The Egypt-Ethiopia Cold War is Key to the Horn’s Growing Conflicts

As war consumes Sudan and concerns of a new war in Ethiopia grow, an escalating “Cold War” between Egypt and Ethiopia is in danger of being ignored. The battle lines run deep, as the contest is not only over “existential” issues related to Nile and Red Sea governance, but also a broader battle for regional influence between two ancient civilizations that each believe they are entitled to regional prominence. While the rivalry has not turned hot, it touches nearly every regional flashpoint in the Horn of Africa and is fueling tensions in the already unstable region.

Clash of Civilizations?

At the heart of the Ethio-Egyptian rivalry lies the Nile. Ethiopia fully operationalized its Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) in 2025, but Egypt had been sounding the alarm about the GERD since construction began in 2011 and as it has gradually come online since 2020. Addis views the hydropower from GERD and further dams on the Nile as key to Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s “Prosperity Agenda” vision, which aims to place Ethiopia at the head and heart of a rapidly developing Horn of Africa. On the other hand, downstream Egypt has called the GERD an “existential threat,” demanded a binding agreement on the GERD’s operations, and threatened a “firm and decisive response” against future dams. Nearly 95 percent of Egypt’s population lives within a few kilometers of the Nile, and an even larger percent of the water that addresses Egypt’s energy, agricultural, and household needs comes from the River.

The Nile isn’t the only water battleground, as Ethiopia’s ambition to restore its historical Red Sea access is also driving tensions with Egypt and other littoral states. Abiy has labeled Ethiopia’s current landlocked status as a “geographic prison” and a major inhibitor to the growth the country aspires to achieve under the Prosperity Agenda. Roughly 95 percent of Ethiopian trade currently flows through neighboring Djibouti, costing Addis $1.5 billion each year in port fees and leaving Ethiopia unable to directly protect its economy from shocks related to various threats in the Red Sea. Egypt, which relies on $10 billion in annual Red Sea rents via the Suez Canal for 15 percent of its foreign currency inflows, has rejected Ethiopia joining an already crowded Red Sea space and has insisted that Ethiopia and any other non-littoral countries have no role in Red Sea governance.

Lurking beneath this zero-sum battle for resources is a clash of civilizational narratives. Egyptian society has been centered for more than 5,000 years around the “Gift of the Nile,” and modern Egypt is no different. Further upstream, Ethiopia refers to itself as “The Land of Origins,” partially referring to Ethiopia’s status as the source of the Blue Nile River, which is the primary Nile tributary and accounts for 85 to 90 percent of Nile waters. Abiy has insisted that using the Nile and filling the GERD is Ethiopia’s “sovereign right” and does not require input from foreign countries.

Similar dynamics are present in the Red Sea. Egypt views the Red Sea as another key feature that has built civilizational and trade ties dating back to ancient times. Modern Egypt’s continued reliance on the Red Sea for trade has led it to assume a central “guardian” role in multilateral security and governance initiatives. Ethiopia was also historically a Red Sea power prior to Eritrea’s independence in 1993. Despite Addis recognizing Eritrean sovereignty at the time, Abiy and other modern-day officials have leaned into irredentist rhetoric that frames Ethiopia’s current landlocked status as a “historical mistake” or a historical anomaly.

The battle over the historical narrative even extends to international law and multilateral governance systems. Egypt regularly references the lopsided 1959 Nile Waters agreement, which guaranteed Egypt a large share of Nile flows and excluded Ethiopia entirely, as enshrining its international legal rights to water access that must be respected now and in any future agreements with Ethiopia. Ethiopia views the treaty as an illegitimate, “colonial-era treaty” since it only involved the downstream former British colonies, and Ethiopian officials have accused Egypt of maintaining a colonial mentality rather than “coming to terms with the realities of the 21st century.” For their part, Ethiopian actors and Abiy himself have floated international legal arguments that attempt to illegitimize and invalidate the 1993 Eritrean independence process as part of Ethiopia’s broader push to reclaim access to the Eritrean port of Assab.

