Source: The Eritrean Journal
Eritrea has a foreign policy charter, but does it have a foreign policy? While American foreign policy is shaped by competing institutions, Eritrea’s is shaped by the calculations, grievances and whims of one man. Thirty-two years after the PFDJ adopted its National Charter, the country has no functioning institutions to debate, formulate or review foreign policy. With Ethiopia threatening its sovereignty, Eritrea can no longer afford a system where everyone is afraid to speak and only one man is authorized to think.
“He [Isaias Afwerki] analyzes brilliantly what he knows, but he gives in to paranoia about what he doesn’t know. He did not seem to understand that U.S. foreign policy is often a synthesis of what the State and Defense Departments are comfortable with, and that therefore Foggy Bottom alone cannot be blamed for Eritrea’s image problems in the United States” ~ Robert Kaplan, “A Tale of Two Colonies“, 2003
And that’s just within the Executive Office (White House), where the State Department (Foggy Bottom) and the Department of Defense (Pentagon) are serving the same President. In the American system, the Executive Office has wide latitude to set foreign policy, but it is the legislators (House, Senate) who exercise substantial control, too, because they have the power to ratify treaties, confirm executives and fund or defund policy, subject to their ability to overcome a presidential veto. What happens to US foreign policy when the Executive Office is controlled by one party and the Legislative is controlled by another party? That’s what the US will be effective January 2027, and it would be a good exercise to see what US Foreign Policy will be towards Africa, in general, and Eritrea, in particular. It should also enable us to see whether Asmara is ready to navigate it or, as in the past, it will allow itself to be sanctioned due to its self-inflicted incapacity.
The Difference Between Republicans & Democrats
I was asking a usually well-informed friend to tell me about developments in Eritrea, particularly on the issue of our readiness to confront Ethiopian aggression. He answered: “we follow Ethiopian media to learn what’s happening in Eritrea; and we follow American media to learn what’s happening in Ethiopia.”
In this case, we can’t even learn about Ethiopia from American media because, when it comes to foreign affairs, it is too consumed by Iran, China, Russia, and Israel to make room for Eritrea, Sudan or Ethiopia. The next best thing, then, is to review the doctrines of the two ruling parties, Democrats and Republicans, as outlined in their 2024 party conventions.
First, what they have in common. Both Democrats and Republicans agree that the US should be a global leader. That is: they agree on the what, they disagree on the how.
The Republicans believe that the US will be a global leader by using the “Peace Through Strength” formula. According to its party platform, the US should use an “America First” approach centered on national sovereignty, security, military superiority, and economic strength. It calls for modernizing the military with advanced technologies and missile defense systems, strengthening alliances while requiring allies to contribute more to their collective defense, supporting Israel, restoring peace in Europe and the Middle East, and promoting strong, independent nations in the Indo-Pacific.
Further, the Republican platform emphasizes protecting American borders, combating drug cartels and human trafficking, countering hostile foreign influences, and safeguarding critical infrastructure against cyberattacks. It also advocates revitalizing domestic manufacturing, particularly defense-related industries, to reduce foreign dependence. Overall, the platform envisions a foreign policy driven primarily by American national interests, backed by military strength, economic self-reliance, and alliances based on shared defense responsibilities.
With Trump’s Republican Party, the focus is on sovereign nations making bilateral agreements strictly on the basis of shared interest. In sales, this is known as WCYDFM: What can you do for me?
In contrast, the Democrats believe that American global leadership in Africa is secured through diplomacy, economic development, democratic governance, human rights, and regional security cooperation. The Democrats’ platform supports greater African representation in global institutions, including permanent African Union membership in the G20 and permanent African representation on the UN Security Council. The platform further prioritizes public health, food security, climate resilience, humanitarian assistance, and African-led peacekeeping and conflict resolution. It also advocates restoring democratic governance in conflict-affected countries, through diplomatic engagement and cooperation with the African Union. It supports multilateral cooperation democratic institutions, and mutual economic interests.
With the Democratic Party, it is all about multilateral-ism, diplomacy-ism, democracy-ism, human right-ism and inclusiveness-ism. I say “ism” because it is a slogan, not uniformly applied. Keep in mind that while the Democratic Party believes in all these multilateral bodies, it insists that it–or a viceroy like Ethiopia–should control it.
Eritrean Foreign Policy
The PFDJ’s 1994 National Charter identifies six foreign-policy objectives: (1) peace and non-alignment; (2) good-neighborly relations; (3) friendship among peoples; (4) regional and international stability; (5) economic and cultural cooperation; and (6) respect for international law and treaties.
And how shall the Eritrean government achieve this? The Charter explains: “In order to preserve the peace and harmony we acquired after a long struggle, it is essential that we strive for peace and stability at both regional and global levels, notwithstanding our limited capabilities.”
On paper, there is little to quarrel with–except that “notwithstanding our limited capabilities” qualifier which gets in the way of a small country actually acting like a small country. The real problem is not what the Charter says but how Eritrea has conducted its foreign policy since adopting it.
