Ethiopian-Eritrean Wars

Ethiopia, a country of ancient origins in eastern Africa, remains a military powerhouse. Currently involved in the war in neighbouring Somalia, Ethiopia has also been involved in half a dozen other armed conflicts during the last 60 years.

The Eritrean War of Independence was a crucial conflict. Fought between 1961 and 1991, this was one of the largest armed conflicts on the African continent, especially if measured by numbers of involved combatants. It included a wide spectrum of operations, from ‘classic’ counter-insurgency (COIN) to conventional warfare in mountains – with the latter being one of the most complex and demanding undertakings possible for a military force to conduct.

Campaigns fought during the Eritrean War of Independence often included large formations of relatively well-equipped forces, led by well-trained commanders, along well-thought-out plans, based on home-grown doctrine. Air power played a crucial – although not necessarily decisive – role in many of battles.

Nevertheless, most of details about this conflict remain unknown in the wider public. Similarly, relatively few Western observers are aware of relations between the Eritrean liberation movements, and various dissident and insurgent movements inside Ethiopia – although the synergy of these eventually led the downfall of the so-called Derg government, in 1991.

While the first volume in this mini-series spanned the history of wars between Ethiopia and Eritrea between 1961 and 1988, the second covers the period since. Correspondingly, it provides coverage of military operations that led to the fall of the Derg government in Ethiopia of 1991, the period of Eritrean military build-up and a complete re-organization of the Ethiopian military in the 1990s, and concludes with the first detailed account of the so-called Badme War, fought between Ethiopia and Eritrea in period 1998-2001.

It is illustrated by many contemporary photographs, maps and colour profiles.

“Helion are to be congratulated on producing these accounts of unreported wars. This is a useful book for the historian”
Miniature Wargames

“This work, which is only 72 pages long, but very thorough, recounts the events, absolutely unknown to us, of the long and bloody war for the independence of Eritrea, from 1988 to 1991, and of the subsequent conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea between 1998 and 2001, called the Badme War. Photos are abundant and new….but there are also fifteen excellent aircraft profiles. A valid and interesting job.” JP4 Aviation Monthly Magazine