In October, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed ordered an offensive against the Tigrayan rebel forces that control much of the country’s northern Tigray region and part of the neighboring Amhara and Afar regions. His aim was to force the insurgents into a final stand on their home turf, ultimately concluding a yearlong war that has claimed thousands of lives and uprooted more than 1.7 million people. Instead, the gambit appears to have backfired. Not only have Ethiopian troops failed to advance but they have suffered a series of defeats that have left the capital, Addis Ababa, open to attack—forcing Abiy to declare a state of emergency this week and to call on residents to take up arms to defend the city.
Even if Abiy’s military offensive had succeeded, he would have faced a major challenge in reintegrating Tigray and restoring a sense of national identity. Now that he appears on the brink of failure, however, the prime minister has called into question his own capacity to govern and, potentially, the very existence of the Ethiopian state in its current form.
