Reddit reviews Ethiopian-Eritrean Wars. Volume 2: Eritrean War of Independence, 1988-1991 & Badme War, 1998-2001 (Africa@War)

Except in publications released by the Eritrean regime, there was never any kind of some 'enormous shock caused by the Eritrean War' - at least not in Ethiopia.

The problem was as follows: during the last decade of the... well, let's call it '1st Eritrean War' (fought 1960-1991), for reasons of simplicity, the Ethiopian political leadership - in close cooperation with its Soviet advisors - de-facto destroyed the Ethiopian military.

Original Ethiopian military was created in the 1940s - 1970s period with extensive help from Sweden (1940s-1950s), some by various other countries, but especially the USA. The resulting Ethiopian military was actually small, voluntary service, led by virtually hand-picked officers and NCOs. By early 1970s, and especially in period 1972-1974, nearly all of these were trained in the USA.

In 1974, Emperor Selassie was overthrown. There followed a period of political turmoil and bloody struggle for power. By the time the 'Derg' - led by Haile Mariam - prevailed (by de-facto summarily executing almost whoever dared challenging them), in 1977, Somalia invaded Ethiopia and brought nearly all of the federal state of Ogaden under its control.

The Derg - and especially the Ethiopian military - were curious to continue cooperating with the USA. Correspondingly, they placed significant orders for F-5Es, M60s etc. However, Carter's admin introduced the policy along which (roughly) arms deliveries were tied to human-rights record of the government in question. The Derg thus only got a small part of what they've ordered from Washington. While this proved enough to enable them to stop the Somali advance into Ogaden, it was insufficient to liberate the state.

That's why the Ethiopians ended trying to buy arms from the Soviet Union. The Soviets were already supporting Somalia, actually curious to instrument a union of Ethiopia, Somalia and Yemen, and not the last keen to have two of countries using their arms fighting each other. Therefore, they said 'nyet'. Haile Mariam then took an indirect route: eh made friends with Fidel Castro, and convinced him he would be leading something like 'Marxist revolution' in Ethiopia. When even that didn't impress the Soviets, Mariam travelled to Moscow where he issued something like a corresponding public statement. At that moment, in November 1977, the Somali dictator Siad Barre lost nerves and kicked the Soviets out of his country. That in turn enraged Soviet leader Brezhnev, who ordered prompt deliveries of whatever war material Ethiopians needed.

...and so it happened that in late 1977 and through most of 1978, the small, US-trained Ethiopian military was wastly expanded through the massive influx of Soviet arms. Furthermore, over a dozen of new divisions of various militias was trained by Cuban advisors. The Cubans also deployed the personnel of two of their mechanised brigades and one fighter-squadron to Ethiopia, and these helped Ethiopians kick Somalis out of Ogaden in a high loop...

Through the same period, Eritrean insurgents brought most of what is nowadays Eritrea under their control. Thus as next, the Ethiopians re-deployed most of their military to that area, and launched a major counteroffensive, in 1978-1979. This proved largely, but not completely successful: at least the northern part of Eritrea remained under isurgent control. The result of this partial failure was a bitter war of attrition that was to last until 1987 - further extended by de-professionalisation of the entire Ethiopian military.

Certainly enough, the Ethiopian military continued its massive expansion through additional influx of Soviet arms, in the 1980s. The army grew to about 30 divisions, all of which were suffering from a severe lack of trained officers and NCOs (not to talk about support services etc.). Indeed, the Ethiopians could never man all the weapons and units. The Soviets continued selling arms, but were delivering only obsolete systems, and did whatever was possible to prevent the Ethiopians from developing ability to maintain these at home. Furthermore, Soviet advisors proved more interested in an ideological re-education of the entire Ethiopian military, than in helping Ethiopians actually win the war against Eritreans. Finally, what the Soviets were advising was essentially the same they were doing in Afghanistan of the same time (or in Chechnya and Syria ever since): a colossal destruction and cleansing of the Eritrean population from insurgent-controlled areas.

On the top of that all, the Derg distrusted the military and introduced an unviable system of tripple command of every unit: in essence, no military commander could do anything without an order from above, plus agreement from his political commissar, plus that from his security service minder. Combined with unusually long tours of duty (for Ethiopian circumstances) - which cost the Ethiopian government and its military all the support it used to enjoy in its own population - this led to the self-destruction of the Ethiopian military: by 1987, there was deep mistrust between various of its commanders, political commissars, and security services, and some of units were more busy fighting each other than the Eritreans.

The weakening of the Ethiopian military not only resulted in defeats that enabled a massive growth of the Eritrean insurgency, but the latter became capable of supporting the Tigrean insurgency in parts of (northern) Ethiopia outside what it claimed for Eritrea. The combination of these two insurgencies, and the collapse of the Ethiopian military resulted in the downfall of the Derg regime, in 1991.

Now, Eritrea then declared its independence, while the Tigreans installed themselves in power in Addis Ababa. Their government de-facto completed the destruction of the Ethiopian military.

However, during the second half of the 1990s, the friendship between two governments turned into enmity, which prompted Addis into imposing economic sanctions against Eritrea. In turn, the Eritreans invaded and occuppied the Badme region, in 1999.

That's where the 'reforms' you mentioned came into being: facing a defeat, the Ethiopian government scrambled to rebuild its military. Thousands of 'Derg officers' that were either purged from the military, or even jailed, were recalled to serve: they not only helped overhaul available military equipment, or train new units, but also took over the command, and were partially re-qualified to operate new equipment acquired from Russia. Ultimate result was an Ethiopian counter-invasion, in 2000, during which the Eritreans suffered a catastrophic military defeat.

Now, whether the Ethiopian government ever overcame its own corruption and nepotism is a matter of quite some (and often fierce) disputes. Certain is that since the end of the Badme War, and despite its victory, it soon found itself at odds with its own military, and especially what many of Tigreans still consider would be 'Derg officers'. That's what resulted in dozens of high-profiled defections (like when most of one of FDREAF's Su-27-squadrons left the service in different ways).

But, it could be said that - at least for the period 1999-2001 - the Ethiopian government found the way to not only 're-introduce', but indeed 'impose' professionalism over everything else in its military.

Considering the same military continued to act quite competently in Somalia ever since, it could be said that this 'left lasting impressions', i.e. resulted in something like creation of the competent and combat-effective Ethiopian military as we know it nowadays. At least there's no doubt that the country is the military power-house on the African horn, ever since.

Regarding references for all of this:

• Harold Marcus' 'A History of Ethiopia' is providing geo-political backgrounds in well-organised, easy-to-read fashion;
  
  
• Fantahun Ayele's 'The Ethiopian Army: From Victory to Collapse, 1971-1991' is providing an excellent, in-depth, even if often too complex review of the Ethiopian military during the given period;
  
  
• various of books and articles by Gebru Tareke are offering exclusive and well-supported insights into Ethiopian military operations of the 1970s and 1980s (indeed, they might be a sort of 'self-sufficient read', perfectly enough on their own);
  
  
• alternatively, take 'Wings Over Ogaden' and Ethiopian-Eritrean Wars, Volume 1 (about to be published in 2-3 weeks), as a summary of all the above-mentioned, plus many other sources (including plenty of interviews with participants and eyewitnesses, and then quite a lots of cross-examination with Somali and Eritrean sources).
  
  AFAIK, currently there's no decent military history of the Badme War, but this is to follow in Ethiopian-Eritrean Wars, Volume 2 late this, or early the next year.