a commercial negotiation into a clear security threat against littoral states.

1.2 Structural Hypocrisy: Law as a Shield and a Sword

The “Two Waters” doctrine operates through a profound structural hypocrisy regarding international law. Ethiopia cried international norms, specifically, the principle of equitable use of transboundary resources, to justify and complete the GERD, securing a major developmental victory. Yet, almost simultaneously, the PP leadership selectively rejects the fundamental international legal principle of territorial integrity and sovereign borders when it pertains to the coastline.

This inconsistency is not an accident; it is a cynical deployment of international law. The PP invokes legalism where it supports Ethiopian development (GERD) but aggressively rejects or misrepresents it where it prevents expansion (Red Sea). By asserting the GERD was “lawful” and the Red Sea quest is a “natural right,” the government attempts to create a unified narrative of restorative justice, but the underlying legal frameworks governing transboundary rivers and sovereign coastlines are mutually exclusive. This strategic dishonesty reveals that the PP uses the language of international law only as a tool for power projection, signaling a dangerous disregard for regional stability and the norms it insists its rivals must respect.

II. Deconstructing the Fabrication: Legal and Geographical Nullity

2.1 The Myth of Hydro-Maritime Synergy

The foundation of the “Two Waters” concept, a spiritual or existential connection between the Blue Nile’s use and Red Sea access, is completely unfounded in geography or law. Geographically, the Blue Nile system and the Red Sea are physically separate entities. Historical attempts to link the two via shallow canals (between the Nile and the Red Sea) existed before the 1st century CE in Egypt, but they were later abandoned, and the only modern, deep canal connection is the Suez Canal, linking the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea. The rhetorical linkage is therefore purely manufactured, aimed at borrowing the national pride associated with the GERD to legitimize an entirely unrelated geopolitical objective.

The Prosperity Party’s so-called “economic necessity” is little more than melodrama dressed up as statecraft. There is no “existential” blockade strangling Ethiopia, only a self-inflicted sense of victimhood. Under international law, landlocked countries are guaranteed access to the sea through transit states, and Ethiopia already enjoys precisely that. Over 90 percent of its trade flows smoothly through Djibouti’s ports. The crisis is not physical isolation; it’s political vanity.

Addis Ababa’s real problem isn’t geography, it’s arithmetic. The government resents paying port fees, negotiating trade terms, and relying on partners instead of commanding them. It wants empire-grade privileges without empire-grade legitimacy. To mask this economic insecurity, the Prosperity Party now dresses its envy as destiny.

Yet Ethiopia’s own actions expose the farce. It has opened transit offices in Berbera and even signed a sham “memorandum of understanding” with Somaliland, an illegal stunt that fooled no one but the authors of their own press releases. If access were truly existential, Ethiopia would strengthen regional cooperation, not sabotage it.

The truth is simple: Ethiopia’s so-called maritime “awakening” is not about commerce, it’s about control. By threatening its neighbors, it alienates precisely the partners it depends on: Djibouti, Somalia, Kenya, Sudan, and Eritrea. The Prosperity Party claims to be seeking integration, yet behaves like a colonial relic that never learned the difference between access and annexation.

In the end, Ethiopia’s “Two Waters” doctrine is not policy, it’s therapy for a ruling elite that cannot admit its failures. The sea is not what’s missing; accountability is.

2.2 Law of the River vs. Law of the Sea: The Dual Legal Standards

Ethiopia’s strategic dichotomy is most evident in its manipulation of international legal frameworks.

The GERD Precedent

On the Nile, Ethiopia cloaked itself in the mantle of moral authority. By denouncing colonial-era treaties that advantaged downstream states, it claimed it is its sovereign right, enshrined in international water law, to equitable use of a shared river. Building the GERD unilaterally on its own soil gave the Prosperity Party just enough veneer of legality to posture as a champion of justice. Yet this very language of law, brandished so proudly on the Nile, becomes the hypocrisy it now discards when reaching greedily for the Red Sea coastline which is the sovereign territory of others.

The UNCLOS Contradiction (The Legal Sword)

Whatever credible argument it might have on the GERD is immediately forfeited when addressing the Red Sea. The relevant international legal framework governing maritime rights is the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). While UNCLOS guarantees landlocked states the right of access to and from the sea through transit states, this right is purely a matter of transit and depends entirely on bilateral or regional agreements. UNCLOS Article 2(1) unequivocally affirms the coastal state’s sovereignty over its land territory, internal waters, and territorial sea.

The PP’s demand for a “natural border” or a “rightful position” far exceeds UNCLOS transit rights. It is an undisguised claim for sovereign control, either through lease or outright possession, over another state’s territory, a claim that stands in flagrant violation of the UN Charter and the principle of territorial integrity. The PP’s cynical legal strategy is to apply rules designed for resource sharing (transboundary water law) to matters of sovereign territorial control (maritime access), thereby attempting to legitimize an illegal demand for political advantage.

