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How Great Powers Play Kingmakers While Pretending to Promote Democracy
By Sewasew Teklemariam Ethiopian Tribune Columnist
Last week, the United States State Department Bureau of African Affairs released a carefully-worded statement regarding ‘productive and wide-ranging meetings’ with the Ethiopian delegation, led by Foreign Minister Gedion Timotheos, for the U.S. Ethiopia Bilateral Structured Dialogue. The language was immaculate. The conversations were constructive. The commitment to regional stability was shared.
One might imagine that somewhere in a mahogany-lined conference room, genuine regional breakthroughs had been negotiated. That misunderstandings had been clarified. That the intractable geopolitical problems of the Horn of Africa, water security, humanitarian catastrophe, Iranian regional influence, had moved measurably closer to resolution.
One would, as it happens, be spectacularly mistaken.
What actually transpired was an exhibition in diplomatic theatre of such refined quality that it merits examination not as a breakthrough, but as a perfect specimen of how great-power politics operates in the twenty-first century Horn of Africa. Every phrase was chosen to signify commitment without prescribing action. Every topic was discussed in a manner that guaranteed continued disagreement. Every statement of ‘shared values’ masked fundamentally incompatible interests.
And in this theatre, one must understand, lies the actual story of how the region will continue to be shaped, not by democratic impulses, not by humanitarian concern, but by the cold calculus of strategic advantage.
The Language Game: What 'Constructive Dialogue' Actually Means
Begin with the statement itself. The US-Africa Bureau noted that discussions covered three primary areas: the Nile River and the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), Sudan peace efforts, and Red Sea maritime security. Each merits unpacking, for what is unsaid is often more revelatory than what appears in print.
The GERD: Five Years of ‘Constructive’ Stalemate
The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam represents one of the continent’s most significant infrastructure projects a 74-billion-cubic-metre reservoir designed to generate approximately 15,000 gigawatt-hours of electricity annually, critical to Ethiopia’s industrialisation and energy security.1
It is also, from Egypt’s perspective, an existential threat. Cairo, which depends on the Nile for approximately 95 per cent of its freshwater supply, has consistently argued that rapid filling of the GERD’s reservoir threatens downstream water availability.2Sudan, caught between the two, worries about both dam safety and water flow management.
Since 2020, there have been numerous diplomatic initiatives. The African Union has hosted talks. International mediators have proposed frameworks. Egypt has threatened military action. Ethiopia has proceeded with dam operations. And the United States, which has no water in the Nile but considerable diplomatic influence in Cairo, has expressed repeated ‘concern’ while offering no binding mechanism to resolve the dispute.
That the US and Ethiopia were having ‘constructive conversations’ about the GERD tells us precisely nothing about what either party actually wants. It is diplomatic code for: ‘We disagree profoundly, but we are both rich enough and powerful enough to afford politeness.’
The substantive positions have not moved in five years. Ethiopia’s development imperative is non-negotiable. Egypt’s water security is non-negotiable. Sudan’s vulnerability is non-negotiable. No engineering marvel or diplomatic formula resolves this contradiction; it can only be managed through sustained tension punctuated by occasional bilateral meetings in which everyone affirms commitment to shared principles while doing nothing whatsoever to address the actual dispute.
The dam will continue to operate. Egypt will continue to protest. The US will continue to express concern. And water will continue to flow downriver, indifferent to all concerned parties.
Sudan: Peace Brokerage as Performance Art
Sudan is currently experiencing civil war of a magnitude that has produced one of the world’s worst ongoing humanitarian catastrophes. The conflict, which erupted in April 2023 between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) under General al-Burhan and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) under Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, has displaced over 6 million people, created widespread famine conditions, and generated credible documentation of systematic sexual violence, mass killings, and scorched-earth tactics.3
What is particularly instructive is the external backing. The SAF receives support from Russia (primarily through Wagner Group provision of military advisers and air support), Egypt (out of concern regarding Nile water security and strategic positioning), and various Gulf actors. The RSF, meanwhile, has received documented support from the United Arab Emirates, which has provided unmanned aerial vehicles, weapons, and financial backing, while simultaneously maintaining diplomatic relations with all parties.4
Now observe the remarkable fact: the United States, which claims commitment to humanitarian values and ceasefire achievement, has not imposed meaningful economic sanctions on the primary external backers of the RSF (the UAE) or the SAF (Egypt and Russia). Why? Because stability or the appearance of it is valued more highly than accountability.
