The U.S. and Ethiopia: The Politics of Military Assistance

Abstract

This article concerns the military assistance relationship between the United States and Ethiopia, especially during the early years of the Ethiopian revolution, from 1974 to 1977. The interaction between the outbreak of the uprising and American military assistance and the impact of one upon the other are our main concerns. Besides the objective needs of the revolution to reorient Ethiopia's domestic and external politics, other important forces contributed to the abrogation of the U.S.-Ethiopia Mutual Defense Assistance Agreement that had tied the two countries together for nearly three decades. Both the process and substance of the assistance relationship are analyzed-from the moment the Ethiopian armed forces intervened in the unfolding revolution to the time Menghistu Haile Mariam captured the political leadership. Such forces as the radicalization of Ethiopia's domestic politics, the American shift of its assistance policy from grant aid to foreign military cash and credit sales, the Soviet decision to embrace Menghistu, and American perceptions and reactions to the revolution were all important contributary factors to the MDAA's demise. In the face of new political realities in Ethiopia, the assumptions upon which the U.S.-Ethiopia relationship was built could no longer hold.