2.3 Assab, Irredentism, and Settled Borders

The centerpiece of Ethiopia’s revisionist nostalgia, and the obsession behind its modern belligerence, is Assab, the port it claims to have “lost” with Eritrea’s independence. But let’s be clear: Assab was never theirs to lose. It was never an Abyssinian port, nor was any stretch of the Red Sea coast ever under the control of Abyssinia. If one insists on tracing lineage back to Axum, even that empire had vanished by the end of the 7th century, centuries before any entity calling itself “Ethiopia” existed. The Prosperity Party’s mythology collapses under the weight of history.

In today’s Ethiopia, the so-called “loss” of Assab has been elevated to a palace trauma and a convenient rallying cry. It is invoked as a “historical mistake,” a “strategic blunder,” something to be corrected if need be by force. Within Abiy Ahmed’s Prosperity Party, this fantasy has morphed into a fixation, a projection of unfulfilled imperial longing disguised as policy. What is paraded as economic necessity is, in truth, territorial nostalgia wrapped in sentimentality, a yearning to redraw borders, to resurrect a mirage of empire that never existed outside the fevered imagination of those who mistake ambition for history.

However, sentiment does not equate to policy under international law.
Eritrea achieved its independence through a hard-fought liberation struggle grounded in the same principle of decolonization that underpinned the freedom of every other African nation. Its sovereignty, and with it, its full control over its coastline, is a matter long settled in international law. That law is unambiguous: no land may be taken by force. Any attempt by Addis Ababa to “correct” what it calls a historical blunder would be nothing less than an act of war, a blatant assault on Eritrean sovereignty and on the very norms of international order Ethiopia once claimed to defend. Ethiopia’s historical irredentist tendencies, previously manifested in conflicts and border realignments attempts in areas like Ogaden, Al Fashaga, or Badme, validate the fears of its neighbors, confirming that the “Two Waters” doctrine is a veiled justification for territorial revisionism.

III. Rhetoric as Weapon: Masking Expansionist Intent

3.1 The Existential Justification: Nationalist Mobilization

The declaration that sea access is “existential” operates as a political mechanism to manage internal instability. By transforming the complex economic reality of transit dependence into a narrative of national humiliation, the PP effectively diverts domestic attention from pervasive, acute internal crises. Ethiopia is currently mired in significant security and economic challenges, and the existential access narrative provides a compelling external focus point, enabling nationalist mobilization required to justify unilateral and high-risk foreign policy actions.

This is more than mere distraction; it is an attempt to achieve policy consensus through manufactured crisis. By leveraging the nationalist pride generated by the GERD, the PP seeks to transfer that same non-negotiable status to the Red Sea quest. This makes the concept of territorial sacrifice for access palatable to a certain segment of the populace and provides ideological cover for abandoning bilateral diplomatic solutions.

3.2 The Propaganda Machine: Horn Review and Assertive Denial

The strategic application of the “Two Waters” rhetoric is executed with calculated duality. While Prime Minister Abiy and other officials deliver the hard-hitting, occasionally threatening remarks about “natural borders,” affiliated, quasi-official media outlets such as Horn Review function as diplomatic damage control, refining the message for international consumption.

Horn Review, the regime’s echo chamber masquerading as analysis, often publishes pieces meant to preemptively deny Ethiopia’s aggressive intent—dismissing any external warnings of conflict as “deeply misguided” or “flawed readings of the port question.” At other times, it simply channels Abiy Ahmed’s delusions, parroting his fantasies of “existential access” and “shared prosperity.” One such article insisted, with Orwellian calm, that Ethiopia’s quest for Red Sea access was “grounded in cooperation and integration, not aggression,” painting expansionism as altruism. Soon after, Addis Ababa dispatched an official letter to the UN Secretary-General, declaring that Ethiopia’s sovereignty “must not be mistaken for weakness”—a transparent attempt to reframe intimidation as diplomacy and isolate those who refuse to buy into the Prosperity Party’s theater of denial.

This is a strategy of “peace through supremacy.” The PP attempts to frame GERD and Red Sea access under the umbrella of “Regional Integration, Not Rivalry”. However, when integration is achieved through threats of force and the violation of sovereign integrity, it ceases to be partnership and becomes hegemony. Ethiopia’s insistence that regional resistance to its developmental projects (like GERD) is “myopic” or “self-destructive” is a form of coercive diplomacy. It demands that neighboring states accept Ethiopia’s unilateral definition of regional prosperity. This rhetorical stance ensures that littoral countries correctly interpret all Ethiopian development—whether infrastructure, hydroelectric power, or naval projection—as potential instruments of future coercion, deepening the regional security dilemma.

3.3 Historical Precedent: Irredentism Confirmed

The neighboring countries’ apprehension is rooted in historical precedent. The current Red Sea rhetoric aligns perfectly with Ethiopia’s documented history of regional expansion and contested borders. When PM Abiy spoke of the Red Sea, the genie was immediately let out of the bottle.