Egypt has tried to counter these ambitions by partnering with neighboring states to encircle and contain Ethiopia, generating leverage to deter or punish Addis. To Ethiopia’s west, one of Egypt’s closest regional allies is the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), which has decadeslong ties to the Egyptian military and has supported Egypt’s positions on the GERD. To Ethiopia’s north, Egypt has also grown closer to Eritrea in the last several years as Ethio-Eritrean relations have deteriorated, including substantial political cooperation on the Red Sea and several agreements related to the Assab Red Sea port - the very same one Addis is hoping to get its hands on. To Ethiopia’s east, Cairo has sought to weaken Ethiopia’s influence in Somalia and pull the Somali government into its orbit by backing Mogadishu’s stance on Somaliland and offering itself as an alternative counterterrorism partner.

Rivalry Turned Regional War?

The Sudanese civil war exemplifies how the rivalry is unfolding as a regional proxy competition and is directly fueling the growing instability across the Horn of Africa. In the months before the war reached its three-year anniversary in April 2026, Ethiopia had become the latest actor to join the fray, enabling the Emirati-backed Rapid Support Forces (RSF) to open a new front in eastern Sudan by using western Ethiopia as a rear base.

Addis has no shortage of reasons to be wary of the SAF, ranging from a border dispute to SAF ties with several of Ethiopia’s domestic and regional adversaries, but the Egypt-SAF partnership almost certainly played a role in Ethiopian calculus. The move not only enables Ethiopia to degrade the SAF and allied presence on part of its border, but it also gives it a seat at the table to counter Egypt in international peace talks. Ethiopia can use this leverage to weaken the pro-SAF position by backing the Emirati stance that both the RSF and SAF are equally bad and that both must be excluded from any post-war government. Such an outcome would be damaging for Egypt, as the SAF in particular has been more pro-Egyptian in its GERD stance than past Sudanese governments.

While Sudan may be the hottest Ethio-Egyptian proxy conflict, another may be simmering in northern Ethiopia. Eritrea and Ethiopia briefly allied to fight the rebelling Tigrayan regional government during the 2020-2022 Tigray war, but Eritrea’s exclusion from the resulting peace deal and Ethiopia’s sea access demands led to a return of the acrimonious status quo ante. Now, Eritrea has flipped sides and partnered with the rebellious Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) to weaken Ethiopia and create a buffer against any Ethiopian ambitions regarding the Eritrean coastline. The two neighbors have come close to war multiple times in recent years, and with the Tigray peace process effectively dead and Tigray back outside of federal control, the region is on the edge of a return to war. As recently as late February, it seemed like a flare-up was imminent as both sides mobilized massive numbers of forces and equipment along the regional border, before fuel shortages triggered by the Iran War and encroaching elections apparently caused Addis to rethink its calculations.

Much like in Sudan, the Ethio-Egyptian rivalry would not be central to a resumed conflict in northern Ethiopia, but it could exacerbate it. Egypt shares Eritrea’s interests in keeping Ethiopia out of the Red Sea, and their partnership positions Cairo to provide political and military support to Eritrea that could ultimately benefit Asmara’s partners in Tigray. Egypt would be even more incentivized to back its Eritrean allies should fighting threaten to morph into a direct conflict between Eritrea and Ethiopia.

Worst of all, the Sudanese civil war would almost certainly become entangled with a new war in northern Ethiopia, morphing into a multi-theater regional war involving Egypt, Ethiopia, and their neighbors. The SAF’s ties with Ethiopia’s domestic and regional rivals include the TPLF and Eritrea. The SAF enabled the TPLF to use Sudan as a rear base during the Tigray war, and several thousand Tigrayan soldiers that fled to Sudan during the fighting are now taking up arms alongside the SAF coalition in Sudan, much to the dismay of the Ethiopian government. Eritrea has similarly served as a rear base for the SAF during their ongoing civil war with the RSF, and has trained pro-SAF militias that operate in eastern Sudan. There are already signs these ties could be turned against Ethiopia, as the SAF has hosted Eritrean-supported meetingsbetween the TPLF and other Ethiopian rebel groups to discuss an alliance against the federal government. Even if the SAF has limited ability to provide meaningful material support, it can continue serving this rear base role, and much like Eritrea, the SAF partnership with Egypt could also be used to support partners next door in Eritrea or Tigray.

