Crisis as Currency: Ethiopia in the Crosshairs of 2026

The first week of 2026 arrives with the usual rituals of forced optimism. Governments issue their polished greetings, citizens make resolutions they know they won’t keep, and the world pretends that the calendar’s turning is a kind of cosmic reset. But for Ethiopia, the new year does not feel like a beginning. It feels like a continuation a long, unbroken thread of crisis, mismanagement, external meddling, and narrative manipulation. The fireworks have barely faded, yet the country already finds itself back on the docket of global concern, its name invoked not with solidarity but with suspicion.

The past year has left Ethiopia bruised, exposed, and increasingly spoken for by others. And as 2026 begins, the international commentary has taken on a tone that is both familiar and ominous: a mixture of pity, exasperation, and managerial disdain. Ethiopia is no longer treated as a sovereign nation navigating hardship; it is treated as a problem to be managed, a risk to be contained, a pretext waiting to be used.

The new year begins with Ethiopia under review, not in celebration.

The world’s capitals have already begun their annual ritual of diagnosing Ethiopia’s ailments. Reports circulate with the same weary vocabulary: instability, humanitarian crisis, debt distress, regional tension, governance failure. The country is spoken of as though it were a malfunctioning machine rather than a living society. And behind the language of concern lies something sharper the quiet preparation of a narrative that could, if needed, justify intervention.

Because if a powerful state ever wished to remove Ethiopia’s leadership under the guise of humanitarian necessity or regional stability, it would not need to invent a justification. The ingredients are already being assembled, neatly packaged in the headlines of the past months, waiting for someone to stitch them together into a story of inevitability.

The pretext is already written; only the timing remains undecided.

Take the United States’ recent decision to terminate legal protections for roughly 5,000 Ethiopian refugees. The official explanation is bureaucratic, procedural, and conveniently bloodless. But the political meaning is unmistakable: Ethiopian lives are being quietly downgraded in the American administrative imagination. This is not merely cruelty; it is choreography.

First, strip protections from vulnerable Ethiopians.
Then, allow their precarity to deepen.
Later, point to that precarity as evidence of Ethiopia’s dysfunction.
Finally, use the dysfunction as justification for political pressure.

It is a sequence so elegant in its cynicism that one almost admires the craftsmanship. The refugee becomes both victim and evidence, first abandoned, then exhibited. Their suffering is not alleviated; it is curated.

When a refugee becomes a prop, the script has already been written.

Germany’s return of historic Ethiopian artefacts was celebrated as a moral gesture and it was. But in the context of Ethiopia’s current fragility, it also functions as soft‑power positioning. Repatriation is not merely an act of justice; it is an investment in moral credibility. It allows Berlin to say, in the future, should Ethiopia’s crisis deepen: “We have always respected your heritage; our concerns now are about governance.”

The artefacts return home, but the present remains negotiable. Ethiopia receives its past, but its future is quietly placed under review.

Meanwhile, Ethiopian peacekeepers remain in Somalia until December 2026, a fact that gives external actors significant leverage. Aid, training, and diplomatic goodwill are calibrated against Ethiopia’s willingness to behave as a “responsible partner.” But this partnership is conditional. The same troops who are today described as stabilising forces could, tomorrow, be reframed as agents of regional instability. The boots do not change; only the narrative does.

In geopolitics, yesterday’s partner is tomorrow’s liability.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the escalating “war of words” between Ethiopia and Eritrea over Red Sea access. Ethiopia’s desire for maritime access is not irrational; it is existential. Eritrea’s suspicion is not surprising; it is historical. But the international commentary has already begun to frame the situation in prosecutorial terms: Ethiopia is “reckless,” “provocative,” “destabilising.” Eritrea is “alarmed,” “reactive,” “forced to withdraw from regional cooperation.”

The complexity of the situation is flattened into a morality play. And morality plays are useful. They allow external actors to position themselves as arbiters, guardians, or if the moment demands , interveners.

A narrative of recklessness is the first step toward a narrative of removal.

Inside Ethiopia, the picture is no less bleak. Reports of ongoing abuses in Tigray, renewed attacks in Afar, and fears that the 2022 peace deal could unravel continue to circulate. The suffering is real, deep, and immeasurable. But the international reaction is inconsistent, oscillating between indifference and alarm depending on geopolitical convenience.