Rather than building institutions capable of formulating, debating, implementing, and reviewing foreign policy, Eritrea has concentrated those responsibilities in one man. This is why, three years into Ethiopian threats on Eritrean sovereignty, you won’t find many policy papers, think tanks, or even spokespersons for the Eritrean Ministry of Foreign Affairs say anything. Because they can’t: all that is the responsibility of one man, the President, and the President hasn’t updated his understanding of how US foreign policy works since Robert Kaplan’s observation: Isaias may be a brilliant analyst of what he knows, but his understanding of American foreign policy fails to account for the competing institutions that shape it.
A Republican president does not mean a Republican foreign policy operating without constraints, particularly when Democrats control Congress. The State Department, Pentagon, Congress, and White House all influence American foreign policy, sometimes in competing directions. Eritrea, by contrast, has no comparable institutional checks on its president. The result is a foreign policy that can change dramatically without public debate, legislative scrutiny, or institutional accountability. Although the Charter promised principles, all Eritrea got was presidential discretion.
Isaias’s Foreign Policy
The 1994 National Charter has not been reviewed or revised in 32 years. It is, like a holy book, considered perfect and not subject to review or even implementation–just quoting.
In the last 34 years, Eritrea has not produced a unified Foreign Policy Doctrine, Foreign Policy Strategy, Foreign Policy Framework, Foreign Policy Statement, National Security Strategy or even a Foreign Policy Charter, except for those 10-point or 20-point letters that President Isaias Afwerki writes, shares with his media in a once-and-done way.
To understand Eritrea’s foreign policy, one must refer to the annual interviews the President gives his State media–which are almost entirely focused on global affairs with little attention to national affairs. Although these statements are grievances and not policies, one can get Eritrea’s wish list, if not its policy:
Wish List 1: A multipolar world in which Russia and China are real contenders for global leadership. The US system is considered one whose economy is a gigantic Ponzi scheme based on exploitation of others and unsustainable debt.
Wish List 2: If Russia and China can’t or won’t lead and America is the only choice, then a Republican–preferably a Trumpian–foreign policy is best suited for Eritrea. It is based on bilateral relationships between two sovereign states, a policy that is blunt enough to ask, “what can you do for America” and doesn’t “lecture” countries on how they govern themselves.
Wish List 3: An America run by Democrats and their obsession with multilateralism, internationalism, and their tendency to selectively lectures others on human rights, democracy and freedom.
The Eritrean Diaspora in America
The irony about this is that the overwhelming majority of the Eritrean Diaspora in America are Democrats. Every American of Eritrean ancestry who has been elected to office is a Democrat. One would think that the Eritrean Diaspora would organize itself to petition the United States government to be even-handed in its approach to the Eritrea-Ethiopia conflict. But…
Let me tell you a personal story. In 1998-2000, particularly after Ethiopia launched a blitzkrieg to take Badme in February 1999 (“Operation Sunset”), some Eritrean Americans organized themselves into a task force to lobby the United States to hold Ethiopia accountable for refusing to implement a ceasefire. This task force was then infiltrated by the Government of Eritrea which wanted the task force not only to coordinate but subordinate its task to that of the executor of the Government’s policies. A task force organize to influence the Government of Eritrea’s policies was changed to that of a messenger of the government policy—even when the policy was disastrously wrong.
The task force broke up.
Between February 1999 and May 2000, the Ethiopian government went on a weapons shopping spree–which the Eritrean president was happy to mock as catalog-shopping for MiGs and Su-27s. Ha ha ha. What a riot. In May 2000, Ethiopia launched its offensive, penetrating deep into Eritrean territory and then leaving only when it had created a 25-kilometer-wide buffer zone inside Eritrean territory, a so-called Temporary Security Zone (TSZ) that would eventually be manned by the UN (the United Nations Mission in Eritrea Ethiopia or UNMEE.) UNMEE was in Eritrea for eight long years.
That was 26 years ago, back when President Isaias Afwerki had colleagues who saw him as first among equals, called him Comrade and could, depending on how boozed up they were, speak truth to power. But they have all been exiled, disappeared or killed. Now, there are none: all Eritrea has are just government employees who are terrified to bring him bad news and are only capable of addressing him as “kbur president” as they do everything they can to not draw attention to themselves. Why? Because the history of Eritrea in the last 26 years is ክረኣያ ክብላ ይእረያ: the tallest poppy gets cut down. The nail that sticks out, gets hammered down. So the culture is to disappear into your skin and say nothing: observe the body language of Eritrea’s Foreign Minister in every meeting.
Clearly I have less than zero influence over the government. Actually, I have negative influence. But those of you who have connections in the Eritrean government, this may be your chance, your last chance, to tell your party that the path Eritrea is on when it comes to foreign policy is unsustainable and a correction is overdue now. Eritrea is right on the merits, but it is wrong on its readiness to politically influence USA.
