Ogaden War Research Articles

Ethiopian-Somali Conflict 1977—1978: According to US Central Intelligence Agency

The analysis by the US Central Intelligence Agency of the military and political aspects of the Ogaden War (1977—1978) is considered. On the basis of declassified and published documents, the main issues related to the Somali-Ethiopian conflict that worried the CIA are revealed. It establishes the degree of awareness of the Office about certain events related to the war in the Ogaden, and also determines how successful the forecasts made during the conflict were. With the involvement of domestic, American, Ethiopian and Somali historiography, it is shown that the CIA, despite the lack of information, established certain facts quite accurately, but regularly made mistakes in their judgments about further events. The forecasts of the Office regarding a possible conflict between Ethiopia and Somalia in January — July 1977, which turned out to be correct only in small things or in obvious facts, are highlighted. It is shown that the CIA correctly identified the conflict potential in the region, but did not determine exactly where the war would begin. Regarding the role of the CIA in covering the fighting in the Ogaden in July 1977 — March 1978 it is noted that the Office was successful in identifying short-term trends, but did not establish long-term ones.

The Dynamics of China - Ethiopia Relations during the Ogaden War, 1977-1978

This study examines superpower competition in the Horn of Africa during the Ogaden War (1977-1978). It deals mainly with China’s response to the Ogaden War. The author uses both primary and secondary sources. Primary research sources were collected from various agencies and institutions such as the Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Institute of Ethiopian Studies (IES), and periodicals using memoirs, speeches, and correspondence exchanges. Secondary sources are gathered from published and unpublished sources. The study defines conventional wisdom about superpower and Chinese intervention in the Horn of Africa during the Ogaden War; it seeks to highlight the complex interplay of real China’s foreign policy toward the Horn of Africa. It also describes China’s perspectives on policy in Africa and its response to the Ogaden War. The study claims that the Soviet Union’s influence in the Horn of Africa generally draws China into regional affairs. Indeed, Soviet influence in the Horn of Africa shifted the Ogaden War into an international dimension. Thus, the study concludes that China’s reaction to the Horn events was primarily aimed at leveling out the Soviet Union’s sphere of influence in the region.

He USSR and the Cold War Crises in Black Africa

The article examines the peculiarities of Soviet policy in Africa and its evolution in the 1960s and 1970s by the example of three regional crises of the Cold War — the Congolese crisis of 1960—1965, the Angolan crisis of 1975 and the Ogaden War of 1977—1978. The USSR worked its way up from the defeat in the Congo, when the Soviet leadership had a vague idea of African realities, to participation in repelling foreign intervention in Angola in 1975 and providing massive military assistance to Ethiopia in 1977—1978. The scale of these operations, which were carried out at a considerable distance from the borders of the Soviet Union, testifies not only to the increased military and logistical capabilities of the USSR, but also to its more thoughtful approach to choosing allies on the African continent. The participation of Cuban troops in the armed conflicts in Angola and Ogaden became an important success factor as well.

Neki aspekti političkih i ekonomskih odnosa Jugoslavije i Etiopije od 1975. do 1990.

