The Ethiopian-Somali War of 1977-1978 provides an example of non-Western MCO outside that continues to be worthy of wider consideration and analysis. The Soviet Union supplied arms to both Ethiopia and Somalia, even during the Ogaden war. SHARES. Special to The New York Times. However, the war and its immediate aftermath are also significant because they occurred at the juncture of periods often characterized as “medieval” and “early modern” in the East Asian case. Contrary to the Cold War image of the Cubans as ‘Moscow’s Ghurkhas’, Castro had a record of instigating expeditionary operations in support of revolutionary movements and regimes. The Superpowers and the Ogaden War. The Ogaden War, or Ethio-Somali War, was a border conflict and military offensive of the Somalis against the Ethiopians for the control of the region of Ogaden. After Soviet ceasefire efforts failed, the USSR cut off aid to Somalia, and Soviet military aid and advisors began to flood Ethiopia, whose army was reinforced by 15,000 Cuban Tropas. Founded to sing patriotic songs by the government’s Ministry of Interior in 1978 — the height of the Somali-Ethiopian border conflict — peacetime presented a crisis of identity. After all, their entire economic system was dependent on their cash crops, which was mostly run by slaves. Somalia pursued its territorial claims on Ethiopia with the Organisation of African Unity (OAU, the precursor to the African Union), but the latter backed Addis Ababa; not only because Ethiopia was one of its founder states, but because the newly-independent sub-Saharan states recognised that while colonially-defined frontiers were an affront, their unravelling was also potentially destabilising. The Ethiopians quickly recovered control of the Ogaden, and on 23rdMarch Mengistu declared victory, avoiding the temptation to launch a counter-invasion of Somalia that could have provoked a wider war (Iran, Egypt, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia having reportedly pledged military aid to Barre if Ethiopian forces crossed the frontier). After British Somalia and Italian Somalia gained independence from the UK in 1960 as the unified state of Somalia, the leadership aspired to create a Greater Somalia which incorporated surrounding territories populated by Somali. The War in the Ogaden: Implications for Siyaad's Rôle in Somali History - Volume 17 Issue 1 - David D. Laitin Skip to main content Accessibility help We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. It occupies the barren plain between the Somalia-Ethiopia border and the Ethiopian Eastern Highlands, on which the cities of Harer and Dire Dawa are situated. The OGADEN War, a brief but costly war fought by Ethiopia and Somalia had been aggravated by outside intervention for many years, and in 1970s by the so called superpowers. by H.G. In January 1993, ONLF candidate Abdillahi Mohammed Sadi was elected Somali Regional president by receiving 70% of the votes, Sadi was however sacked by Tigray People’s Liberation Front officials seven months later creating a power … Fighting erupted as Somalia sought to exploit a temporary shift in the regional balance of power in their favor to occupy the Ogaden region, claimed to be part of Greater Somalia. The Somali offensive and its consequences, July 1977-February 1978: Shortly after the SNA crossed the frontier in force on 13thJuly 1977, both they and the WSLF conquered 90% of Ogaden. In February 1978, the Ethiopians recaptured Jijiga and killed 3,000 of its defenders. Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. As the flanking force assaulted and captured Jijiga, the diversionary element became the main effort, smashing through an enemy trapped within the Kara Mandeh Pass. The main rebel group is the Ogaden National Liberation Front under its Chairman Mohamed O. Aside from the Italian occupation from 1935-1941, the Ogaden remained an Ethiopian possession. This video is about the Ogaden War that occurred in the Horn of Africa between Somalia and Ethiopia from July 1977 to March 1978. This included at least 400 T-54/T55s, 200 armoured fighting vehicles and armoured personnel carriers, 60 FGA, 300 artillery tubes and 28 Katyushamultiple rocket-launchers. Ethiopia was saved from a major defeat and a permanent loss of territory through a massive airliftof military supplies worth $1 billion, the arrival of bet… Somalia openly announced her intentions upon achieving independence in 1960: Somali enclaves in the Horn of Africa must become part of the new nation. This interventionist trait was demonstrated during the Angolan civil war of 1975-1976, when during the chaos of Portuguese decolonisation he had sent first advisors and then a task force to successfully defend the MPLA regime against two rival national-liberation movements, the FNLA and UNITA, which were backed by Zaire, apartheidSouth Africa and the USA. An