When Ethiopia is needed as a partner, atrocities are described as “complex challenges.” When Ethiopia becomes inconvenient, the same atrocities are described as “evidence of state failure.” The pain of civilians becomes a dial, turned up or down according to foreign interests.

Selective outrage is the currency of modern diplomacy.

Even the absurd becomes political ammunition. The arrest of nine TikTok creators for “indecent attire” would be comical if it were not so revealing. It shows a government obsessed with controlling the trivial while failing to address the catastrophic. To the outside world, such incidents are easy to caricature: a state policing hemlines while the economy collapses; a government arresting dancers while regions starve; a leadership cracking down on influencers while inflation devours household incomes.

These images are not just embarrassing; they are useful. They feed a narrative of a government that is both authoritarian and absurd a perfect combination for those who wish to argue that Ethiopia’s leadership is unfit to govern.

When a state polices skirts but not starvation, the world takes note.

Economically, Ethiopia enters 2026 in a state of profound vulnerability. The preliminary agreement to restructure a defaulted $1 billion bond is framed as a step toward stability, but debt restructuring is never neutral. It is a negotiation conducted under duress, with creditors holding the stronger hand. The National Bank’s attempt to address 445 billion Birr in unrealised forex losses only deepens the sense of crisis.

These are not abstract numbers. They translate into medicines that cannot be imported, factories that cannot operate, households crushed by inflation, and a government forced into policy concessions. For external actors, this fragility is a gift. It allows them to say: “We are concerned about Ethiopia’s economic mismanagement. We must ensure accountability.”

And “accountability,” in this context, often means political pressure.

Debt is not just a burden; it is a leash.

Yet even amid this economic turmoil, Ethiopia continues to pursue megaprojects — Africa’s largest airport, a new Free Trade Zone in Dire Dawa, as though ambition alone could substitute for stability. These projects are presented as visionary, but to many observers, they look like denial on a grand scale. How does a country struggling with famine, displacement, and debt justify a megaproject of this magnitude?

The answer is optics. Megaprojects are political theatre. They allow leaders to stand before blueprints and say, “We are building the future.” But to external critics, these projects are easy targets: misplaced priorities, economic irresponsibility, prestige projects amid humanitarian collapse.

A runway cannot take off when the nation is grounded.

Then comes the Marburg virus outbreak a genuine public health emergency, but also a narrative opportunity. Health crises have a way of being repurposed. A virus becomes not just a medical issue, but a moral indictment: the state cannot protect its people; the health system is collapsing; international oversight is required. Fear is a powerful tool, and Ethiopia’s outbreak will not be wasted by those who know how to use it.

As if that were not enough, a volcano in the Afar region erupts after 12,000 years, disrupting international flights. The global reaction is telling: the primary concern is not the affected communities, but the inconvenience to aviation. Ethiopia’s land itself is treated as a logistical problem, a hazard to global mobility.

When even the earth beneath your feet is framed as a nuisance, imagine how easily your government can be framed as one.

And so, as 2026 begins, Ethiopia finds itself in a precarious position. Its crises are real, but the way they are narrated is strategic. Its suffering is profound, but the way it is interpreted is opportunistic. Its government is flawed, but the way it is judged is selective.

If a powerful state ever wished to argue that Ethiopia’s leadership must go, it would not need to fabricate a case. The case is already being assembled:

Refugees abandoned.
Peacekeepers questioned.
Red Sea tensions amplified.
Tigray and Afar suffering highlighted.
TikTok arrests mocked.
Debt and forex losses condemned.
Megaprojects ridiculed.
Marburg fears magnified.
Volcanic disruptions dramatised.

From these threads, a story can be woven: a reckless, incompetent, authoritarian government endangering its people and the region. And once that story is accepted, intervention becomes not an act of aggression, but an act of responsibility.

Modern regime change does not begin with troops; it begins with narratives.

The tragedy is not only that Ethiopia is suffering. The tragedy is that its suffering is being catalogued, interpreted, and weaponised by those who see the Horn of Africa not as a home to millions, but as a strategic chessboard. Ethiopia deserves better than this. It deserves a government that respects its people, a region that values its stability, and a world that treats it as a sovereign nation, not a pretext waiting to be used.

Until that happens, Ethiopia will remain trapped in the cruelest of positions: too important to ignore, too weak to resist, and too useful to be left alone.

The new year has begun, but Ethiopia is still waiting for its beginning.