When the US speaks of ‘international efforts to facilitate a humanitarian truce and achieve durable peace in Sudan,’ what it is actually performing is concern. Ethiopia is being positioned as a broker precisely because it has just enough leverage (refugee flows, regional diplomatic weight, Nile basin politics) and just little enough direct stake to be plausibly neutral. This is geopolitical exploitation dressed in humanitarian language.
Prime Minister Abiy will nod, will pledge engagement, will host talks that produce nothing. And this serves Western interests perfectly, because engagement preserves the fiction of concerned diplomacy while placing no actual pressure on the parties capable of ending the war.
The Red Sea: Where Geography Becomes Geopolitics
Here we arrive at what the bilateral was actually about, and why the press releases about GERD and Sudan served as diplomatic cover for a far more significant conversation.
The Suez Canal processes roughly 12 per cent of global seaborne trade approximately $1 trillion in annual goods traffic. The Strait of Bab al-Mandab, which connects the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean, is the funnel through which this commerce flows. A functioning Bab al-Mandab means the global economy circulates. A disrupted Bab al-Mandab means shipping reroutes around the Cape of Good Hope, adding two weeks and significant costs to every container.5
For the past eighteen months, the Houthis—formally the Ansar Allah movement, operationally an Iranian proxy force have been attacking commercial shipping in these waters with increasing sophistication. Between November 2023 and May 2026, they have launched over 100 missile and drone attacks on vessels transiting the Red Sea, forcing major shipping companies to reroute around Africa at substantial cost.6
The Houthis provide a stated rationale: opposition to Israeli operations in Gaza and claimed support for Palestinian liberation. The actual mechanics are considerably more straightforward: they are supplied with advanced weaponry by Iran, trained by Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps personnel, and directed toward targets that maximize disruption to Western-aligned shipping while demonstrating Iranian regional reach.
The United States response has been predictable: naval deployments, multinational coordination, attempts to intercept weapons shipments. This is strategically equivalent to deploying an umbrella against a monsoon. The Houthis have proven resilient because they operate with Iranian backing, have access to Iranian inventory including cruise missiles and drones, and face minimal consequence for attacks given Iran’s geopolitical importance to multiple regional actors.
Ethiopia’s Geography as Strategic Asset
Ethiopia’s value to the US bilateral is not military. Ethiopia’s armed forces, while capable, are not blue-water naval assets. What Ethiopia provides is something considerably more valuable: geography and regional influence.
Ethiopia sits astride the Horn of Africa, controlling territory adjacent to Yemen, Eritrea, Sudan, and the Red Sea corridor itself. Through various entanglements (including the contested relationship with Eritrea, which was resolved via the 2018 peace agreement and continues to be complicated by border tensions and port access questions), Ethiopia can theoretically influence regional power dynamics.
More directly: if the US can ensure that Ethiopian strategic orientation remains sufficiently Western-leaning, then Iran is denied a potential regional base. If Addis Ababa remains aligned with Gulf partners like the UAE and Saudi Arabia rather than gravitating toward Tehran, the balance of power in the Red Sea and broader Horn of Africa tilts away from Iranian influence.
This is not about securing Ethiopia as a devoted ally. This is about option denial ensuring that Ethiopia remains unavailable to Iran.
And this is precisely where Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s strategic mastery becomes apparent.
Abiy’s Game: The Art of Strategic Non-Commitment
Abiy Ahmed has mastered a particular form of twenty-first-century statecraft: the art of being simultaneously everyone’s ally and no one’s tool.
When the US wishes to discuss Red Sea security, Abiy listens attentively and offers support. When the UAE offers investment and development partnerships, Abiy is receptive. When China proposes infrastructure contracts (Ethiopia has received over $14 billion in Chinese financing for transport and energy projects), Abiy welcomes the engagement.7
When Russia offers military training and weaponry, Abiy accepts. And when Iran which has historically supported Ethiopian nationalism as a counterweight to Arab hegemony extends diplomatic overtures, Abiy does not slam the door.
This is not inconsistency. This is statecraft of a sophisticated order. Ethiopia’s actual power setting aside military capacity derives from optionality. As long as Ethiopia remains genuinely available to multiple suitors, genuinely unwilling to permanently commit to any single power, it retains negotiating leverage with all of them.
This was precisely the calculation evident in Abiy’s March 2026 visit to the UAE—a carefully choreographed affair that signalled alignment with Gulf interests without actually foreclosing other options.8
The visit occurred against the backdrop of Iranian strikes on UAE infrastructure and Ethiopian Airlines’ crisis (the latter being an episode that exposed Ethiopia’s vulnerability in contested airspace and the international community’s complicated relationship with Iranian regional activity). Abiy’s presence in Abu Dhabi was read by various actors as strategic positioning—but read differently by each audience.