The Non-Aligned Movement formed the backbone of Yugoslavia’s foreign policy during the Cold War. As one of the founders of the Non-Aligned Movement, Yugoslavia sought to maintain, as much as possible, a balance within the Movement, which encompassed countries with differing political affiliations and systems, some of which had close relations with the opposing blocs led by the USA or USSR. After the Ethiopian revolution of 1974, which overthrew Emperor Haile Sellasie, the country was led by the Derg, a junta officially known as the Provisional Military Administrative Council, which was in 1977 taken over by a Marxist-ideological current led by Mengistu Haile Meriam, who openly showed sympathy for the Soviet bloc. The Ogaden War between Ethiopia and Somalia in 1977-1978 would prove to be a turning point in Ethiopia’s foreign policy, which moved toward closer political and economic cooperation with the USSR and Cuba. Closer ties to Cuba was a particular concern for Yugoslavia, due to Cuba’s desire to impose itself as the leader of the Non-Aligned Movement and thus turn the balance of political forces within the Movement to its advantage. In this paper we want to explore political and economic relations between Ethiopia and Yugoslavia, including economic relations between the Socialist Republic of Croatia and Ethiopia, from 1975, when a new revolutionary Ethiopian diplomatic delegation came to Yugoslavia to continue Ethiopian-Yugoslavian relations, and ending in 1990, with the disintegration of Yugoslavia and socialist systems in general, when the Yugoslav role in the Non-Aligned Movement slowly eroded. The paper will also present the joint Yugoslav-Ethiopian project Nekemte, which was implemented during the 1980s and aimed at showcasing methods to increase agricultural production in Ethiopia.

Superpowers Rivalry in the Horn of Africa and the Eurocommunism Factor, Late 1970s

This article focuses U.S. and Soviet policy toward the conflicts in the Horn of Africa in the second half of the 1970s (using the examples of the Somali-Ethiopian conflict and the national liberation movement in Eritrea), taking into account the activities of the Italian Communist Party (Italian: Partito Comunista Italiano, PCI), a leading force in the Western European segment of the international communist movement (ICM). Attempts to include the PCI in the process of settling local conflicts in the northeastern part of Africa as an independent entity have become a new phenomenon in international relations. This article concludes that 1) in the case of the Ogaden War, the Italian Communist Party could not choose one side to support; 2) the Soviet Union considered the PCI's diplomatic efforts to establish a dialogue between Ethiopia and Somalia futile; 3) The State Department, monitoring Eurocommunist's activity in Somalia and Ethiopia, noted the deepening controversy in the international communist movement over Third World issues, but did not consider the actions of the PCI a significant factor in international relations.

The Rivalry of Superpowers in the Horn of Africa during the Ogaden War (1977-1978)

The Rivalry of Superpowers in the Horn of Africa during the Ogaden War (1977-1978)

Perspectives on The Soviet Union and the Horn of Africa during the Cold War

Perspectives on <i>The Soviet Union and the Horn of Africa during the Cold War</i>

Leading Factors for the Somalian Invasion of Ogaden: Foreign Intervention, and the Ethiopian Response (1977-1978)

The main objective of this paper is to assess the historical out line on the Dynamics of Conflict and Intervention in North -East Africa: The Case Study on the Second Ethio- Somalian (Ogaden) War of 1977-1978. Hence, the Ogaden war, a brief but costly war fought between Ethiopia and Somalia that ended by the defeat of Somalia and her withdrawal in January, 1978 was seen differently by different sides. Opposing foreign intervention in civil wars has also been a central phenomenon of international politics. The war was aggravated by outsiders for many years and in 1970s, above all by the superpowers, namely, the USA and USSR, and also by their contingents. At the heart of the issues underlying the War in the Horn of Africa lie three legacies of the past: namely; European colonial rule; Somali irredentism; and superpowers intervention/ Afyare Abdi Elmi and Abdullahi Barise; 2006:45/. This conflict can be viewed as a meaningless tragedy for the people of the Horn of Africa in general and Somalia in particular. I argue that competition for resources and power, repression by the military regime and the colonial legacy are the background causes of the conflict. Politicized clan identity, the availability of weapons and the presence of a large number of unemployed youth have exacerbated the problem. With regard to the obstacles to peace, we contend that Ethiopia’s hostile policy, the absence of major power interest, lack of resources and the warlords’ lack of interest in peace are the major factors that continue to haunt the Somali peace process. Finally, the study propose ambitious peace-building mechanisms that attempt to address the key areas of security, political governance, economic development and justice in order to build a durable peace in Somalia.