The response from the immediate littoral states confirms the geopolitical interpretation of the PP’s intent. Eritrea, Djibouti, and Somalia uniformly condemned the rhetoric as threatening to their sovereignty. The principal advisor to Djibouti’s President Ismail Omar Guelleh stressed that Djibouti is a sovereign country whose “territorial integrity is not called into question, nor today nor tomorrow,” highlighting the zero-sum nature of Abiy’s demands. Despite having functioning commercial deals with Ethiopia, the perceived threat of forced control ensures that these vital transit partners remain deeply mistrustful of Addis Ababa’s intentions.

IV. Eritrea’s Stance: A Call for Normative Order

4.1 The Asmara Protocol: Rejecting Political Hogwash

In stark contrast to the PP’s rhetoric, Eritrea has adopted an unequivocal position rooted in the defense of sovereignty and international law. Eritrea’s Minister for Information, Yemane Gebremeskel, publicly labeled the recent remarks from Ethiopian officials regarding the Red Sea as “political hogwash” and accused Addis Ababa of making continued “reckless” military threats. This forceful rejection frames the Ethiopian pursuit not merely as a diplomatic misstep, but as a dangerous, high-stakes political maneuver specifically engineered by the Prosperity Party to externalize domestic instability.

Eritrea’s adherence to the normative international framework compels recognition of established borders and respect for sovereignty—the very principles Ethiopia is undermining. This stance isolates Addis Ababa as the regional revisionist power, countering the PP’s attempts to cast its territorial demands under the guise of “shared prosperity”.

4.2 Deflecting the Narrative: Isolating Addis Ababa

Eritrea’s firm position highlights the fact that Ethiopia’s reliance on threats over negotiation fundamentally undermines its own long-term economic strategy. Ethiopia requires reliable, cost-effective commercial access, which necessitates cooperation with littoral states. By alienating Eritrea, Djibouti, Kenya, and Somalia through aggressive posturing, Ethiopia reduces its bargaining power and increases its vulnerability, forcing reliance on highly unstable, contested agreements, such as the MoU with Somaliland.

If economic necessity were the sole driver, Ethiopia would prioritize deepening commercial ties, increasing trade volume, and renegotiating transit costs with existing partners, which is the most efficient path to reduced expenses. Instead, the PP has chosen to seek self-sufficiency via sovereign control, demonstrating that the political reward of nationalist prestige, derived from the “Two Waters” fabrication, outweighs sound commercial logic and long-term regional integration. The strategic cost of this coercion is the deepening of regional mistrust and the guaranteed alienation of its most crucial neighbors.

V. Conclusion: The Destabilization Dividend

The “Two Waters” narrative represents an unprecedented attempt by Ethiopia’s ruling Prosperity Party to hijack the legitimacy of a sovereign developmental success (GERD) to justify an illegal, expansionist agenda regarding the Red Sea. The supposed linkage between the Blue Nile and the Red Sea is a geopolitical fabrication, devoid of geographical, legal, or economic foundation.

5.1 The Risk Assessment: Escalation and Fragmentation

If left unchecked, this aggressive rhetoric risks dragging an already fragile Horn of Africa into deeper conflict. By normalizing the idea of border revision through force, the PP heightens military tensions not only with Eritrea but also with Somalia, which viewed Ethiopia’s attempt to secure access via Somaliland as an act of aggression. The region is already suffering from severe instability and conflict in Sudan and Somalia, and Ethiopia’s unilateral escalation compounds these challenges, threatening the security of critical maritime routes in the Red Sea.

Moreover, Ethiopia’s actions actively sabotage multilateral efforts designed to promote stability. Organizations like the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), established partly to coordinate regional Red Sea policy and promote cohesion, are undermined by a member state that prioritizes coercive unilateralism over adherence to agreed-upon norms. This deliberate instability attracts and empowers global actors—including China, Russia, and Gulf States—who play out their geostrategic interests in a volatile environment, further eroding traditional regional governance mechanisms.

5.2 The Final Warning: Rule of Law Must Prevail

The international community cannot afford to treat Ethiopia’s Red Sea demands merely as economic grievances of a landlocked nation. They must be recognized for what they are: a politically motivated fabrication designed to mask expansionist ambitions and destabilize sovereign states under the guise of “existential necessity.”

For regional harmony and enduring security to prevail, Ethiopia must unequivocally abandon the “Two Waters” doctrine and all rhetoric that threatens the territorial sovereignty of its neighbors. The only path forward that respects both Ethiopia’s legitimate economic needs and the security of the Horn of Africa is strict adherence to international law: securing commercial access through peaceful, bilateral, and mutually beneficial agreements, thereby restoring the rule-based order that Addis Ababa so claims to champion on the Blue Nile. Failing this, the PP’s fixation on a manufactured maritime crisis will guarantee enduring conflict.