To the US and Gulf allies, it suggested Ethiopian alignment against Iranian influence. To potential Iranian interlocutors, it demonstrated that Addis Ababa was available for negotiation. To Chinese investors, it showed that Ethiopia would maintain relationships across ideological and geostrategic divides. To Russian partners, it illustrated that Ethiopia’s choices were not predetermined.
This is the genuine achievement of Abiy’s statecraft: not the cultivation of a single powerful alliance, but the maintenance of genuine ambiguity regarding Ethiopia’s ultimate alignment. And the bilateral with the US last week was structured precisely to preserve that ambiguity while appearing to move closer to Western alignment.
The Contradiction: Democracy Rhetoric, Stability Practice
Here we arrive at the central dishonesty that no power in Washington, Brussels, Cairo, or Addis Ababa is willing to articulate plainly.
The US is genuinely committed to regional stability. The US is also, in some contexts, genuinely committed to democracy promotion. But these two commitments are fundamentally and irreconcilably incompatible in the Horn of Africa, and have been for at least a decade.
The Abiy Case Study: Reform Rhetoric, Authoritarian Reality
Abiy came to power in April 2018 on a substantial wave of reform rhetoric. He was young, born in 1976, making him 42 at the time of the bilateral in question. He was educated, English-fluent, and had signalled commitment to political opening, prisoner releases, and democratic transformation. For roughly two years, the Western world was genuinely excited. Here, it seemed, was an African leader who might actually modernise governance while remaining pro-Western.
Then came the Tigray war.
In November 2020, following tensions with the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), Abiy launched a military offensive that rapidly escalated into full-scale civil war. The documented evidence of what followed is harrowing: systematic sexual violence, mass killing of civilians, systematic starvation tactics, ethnic cleansing operations in western Tigray by militia forces aligned with Ethiopian federal troops.9
Estimates of conflict-related deaths vary widely from the UN-associated figures suggesting 600,000+ deaths to lower estimates in the 70,000-100,000 range. Regardless of which figure one accepts, the scale is catastrophic. Sexual violence was documented as systematic by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and independent journalists.10
And the Western response was to… continue security partnerships, military aid, and diplomatic engagement.
The US did not impose meaningful sanctions. European countries issued statements of concern while maintaining trade and development relationships. The World Bank, which suspended some Ethiopia programs, did not fundamentally alter its engagement.
Why? Because stability or the appearance of it was judged more valuable than accountability. Because a functioning, pro-Western authoritarian government in Addis Ababa was more strategically important than sixty thousand Tigrayan deaths.
This is not unique to Ethiopia. This is the fundamental operating principle of Western strategy in the Middle East, Central Asia, and beyond: ally with autocrats when necessary, express concern about human rights in private communications, and pivot to ‘stability’ language when atrocities become too well-documented to ignore.
It is not cynicism to observe this. It is realism. And it is precisely this realism that the bilateral dialogue was structured to preserve.
Eritrea, Iran, and the Temptation of Regime Change Fantasy
At this point, some analysts may propose an apparently logical solution: if Abiy presents such problems, why not simply support genuine democratic alternatives? If Eritrea’s Isaias Afwerki is hopelessly authoritarian and Iranian-aligned, why not back the opposition movement Andinet for regime change? If democratic alternatives exist, surely the answer is democratisation rather than continued authoritarianism?
This is where ideology collides decisively with geopolitical reality.
The Regime-Change Precedent: Learning Nothing From History
The notion that great powers can externally impose regime change in favour of democracy has been tested extensively in recent decades. Iraq (2003), Afghanistan (2001), Libya (2011), attempted coups in Syria (2011-2012). The success rate approaches zero.
What invariably follows external regime change is: state collapse, civil war, humanitarian catastrophe, and the installation of a different autocrat—often more brutal than the predecessor, who is at least nominally grateful to his external sponsors. Iraq descended into sectarian violence that killed hundreds of thousands. Afghanistan was handed to the Taliban. Libya became a failed state. The consistent pattern is unmistakable.
Now, imagine the US and its allies decided to back Eritrean opposition for regime change. What would transpire? First, military intervention destabilising the entire Red Sea region further, with immediate implications for shipping security that the operation was ostensibly meant to protect. Second, a civil war explicitly framed accurately as a proxy war for Western interests. Third, IF successful, a government that discovers within eighteen months that popular electoral legitimacy and the security arrangements necessary to satisfy Western interests are often incompatible.
