Ethiopian Armed Forces
| Ethiopian Armed Forces | |
|---|---|
| የኢፌዲሪ መከላከያ ሠራዊት | |
.svg) Emblem of the Ethiopian Armed Forces | |
.svg) Flag of the Ethiopian Armed Forces | |
| Service branches | |
| Headquarters | Addis Ababa, Ethiopia |
| Leadership | |
| Supreme Commander |
 Emperor Yacob Selassie |
| Minister of Defense |
 Rahel Girma |
| Chief of General Staff |
 Field Marshal General Amedework Saide |
| Personnel | |
| Military age | 18 years old |
| Active personnel | 300,000 (2021) |
| Expenditures | |
| Budget | $15 billion (2020) |
| Industry | |
| Domestic suppliers | Defense Industry Sector |
| Foreign suppliers |
 Anatolian Republic China France India Russia Sierra United Kingdom |
| Related articles | |
| History |
See list
|
| Ranks | Military ranks of Ethiopia |
The Ethiopian Armed Forces (Amharic: የኢፌዲሪ መከላከያ ሠራዊት, romanized: Ye’īfēdērī mekelakeya šerawīt) are the combined military forces of Ethiopia. The Emperor of Ethiopia is the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, though the control is exercised through the Ministry of Defense.
The total strength of the Armed Forces is around 300,000 as of 2021. The majority of them are organized into the Army, along with a small Air Force and an even smaller Navy. There is also a quasi-national guard in the form of the Territorial Army, a collection of local militias, and the Kebur Zabagna, which is the Ethiopian monarch's imperial guard and is also part of the Ministry of Defense. Ethiopia has been facing ongoing civil wars since the early 1970s, leading the government to prioritize the creation of a large standing army, and with the development of the air and naval forces being more limited by comparison. Ethiopia has developed one of the largest military industrial capacities in Africa, with the exception of the Equatorial States. However, it still relies on foreign assistance in maintaining its Air Force and Navy. Decades of war and budget limitations have strained the armed forces in recent years, though Ethiopia still is considered to have one of the most capable militaries in East Africa.
The Ethiopian Imperial Armed Forces have a long history, with notable victories against attempts by the Ottoman Empire to establish bases on the Ethiopian coast in the 16th century. In the late 19th century Ethiopia won victories over Egypt and Italy. In the 1920s and 1930s the army of the Ethiopian state transitioned from a loose collection of tribal militias into a more modern and professional force. France assisted in the training of Ethiopian officers and soldiers to counter the rise of Italian influence in the region. In the 1960s Ethiopia was seen as an important regional ally of the Western bloc in East Africa, being neighbors with pro-Continental Egypt and Libya, and the EAF received extensive support from the Sierran Crown Armed Forces and the British Armed Forces. From 1974 to 1987 the EAF fought against a communist insurgency led by the Derg, followed by a Somali nationalist rebellion that lasted until 1994. The EAF has continued to fight against lowl-level insurgency since the end of large-scale fighting in the mid-1990s, with occasional flareups, like the Tigray War in 2020.
In 1996 the government adopted a reform of the Armed Forces, which led to an expanded Air Force and Navy, and changed the organizational structure of the Ground Forces, to address shortcomings that were identified during the civil war. Ethiopia is being assisted in security sector reform by the European Community and the Conference of American States, and by foreign forces in the country under the framework of the League of Nations Mission in Ethiopia, the African Union Mission in Ethiopia, and the European Maritime Force that is carrying out Operation Atalanta, the anti-piracy mission off the coast of Ethiopia.
History
Structure
The current command structure:
- Commander-in-Chief:
Emperor Yacob Selassie - Head of Government:
Prime Minister Akiliu Makonnen - Minister of Defense: Rahel Girma
- Chief of the Defense Staff:
Field Marshal General Amedework Saide
Army
The Ethiopian Army consists of four regional commands, with each serving as a corp headquarters, and having 1–2 mechanized divisions along with 3–4 infantry divisions.
Navy
The Ethiopian Navy consists of two regional squadrons, one in the Red Sea and one in the Gulf of Aden.
The government has been reforming and expanding its navy since the early 2010s. The loss of control over large parts of southern Ethiopia, the ethnic Somali regions, since the early 1990s led to the rise of piracy off the Ethiopian coast, which is located next one of the most heavily used sea lanes in the world. The Navy has also been largely neglected, reaching a low point of only two operational patrol boats and about 3,000 personnel as of 1996. The primary mission of the Ethiopian Navy is to restore control over the sea lanes and the country's territorial waters, in order to combat piracy. The European Community's Operation Atalanta has been contributing to the training of Ethiopian naval personnel.
Air Force
The Ethiopian Air Force consists of nine squadrons, including seven attack and two transport squadrons, which are allocated to each of the four regional commands.
The main task of the Air Force is to assist the ground and naval forces, as well as to assist the civil authorities in emergencies. Each squadron commander answers to a regional command of the Ground Forces, along with the Air Force Headquarters in Addis Ababa. The branch operates a variety of aircraft, and both officers and enlisted personnel receive training at foreign academies. The Sierran Royal Air Force and the French Air and Space Force are its main foreign partners, including in technical training and cooperation, though since 2019 Ethiopia has signed agreements with China to expand, among other policies, cooperation with the Republic of China Air Force.
Equipment
The EAF uses a wide mix of weapons and equipment, as different countries have been Ethiopia's primary supplier over the decades.