Opposing Foreign Intervention’s Impact on the Warfare in Civil Wars: the case of the Ethiopian-Ogaden Civil War, 1976–1980

ABSTRACTThis article examines the impact of opposing foreign intervention on the course and nature of the warfare in the Ethiopian-Ogaden Civil War. The Ogaden War, having been sporadically fought between 1963 and 1988, was one of the longest and bloodiest in the Horn of Africa’s turbulent history. It was typical of civil wars in having attracted the involvement of a range of regional and international actors; in the Ogaden’s case, it was the Soviet Union, the United States, Somalia, Cuba, South Yemen, Israel, East Germany and North Korea. This article is an empirical study of the effect that external actors had on the warfare between the Ethiopian military junta (normally referred to as the Derg) and the main Ogaden Somali insurgent group, the Western Somali Liberation Front, between 1976 and 1980. The warfare in the Ogaden during this period can be divided into three distinct phases: medium intensity guerrilla warfare (1976–1977), conventional warfare (1977–1978), and low-intensity guerrilla warfare (1978–1980). It is argued that each phase was, to a large extent, influenced by the type and volume of support the Derg and the Western Somali Liberation Front received from international sponsors. Finally, the article concludes that the current theory on foreign intervention, and opposing intervention in particular, fails to capture the true complexity of its impact on warfare in civil wars.

From the Sands of the Ogaden to Black Hawk Down: The End of the Cold War in the Horn of Africa

From the Ogaden War to the Black Hawk Down incident, the Horn of Africa was a theatre of events with far-reaching international consequences. This paper argues that the distinctive process leading to the end of the bipolar conflict in the Horn is crucial to understanding the role of this region both during and after the Cold War. Through an extensive analysis of the period 1985–1991, this article explains why only a few years after the ‘burial’ of SALT II in the sands of the Ogaden, the superpowers withdrew from the region which had been the symbol of the failure of détente. Similarly, an analysis of the end of the Cold War is paramount to understanding why, after the break-up of the USSR, the Horn of Africa hosted one of the most tragic episodes of post-Cold War US foreign policy.

Ethiopian foreign policy and the Ogaden War: the shift from “containment” to “destabilization,” 1977–1991

With Siad Barre's invasion of Ethiopia in 1977, the military regime of the Derg implement policies aimed at the weakening and destabilization of the Republic of Somalia. This initiative was not entirely novel but was based upon precautionary plans first laid down under the imperial administration of Haile Selassie. The defeat of the Somalia army in the Ogaden would in fact herald the beginnings of the collapse of the power of Siad Barre and the Somali state, but the destabilization of Somalia has also destabilized the entire region of the Horn of Africa. This article charts the Ethiopian response to Somali irredentism at this crucial time, particularly focusing on the clandestine operations by the Derg to permanently eliminate the threat posed by Somalia. Previously untapped archival materials from the Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs are used as the basis for this analysis of Ethiopia's foreign policy.

The Ogaden War: Somali women’s roles

In 1977 Somalia invaded Ethiopia hoping to seize the Ogaden, an Ethiopian region predominantly inhabited by ethnic Somali. Histories of this event are rare and focus exclusively on the political and military aspects of the conflict. This is not surprising given the Cold War backdrop of the conflict. This article, however, shifts the focus away from the political towards the personal. Focus here is on the different roles Ogadeni women took up in the Somali-Ethiopian war, also known as the Ogaden war. Through interviews with former actors in the conflict it became clear that women occupied a range of roles in the war, varying from victims or care-givers to active participants in militias and front-line combat. In conflicts today, Somali women still retain many of these roles. Originally some Somalis did oppose this state of affairs, today most seem to have accepted the phenomenon of female actors in the Ogaden war, even though that approval can be linked with a political agenda. Both Ogadeeni and Somali women were active in the war, transcending Somali clan lines along the way. Accounts of the women interviewed illustrate the effects of their choice to participate in the Ogaden war. Key words: Ogaden, Somalia, Ethiopia, gender, women’s history