Fourth, a genuinely democratic Eritrea might choose differently from what external sponsors prefer. It might be more nationalist, more protective of sovereignty, less amenable to foreign military bases, more inclined toward regional Arab solidarity, less dependent on external sponsors.
Fifth, within ten years you would be having the same ‘structured dialogue’ with a new Eritrean strongman, now chastened by the experience of regime change and therefore potentially moreauthoritarian than Isaias.
The uncomfortable reality that no one in power wants to articulate: the countries of the Horn of Africa will likely remain authoritarian (or democratic in name only) for the foreseeable future, not because the populations lack democratic aspirations, but because the regional and international power dynamics make genuine democracy electorally destabilising and strategically inconvenient.
And so the bilateral dialogue continues. Everyone nods about shared values. Everyone expresses commitment to democracy. And everyone knows, with perfect clarity, that none of this is true.
What's Actually at Stake: Iran, the Emirates, and Regional Balance
Beneath the diplomatic theatre lies a genuine strategic competition: the contest for regional influence in the Red Sea and Horn of Africa between Iranian and Western-aligned powers.
Iran’s regional strategy operates through multiple vectors:
1. Proxy forces (the Houthis in Yemen, potentially aligned actors in Iraq, Syria)
2. Economic and security partnerships with regional states (historically Ethiopia, potentially Eritrea)
3. Provision of military training, weaponry, and technical expertise to allied movements
Western strategy (led by the US and Gulf partners) aims to deny Iran regional dominance through:
1. Maintaining strong relationships with established Gulf partners (Saudi Arabia, UAE)
2. Ensuring that rising regional powers (Ethiopia, Eritrea) remain unavailable to Iran
3. Maintaining naval presence and commercial shipping security in the Red Sea
The bilateral dialogue with Ethiopia serves all three objectives simultaneously. By demonstrating continued US engagement, it signals to Abiy that Western partnership remains valuable. By emphasizing Red Sea security concerns, it highlights the Iranian threat. And by discussing regional stability, it creates the framework for greater coordination on containing Iranian influence.
None of this requires that democracy actually advance. None of this requires that accountability for atrocities actually materialise. All it requires is that Ethiopia remain strategically available to the West rather than gravitating toward Iran.
The Theatre Persists, Reality Remains Unchanged
What then will emerge from the bilateral structured dialogue? Almost certainly, a joint communiqué affirming shared commitment to regional stability, democracy, human rights, and peace. There will be specific mentions of ‘constructive progress’ on technical issues. There may be announcements of expanded development partnerships or security cooperation.
And substantively, very little will change.
The GERD will continue to operate. Egypt will continue to protest. Sudan will continue to convulse. The Houthis will continue to attack shipping. And every few months, there will be another bilateral dialogue, another press release, another reaffirmation of commitment to shared values that no one actually believes.
This is not cynicism about international relations. This is a clear-eyed assessment of how power actually operates in the twenty-first century. Democracy rhetoric serves as diplomatic cover for strategic partnerships with authoritarian governments. Human rights concerns are expressed loudly in public and abandoned quietly in private. Stability is valued more highly than accountability.
The bilateral structured dialogue will continue. Abiy will continue his masterful fence-sitting, extracting maximum benefit from all sides. The US will continue to speak of commitment to democracy while supporting an authoritarian government. The GERD will continue to flow. And the theatre will continue, because the alternative actually addressing these contradictions, actually choosing between values and interests requires honesty that the international system cannot afford.
Welcome to the Red Sea Roulette: high stakes, low honesty, and theatre masquerading as strategy.
References
1. World Bank estimates; see ‘Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam: Developmental Impacts and Regional Implications’ (2021).
2. Egyptian government statements and UN documentation on Nile water security concerns.
3. UNHCR Sudan Crisis Reports, May 2026; World Health Organization casualty estimates.
4. New Arab, ‘UAE Weaponry to RSF: Following the Trail,’ November 2023; Reuters investigative reporting on UAE arms provision.
5. IMO shipping data; Suez Canal Authority traffic reports, 2024-2026.
6. US Naval Forces Central Command records; Houthi attack documentation, 2023-2026.
7. World Bank China-Africa financing database; Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs reports on Belt and Road Initiative in Ethiopia.
8. See Ethiopian Tribune analysis, ‘Abiy’s UAE Visit: Strategic Hedging in a Contested Red Sea,’ March 2026.
9. Human Rights Watch, ‘World Report 2022: Ethiopia’; Amnesty International findings on Tigray conflict (2020-2022).
10. UN Commission of Inquiry on the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (2021); International Crisis Group casualty estimates (2023).