external attack allowed Mengistu to overcome the internal revolutionary turmoil he had fuelled, temporarily unifying his people against an external enemy. As a military historian and soldier I would encourage more pertinent analysis on these conflicts. The Ethiopian government then raised a 100,000-strong militia force, and they trained with Warsaw Pact-supplied weapons, abandoning the use of the Empire's United States-supplied arsenal. In July 1960 Somalia was granted independence with the unification of the former British and Italian colonial territories. Diaspora Veterans of the Ogaden War? In January 1993, ONLF candidate Abdillahi Mohammed Sadi was elected Somali Regional president by receiving 70% of the votes, Sadi was however sacked by Tigray People’s Liberation Front officials seven months later creating a power vacuum. In late September 1977 the PDRY sent two battalions of troops to Ethiopia, and two months later the USSR commenced a massive sea and airlift of arms to Mengistu’s regime. Brezhnev sent a military mission of around 1,500 advisors to Ethiopia, led by the First Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Soviet Ground Forces, a decorated veteran of World War II named Vasily Petrov. It’s overall impact on the Horn of Africa is all too often overlooked. Did many of the veterans of the war end up becoming diaspora? The Seven Years’ War is known for its change of fighting tactics, British triumph after many failed battles, and extreme financial expenses. The 4th March 1978 was a pivotal day in one of the most obscure decisive battles in military history. Socialist Ethiopia Cuba Soviet Union South YemenSupported by: North Korea East Germany, Somali Democratic Republic WSLFSupported by: China, Mengistu Haile Mariam Tesfaye Gebre Kidan Addis Tedla Arnaldo Ochoa Vasily Petrov Muhsin al-Shargabi, Siad Barre Mohammad Ali Samatar Mohamed Farrah Aidid Abdullahi Ahmed Irro Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed Mohamed Hikam Sheikh Abdirahman. It was defined by the decline of the old great powers and the rise of two superpowers; the Soviet Union (USSR) and the United States of America (US) creating a bipolar world. The Ogaden war or Somali-Ethiopian war (July 1977 – March 1978)1 was one of the largest inter-state wars in contemporary African history (Heirman, s.d.). The Soviet planning cell concentrated its efforts on enabling the Ethiopians to recover the initiative, and to inflict a crushing defeat on the Somalis before potential international mediators could promote a ceasefire. In 1973, Ethiopia, under Emperor Haile Selaisse (pictured above), represented a stalwart American regional partner. By the summer of 1977 the WSLF had seized control over much of the countryside, leaving the urban areas of the province under Ethiopian control. This was my first comic hope you enjoy. Excellent yet superficial piece on the Ethiopian and Somali proxy war. Mengistu’s forces managed to keep a toe-hold on Northern Ogaden, thwarting an SNA/WSLF attack on Dire Dawa on 17thAugust, whilst defending Harar from a series of Somali/insurgent onslaughts from September 1977 to January 1978. In 1974, the Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie was himself ousted in a military coup by the Derg military junta, which established a "Socialist Ethiopia" government aligned with the Eastern Bloc. The war affected both countries--South Korea and North Korea--greatly. The WSLF insurgency continued - with Somali support - until 1981, when they were crushed. The civil war against both groups eventually ended in January 1991 with the fall of Mogadishu, Barre’s defeat, and Somalia’s disintegration as a state. Even before the commander of the Somali National Army (SNA) Mohammed Siad Barre seized power on 21stOctober 1969, Somalia was a Soviet ally. The problem was that it had been preceded by months of indecision and drift which, Louise Woodroofe convincingly argues, sent mixed messages to both Mogadishu and Addis Ababa. By 23 March 1978, the Ethiopians and Cubans had recaptured more than two-thirds of the Ogaden, marking the official end of the war. ( Log Out / The war cost Somalia a third of its army, three-eighths of its armored units, and half of its air force, and Siad Barre was forced to abandon his nationalist aspirations. However, Ethiopian combat power was dissipated by a series of insurgencies (most notably the Eritrean revolt), while military morale was further undermined by the purges and executions of the officer corps instigated with Mengistu’s ‘Red Terror’. Aside from the Italian occupation from 1935-1941, the Ogaden remained an Ethiopian possession. The photographs were made by more than 280 photographers, from 28 nations, who have covered conflict on six continents over 165 years, from the Mexican-American War of 1846 through present-day conflicts. The latter would enable the Ethiopians and