Editorial

This special issue of Afrika Focus is called “(r)Urban Africa: multidisciplinary ap- proaches to the African city”. It contains a number of articles that were presented at GAPSYM5, the fifth symposium of the Africa Platform of the Ghent University Association, on 2 December 2011. In all four articles in this issue the reader is introduced to a unique aspect of African culture. These are cultural elements or developments the West should be made aware of, they could be promoted and supported by the West, and they could even be enriching for external powers. In his article “The Ogaden War: Somali women’s roles” Van Hauwermeiren tries to refute the stereotypical role the West tends to attribute to African women. During the 1977 Ogaden War, both Somali and Ogadeni women were active in the war, thus presenting a different image of gender roles in the Horn of Africa. Van Hauwermeiren stresses that women participated in the war of their own free will, and that they were respected for what they did. This article illustrates that the role of women in African societies is often much stronger than expected. It is espe- cially women who testify to dynamism, resilience and exibility, and this also in African cultures usually associated with very stereotypical gender roles. This is one of the African strengths the West should try to tap into and help to develop. Brinkman’s article – “Town, village and bush: war and cultural landscapes in south-eastern Angola (1966- 2002)” – also talks about a war situation, more particularly about the opposition between ‘town’ and ‘bush’ during the war in Angola, and how this opposition altered perceptions and could eventually have lethal consequences. The fact that the terms ‘urban’ and ‘rural’ received a very particular, but rapidly changing significance is illustrative of a society that wants to start appropriating reality to its own needs, rather than having its reality determined by post-colonial imaginations. In Mpofu’s article – “Perpetual ‘Outcasts’? Squatters in peri-urban Bulawayo, Zimbabwe” – the reader is introduced to a typical urban African phenomenon: the township dweller. The author stresses that squatter camps are often informal, but well-organized societies that should qualify as ‘cities inside the city’. These squatter camps are dynamic structures in which citizenship and local identity are forged – they are another vibrant element of contemporary Africa, to which local governments and Western agencies should pay much more attention. Finally, Batibonak also describes a distinctive African phenomenon in her article “Sorcellerie en milieu urbain amplifiée par les pentecôtismes camerounais”. This article deals with the way in which witchcraft was transformed when it was introduced into modern city life. In the context of Cameroon, witchcraft has thus been reconstructed by Pentecostal preachers in order to find an answer to socio-economic urban challenges. Also in this case, a fundamental African concept is transformed and re-invented, in a manner that attests to an enormous capacity for exibility and vitality.The strength of women, the re-appropriation of current-day realities, the dynam- ics of new and informal social structures, and the exibility of traditional values are all unique elements of African society, but these elements rarely attract attention, as they do not match the merely economic or security-oriented interests in Africa. In finishing, we would like to draw the reader’s attention to the fact that this issue of Afrika Focus also contains a large number of reports, most of which are extensive reports of doctoral research. These reports provide an interesting overview of the research that is being carried out in and on Africa and they testify to the fact that Africa is indeed a valuable research site, with highly competent researchers and research institutes.

The Ogaden War: Somali women’s roles

In 1977 Somalia invaded Ethiopia hoping to seize the Ogaden, an Ethiopian region predominantly inhabited by ethnic Somali. Histories of this event are rare and focus exclusively on the political and military aspects of the conflict. This is not surprising given the Cold War backdrop of the conflict. This article, however, shifts the focus away from the political towards the personal. Focus here is on the different roles Ogadeni women took up in the Somali-Ethiopian war, also known as the Ogaden war. Through interviews with former actors in the conflict it became clear that women occupied a range of roles in the war, varying from victims or care-givers to active participants in militias and front-line combat. In conflicts today, Somali women still retain many of these roles. Originally some Somalis did oppose this state of affairs, today most seem to have accepted the phenomenon of female actors in the Ogaden war, even though that approval can be linked with a political agenda. Both Ogadeeni and Somali women were active in the war, transcending Somali clan lines along the way. Accounts of the women interviewed illustrate the effects of their choice to participate in the Ogaden war.