Another potential hotspot has emerged in recent years in Somalia. Ethiopia signed a memorandum of understanding with the breakaway Somaliland region in January 2024, in which Ethiopia would receive a 50-year lease on territory on Somaliland’s coast in exchange for formal Ethiopian recognition of Somaliland independence. The move sparked a year-long diplomatic crisis between Ethiopia and Somalia, which Egypt was all too happy to take advantage of. The Somali government threatened to kick the large Ethiopian contingent out of the African Union (AU) peacekeeping mission fighting al Qaeda’s Somali affiliate al Shabaab and turned to Egypt as an alternative. While Ethiopia ultimately decided not to follow through on the deal and patch things up with Mogadishu, Egypt has remained involved as a bilateral defense partner and in the AU mission, much to Ethiopia’s annoyance.

As complex as the impacts of this rivalry are just within the Horn itself, it is not only impacting African countries. Over in the Middle East, growing competition between rival coalitions is melding with the conflict in the Horn, including the Ethio-Egyptian cold war, to produce strange and, at times, dangerous new alliances.

In recent years, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have slowly shifted from being partners in the Horn of Africa to rivals, as the two Gulf neighbors compete for ports, minerals, and partners along the Red Sea. Turkey and Israel are also competing for influence across several theaters, including the Horn of Africa. These competing interests, as well as fundamentally different approaches to regional engagement and choosing partners, have led Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey to grow closer and align against the UAE and Israel, whose partnership has only grown stronger amid the Iran war.

These new coalitions align heavily with the African dynamics that the Ethio-Egyptian rivalry is helping to shape. The UAE is a major Ethiopian partner, as is Israel to a lesser extent. The Emirati partnership was presumably a major factor in Ethiopia’s willingness to serve as a conduit for Emirati arms shipments to the RSF in Sudan. The UAE and Israel have distanced themselves from Eritrea as both have grown closer to Ethiopia in recent years, including shutting down military facilities that both had used to monitor threats in the Red Sea and Yemen. The UAE’s close relationship to Somaliland has also helped facilitate Ethiopia’s ties with the breakaway region and led to substantial speculation that Ethiopia could recognize Somaliland after Israel became the first to do so in December 2025.

On the other side of the aisle, Egypt, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia have largely aligned their regional stances. Egypt and Saudi Arabia have coordinated their pro-SAF stances in the Sudan peace process, while Egypt and Turkey have both provided military aid to the SAF. All three countries have vocally supported the Somali government and rejected Somaliland independence, with Saudi Arabia even urging the Somali government to act on Mogadishu’s pre-existing concerns with Emirati meddling and revoke all port and transit rights given to the UAE, formerly one of its closest partners, earlier this year. The Somali government’s recognition of a new Somali state that rebelled and seceded from Somaliland could be another warning shot, with Turkey reportedly exploring a possible naval base in the territory. Turkey’s close partnership with Ethiopia is a notable exception to these trends, as Ankara’s state-centric approach has led it to cultivate a close relationship with Abiy, who has been happy to welcome Turkish investment and drones dating back to the Tigray war. Still, Cairo has managed to facilitate greater ties between Eritrea and Saudi Arabia.

Enduring Rivalry

The bad news, at least from a regional stability perspective, is that this rivalry is not going anywhere anytime soon and will likely continue to fuel tensions in the medium-to-long term. On both the GERD and the Red Sea, Cairo and Addis can use the issues to rouse nationalist sentiment and have little incentive to budge from their maximalist stances despite mediation offers.

That said, there is little appetite on either side for direct military action. Egypt is dealing with an economic crisis and two separate refugee crises from the wars in Gaza and Sudan. Ethiopia is dealing with its own inflation and debt challenges and faces several internal insurgencies beyond just Tigray, including a strengthening rebellion in Amhara region that is scoring some major tactical victories, controlling growing swaths of countryside, and made significant portions of the region unable to participate in recent elections.

Even if it never turns hot, this regional cold war will continue to shape the region for years to come. Constraints may limit the competition but are unlikely to stop the ongoing proxy jockeying altogether. As leaders look for ways to end the Sudanese civil war, prevent a new war in Ethiopia, and solve the multilayered security crisis in the Horn more broadly, addressing or at least understanding the Ethio-Egyptian rivalry is a fundamental prerequisite.**