Cubans to establish a forward operating base North of Jijiga, and then to subsequently recapture the town from its Somali and WSLF garrison, cutting off the Eastern escape route of the SNA formations inside the Kara Mandeh. Barre responded by denouncing his friendship treaty with the USSR on 13thNovember 1977, and by expelling Soviet and Cuban military advisors from Somalia. Summary of the Ogaden War THE AFTERMATH OF WAR Reflections on Jus Post Bellum MICHAEL WALZER New Thinking in Just War Theory As A DISTINCT CATEGORY ,jus post bellum is not part of classic just war theory. An American Military Advisory and Assistance Group (MAAG) trained its armed forces, which also received a total of US$161m in arms and equipment from the USA from 1950 to 1973. That capacity for major combat operations (MCO) has been recorded by the historian Gebru Tareke, the most authoritative scholar of this conflict, quoting an Ethiopian veteran of this war who stated that ‘if one were to combine the Ethiopian air force and the Somali tank units, one would have created Africa’s dream army’. Meanwhile, the Ethiopian 10thInfantry Division (reinforced by another Cuban brigade) would undertake a flank march North of the Ahmar mountains, supported by Soviet rotary lift. The Cold War aftermath After the destruction of the Soviet Union, Russia significantly cut military spending, and restructure of the economy left millions of people unemployed. The Ogaden War, 1977 – 1978 By Hans Johnson. … Maps via the Perry-Castaneda Library Map Collection. The USSR chose to side with Ethiopia, and Marshal Vasily Petrov reported the "sorry state" of the Ethiopian military to Moscow. These included the Ogaden, a Nebraska-sized desert region of Ethiopia that would flow with blood twice in the coming decades. The country barred itself from every other country except China; the North Korean leaders still kept in contact with the Chinese leaders, but failed to maintain a steady relationship with other countries. In 1979, a group of disgruntled officers formed the Somali Salvation Democratic Front, and the disorganized and demoralized SNA and the angry population of Somalia would rebel against Siad Barre in the Somali Rebellion of 1978-1991, ultimately leading to the Somali Civil War. May 13, 2017 #1 The U.S. would not remain with hands folded after the Somali regular troops had withdrawn from the Ogaden, and when the Cubans and Amhara began massacring the innocent civilians in retaliation. The finest and most comprehensive archive of fabulous footage and stunning stills. Zbigniew Brzezinski, the National Security Advisor for the then-US President Jimmy Carter, blamed Soviet and Cuban intervention in the Ethiopian-Somali War for the deterioration of superpower relations during the late 1970s, declaring portentously that US-Soviet strategic arms control talks were ‘buried in the sands of the Ogaden’. [4] A third of the initial Somali National Army invasion force was killed, and half of the Somali Airforce destroyed; the war left Somalia with a disorganized and demoralized army and an angry population. The imagery intelligence provided was fed both to a Soviet communications complex in Addis Ababa, and a ground station at Dire Dawa. This part of the Ethio- In the midst of this chaos Barre spotted an opportunity to snatch the Ogaden, initially by supporting the West Somali Liberation Front (WSLF), an insurgent movement that was trained and ultimately augmented by the SNA. British Pathe, the world's leading multimedia resource with a history stretching back over a century. Eritrea attained independence in the aftermath of the Eritrean War of Independence, inspiring ONLF to pursue a similar goal for Ogaden. Its population is predominantly ethnic Somali and traditionally hostile towards the Ethiopians, although the minorities of the highlands are better disposed towards Ethiopian rule. This proved to be a catastrophic mistake on his part. From Brzezinski’s perspective, the Ogaden War soured US-Soviet relations, undermining the attempts made by the US Secretary of State (and rival to the National Security Advisor) Cyrus Vance to ease East-West tensions. For his part, Barre had gambled that capturing Ogaden and uniting its population with the Somali homeland would bolster his regime. The Ogaden… From October 1977 to January 1978, the SNA-WSLF forces were held back by 40,000 Ethiopians, 16,000 Cubans, and 1,500 Soviets at the Battle of Harar, and the Somalis withdrew with 40,000 losses, a third of their original invasion force. The war was predominantly fought in the Ogaden region in eastern Ethiopia. During the Ogaden War, the Soviet Union maintained its support of Somalia while China switched its support to Ethiopia. Korea and North Korea became completely isolated are commenting using your Facebook account over the war-zone that. 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