Understanding the Somali Conflagration: Identity, Political Islam and Peacebuilding (review)

Reviewed by: Understanding the Somali Conflagration: Identity, Political Islam and Peacebuilding Anna Simons (bio) Understanding the Somali Conflagration: Identity, Political Islam and Peacebuilding, by Afyare Abdi Elmi London: Pluto Press, 2010; pp. 224. $35.00 paper. Afyare Abdi Elmi is to be commended. He pulls no punches in Understanding the Somali Conflagration: Identity, Political Islam and Peacebuilding. Even better, he gives us a book that is easy to read and helps make sense of the recent past, as well as some of the present. I write "some of the present" because the manuscript clearly went to the publisher before the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) was fully underway and before the recent drought devolved into yet another famine. Unfortunately, piracy receives less attention in this account than readers might expect, but that may only further reflect the challenges that inhere in writing books (rather than blogs) about contemporary events. A second reason for my cautionary note—that this book can only help make sense of the Somali situation—is that, as with all things Somali, one point of view will not suffice, and Elmi has a particular point of view. That being said, his point of view is well worth paying attention to. He convincingly condemns Ethiopia's meddling in Somalia, is highly critical of the United States, favors peace building that includes Islamists, and is much more realistic than many about the tensions that inhere in nation- or state-building when clans and Islam both continue to hold sway—which, as he points out, they do, both in Somalia and beyond Somalia in the diaspora. Elmi builds on others' work to offer a compelling definition of peace: "peace is understood as the presence of skills and processes for dealing with conflicts non-violently" (12). In other words, he does not assume away rivalries, factionalization, or the fighting that is always bound to occur over the levers of power, or over vital assets like ports, airports, [End Page 131] import-export licenses, and the like. As he points out, in the Somali instance, clan affiliations have long been instrumentalized; indeed, thanks to clans and to decades' worth of clan-based conflict, factions come to politicians and/or warlords virtually ready-made. Meanwhile, only three "institutions" can effectively cross-cut clans and thereby appeal to all Somalis: elders, provided they use heer (traditional methods of arbitration) to settle disputes; Islam; and the nation. None, of course, are institutions per se. But neither are they mutually exclusive. The weakest of these three identities is clearly Somali national identity. No robust sense of nationalism exists. Presumably, if such a thing had been developed, Somalia would not have dissolved into so many competing pieces and parts. Governance stopped being good back in the 1970s, and it took a real turn for the worse, according to Elmi, when President Siad Barre demonized members of the Majertein clan in the wake of Somalia's defeat by Ethiopia in the Ogaden War. Clan-based militias, and not just clan politics, have riven Somalia ever since. Consequently, anyone who thinks it possible to reconstruct a Somali state by appealing to Somali national identity is chewing more than just qat, while building a functional Somali state that can infuse a sense of nationalism will not work either, without first reaching enforceable agreements about power-sharing, which means determining who gets to discuss who gets to share power, which in turn depends on who is invited to the talks, which itself depends on who is holding them and why. Or to put it differently: examine who has been invited to peace talks in the past along with who has been left out. This generally explains who becomes a spoiler—and why peace never holds. Elmi finds it particularly egregious that no one ever invites all the players to the table and that discussions are never left up to Somalis alone, though he also acknowledges that if outsiders were not involved, peace talks might not be held at all—which presents just one of the conundrums this slim book elucidates. External actors loom large in Elmi's account, as well they should. As Elmi makes clear, Somalia's two most...

