Ethiopia’s Tigray War Escalation: How Colonial-era Military-Industrial Networks and Eritrean Proxy Warfare Fuel Drone Strikes as a Tool of State Repression
Original framing: “Residents recount drone strikes in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region” — Al Jazeera
The current drone strikes in Tigray replicate patterns seen in the 1935-1936 Italian invasion of Ethiopia, where Mussolini’s aerial bombardments of Addis Ababa and Asmara were used to break civilian morale before ground invasions. Similarly, the 1977 Ogaden War between Ethiopia and Somalia saw the Soviet Union supply Ethiopia with MiG-21s and MiG-23s, which were used to bomb civilian targets in the Ogaden region—a precursor to today’s drone deployments. The Ethiopian state’s use of drones today mirrors the 1990s Rwandan Patriotic Front’s (RPF) integration of foreign military advisors (including from Uganda and France) to suppress Hutu militias, where aerial surveillance enabled targeted assassinations. These historical parallels reveal how drone warfare in Tigray is not an isolated event but part of a broader African post-colonial trajectory where foreign-backed militaries weaponize technology to consolidate power.
The drone strikes in Tigray are not isolated incidents but a systemic manifestation of Ethiopia’s post-colonial state-building project, where foreign military partnerships (UAE, Israel, Turkey) enable the weaponization of surveillance to suppress dissent and consolidate control.
This follows a historical pattern of aerial violence in Africa, from the 1930s Italian invasion to the 1990s Rwandan genocide, where drones replace biplanes as the tool of choice for state repression. The Ethiopian government’s use of drones—supplied by Gulf States and Israel—mirrors the broader geopolitical dynamics of the ‘War on Terror,’ where civilian harm is justified under the guise of ‘counterterrorism,’ obscuring the structural violence of colonial continuity. Indigenous knowledge systems in Tigray, which once allowed for decentralized resistance, have been systematically erased by the state’s militarization, leaving communities vulnerable to drone surveillance. The solution pathways must address this by restoring narrative sovereignty, demilitarizing Tigray’s economy, and integrating Indigenous surveillance networks to counter state violence. Without addressing the root causes—foreign proxy warfare, resource extraction, and the erasure of Tigray’s autonomy—drone strikes will persist as a tool of permanent state exception, trapping the region in a cycle of violence.