Eritrea’s Longstanding Memory: The World’s Rediscovery of Its Strategic Geography

Red Sea Beacon (Abridged) For centuries, the coastline of what is now sovereign Eritrea has occupied a consequential position between Africa, Arabia, the Mediterranean, and the Indian Ocean. Adulis connected commercial networks across the Red Sea, while regional and imperial powers recognized the value of Massawa, Assab, the islands, and surrounding coastline. The Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphates, Portuguese, Ottoman, and Egyptian powers reached these shores. European powers followed. Italy incorporated the territory into its Red Sea strategy. Britain administered it after the Second World War. Cold War powers calculated their interests around it. Eritreans fought for three decades to recover sovereignty. The actors changed. The strategic calculation did not.

A recent main stream media analysis framing Eritrea through renewed strategic relevance reflects a broader analytical problem: presenting a historical constant as a contemporary development. Strategic attention may rise and fall, but strategic geography does not. Understanding Eritrea’s place in the Red Sea requires three things: history, sovereignty, and perspective. History explains its enduring importance; sovereignty determines political and legal authority today; perspective prevents the Horn from being viewed solely through the ambitions of larger powers. The Coastline Empires Never Ignored The Bab el-Mandeb Strait, linking the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and wider Indian Ocean, is one of the world’s most consequential maritime chokepoints. Eritrea’s significance in this geography long predates today’s crises. Long before the modern state system, the Adulis corridor linked the Horn of Africa to commercial networks across the Red Sea and Indian Ocean. Successive powers recognized the value of Massawa, its…