Power Politics and Interstate War in Africa

ABSTRACT The steps-to-war theory suggests that power politics strategies, such as alliance formation, military buildups, hardliner domestic actors, and aggressive crisis bargaining, often have the unintended consequence of escalating a crisis to war. The theory has gathered extensive empirical support in large-N studies, but only a handful of studies have examined the expectations of the theory as applied to specific regions. This paper questions if the steps-to-war theory can explain wars in a region where one might not expect power politics methods to be in operation. I first test the theory statistically by using a sample of only African dyads and then employ a structured comparison and process-tracing methods to examine the steps taken prior to two African wars, the Ogaden War (1977–1978) and the Ugandan-Tanzanian War (1978–1979). This research is unable to falsify the theory in the Africa region, although the theory does require modifications in that the actions of rebel groups are important in motivating territorial demands and arms acquisitions in the region.

The Ogaden War and the Demise of Détente

The failure of détente has been a popular theme among historians of American foreign policy, with opinions divided as to where the responsibility for this failure lies. A commonality among all points of view, however, is the importance of events in the third world, particularly in the “Arc of Crisis.” One such event—the Ogaden War between Ethiopia and Somalia— prompted Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Carter’s national security advisor, to comment that détente was “buried” in the Ogaden. His point was that Carter’s new approach to the cold war was put to the test during the Ogaden War, and there the policy’s untenability was proven. The policy’s failure, in turn, encouraged Soviet adventurism, which further alienated the American public from Carter’s attempt to fight the cold war. Carter’s policy eventually led to the withdrawal of the SALT II (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks) Treaty and, as Brzezinski claimed, the collapse of détente. This article discusses Carter’s foreign policy toward the Ogaden War, considers the accuracy of Brzezinski’s claim, and reaches conclusions regarding the role of the Carter administration in the demise of détente.

Ethiopias invasion of Somalia in 2006: Motives and lessons learned

Ethiopia’s invasion of Somalia in late 2006 may go down in history as one of the most daring if not imprudent strategic decision any African government has made on its neighbour. Ethiopia’s actions to invade Somalia gets more perplexing, considering it seemed unprovoked and should have been more circumspective given Ethiopia’s own history as a victim of unprovoked invasion by Italy and its myriad internal economic challenges. Even if Ethiopia's goal of going into Somalia had been purely humanitarian, the nearly two decades of instability there and the history of irredentism and distrust between the two countries should have given Ethiopia pause to be prudent. Although not without precedent, it is still unusual for one African country to invade another country on the scale Ethiopia did and fight a war that was guaranteed to be bloody. Self-defense, which Ethiopia claims as reason for its military action, raises doubt and compels an examination of the real motives for its actions in Somalia. This study explores what these motives could have been. Using historical evidence and those from contemporary sources, the study catalogs the violence that followed the invasion and how Ethiopia’s action aggravated Somalia’s endemic social and political ills. Ethiopia’s actions in Somalia could not have accomplished their objectives given the fact Somalia has plunged deeper into anarchy since the invading troops left its soil. It has also been costly both to the invader and the invaded. Other African countries can learn an invaluable lesson from Ethiopia’s experience not to start an audacious incursion into foreign territory without an unimpeachable reason. Key words: Ogaden war, the Derg, Islamists, refugees, Horn of Africa, piracy, pan-Somalism.

Postcolonial "Greenery": Surreal Garden Imagery in Nuruddin Farah's Maps

To date a variety of cultural and literary scholars have questioned the intersection of ecocriticism and postcolonial studies with varying results. Anthony Vital recently advanced “a specifically South African ecocriticism” in his published scholarship on the novels of J. M. Coetzee (“Situating Ecology in Recent South African Fiction” 299); Graham Huggan and Helen Tiffin edited a special issue of Interventions devoted to the topic; and William Slaymaker opines his concerns for the implications of this combination, especially in the African continent. Yet despite the attention, this fruitful topic remains largely unattended. A discourse between ecocriticism and postcolonial criticism can aid scholars on either side immensely with contemporary critical subjects. One fertile case study resides with Nuruddin Farah's novel Maps, which experimentally narrates a young boy's journeys during the Ogaden War between Somalia and Ethiopia. Farah intentionally employs several accounts of intense garden imagery, both in dreams and in reality, and associates these accounts with the conflicts his protagonist encounters. Through an intense analysis of this garden imagery fueled by the union of ecocritical and postcolonial discourses, Farah's allegorical modeling of the Somali nation on these garden images may emerge, allowing the reader to recognize his writing and his message. Not only will a greater appreciation of Maps better instruct Farah's readers, but the methods to achieve it will also add further credentials to the rich discourse possible when these separate critical idioms are combined.

The Ethiopian Revolution: War in the Horn of Africa (review)

Reviewed by: The Ethiopian Revolution: War in the Horn of Africa Richard Reid The Ethiopian Revolution: War in the Horn of Africa. By Gebru Tareke. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2009. ISBN 978-0-300-14163-4. Maps. Appendixes. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Pp. xx, 437. $45.00. Academic scholarship on African military history remains underdeveloped within the larger field, but Gebru Tareke has made a major contribution over the last twenty years: his work on the Ethiopia-Somalia war of 1977–78, and in particular on peasant uprisings through Ethiopia’s twentieth century has established his reputation as one of northeast Africa’s foremost historians. The region has been one of the most violent zones anywhere in the world since the wars of liberation and attendant violent upheaval across Africa and Asia in the 1950s and 1960s. In this book, part of the Yale University series on military history, the region’s conflicts between the 1960s and 1990s are finally given the serious treatment they deserve–and this is military history of a high standard, bringing together a range of movements and conflicts, which are often dealt with separately by northeast African specialists, into an integrated narrative. [End Page 1389] As one might expect of Gebru Tareke, the book is impressively researched, with some fascinating detail unearthed from both archives and oral informants in Ethiopia itself–though less from the Eritrean and Somali sides, directly at least. After discussing revolutionary war in its wider context, the main body of the book is organised in two parts. The first deals with the various armies themselves, their development, aims and structures. Thus there is an examination of the Eritrean guerrilla movements, from the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF) to the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front; the rise of the Tigrayan nationalist movement, culminating in the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), now in government in Ethiopia; and the armed forces of the Marxist Derg state of the 1970s and 1980s. In the next section, the author turns his attention to ‘battlefield Ethiopia’. He discusses at length the Ogaden war between Ethiopia and Somalia in 1977–78; the major clashes between the EPLF and the Derg–around the former’s rear base at Nakfa, and the battles at Afabet and Massawa; and the victory of the TPLF over government forces at Shire in 1989, before describing the advance of the combined liberation forces on Addis Ababa in 1991. The analysis is detailed and frequently incisive, although the prose is occasionally lazy: TPLF leader Meles Zenawi’s rise to power was “methodical and crafty. He seems to have known what he wanted and how to get it”; EPLF leader Isaias Afeworki had “imposing physique and good looks,” and “would have been star material anywhere but chose to be a liberation fighter.” Yet these lapses do not significantly undermine the telling of the story. The book has an epilogue in which the author offers some brief remarks about the Eritrean-Ethiopian war of 1998–2000. Gebru’s reversion to the cliché that this was a “foolish war”–it may have been tragic, but “foolish” is inappropriate–reflects an insufficient appreciation of the problematic nature of EPLF-TPLF relations over the longer term. The two movements collaborated against a common enemy, for a time; they were never the ‘close comrades’ implied in this book. Indeed, the book would have benefited from a sharper exploration of the ethnic and political natures of the military contests during the c.1960-c.1990 period; a deeper discussion of the historical role of violence in Ethiopian and Eritrean political culture would have enhanced the narrative. This said, however, The Ethiopian Revolution is a welcome contribution to the growing body of literature on northeast Africa’s modern wars and their continuing ramifications. Richard Reid School of Oriental & African Studies, University of London London, United Kingdom Copyright © 2009 The Society for Military History