Trouble on the Nile

There is serious trouble brewing in Northeastern Africa. While many of the tensions and conflicts of our day are packaged in terms of human rights and political struggle there is an underlying factor that is driving geopolitical tension and that is the struggle for resources.

The public is not easily motivated to support wars for oil and mineral wealth, however water being so basic to human life is something that people can get behind. And there are growing global flash points over this issue and one of them is with regard to the Nile.

I would assume most readers know the geography but to review, the Nile which is famously associated with Egypt has two main branches – the White and Blue Niles which join in Sudan at the city of Khartoum. The White Nile (which is the main channel) flows from the African Great Lakes and is usually 'sourced' in Lake Victoria. But the overwhelming volume of water comes from the Blue Nile which flows out of the Ethiopian Highlands. Fed by seasonal monsoon rains the Blue Nile is what made the river famously 'flood' – and brought agricultural-sustaining nutrients to the delta for thousands of years.

This process was stopped by the Aswan Dam which became operational in 1970. While Egypt still had control of the water flow, the famously fertile delta region would for the first time in history have to start utilising fertilisers in order to get its crops to grow. Soil has also become more salinised and the restriction of sediment flowing to the Mediterranean has led to the shrinking of the delta. The dam brought electricity but it has also generated significant problems – a point few seem to understand when speaking of dams as a means of renewable energy.

But now both Egypt and Sudan are shaken by the threat of the GERD – the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam in which Addis Ababa has decided to place a large dam on the Blue Nile – which again is the main water source for the Nile. This will affect and restrict the water flowing into both Sudan and Egypt – and the latter nation is particularly alarmed. The filling process will by definition restrict water flow but subsequent to this there are concerns with regard to water supply and even Egypt's security and ability to produce electricity as they will be somewhat beholden to whatever government controls the dam and its outflow.

This has led to growing tensions within the region. All three nations are generally speaking allies of the United States. Egypt's al-Sisi came to power in 2014 after Mohammed Morsi was ousted in a coup. Under his leadership the alliance with Washington has been largely restored.

Sudan which for many years was in a largely hostile relationship vis-à-vis Washington has undergone a radical transformation. In 2019 Omar al-Bashir was overthrown and the new transitional government is currently led by Western-connected Abdalla Hamdok. He has cozied up to the United States – the events being a major geopolitical coup and victory for Washington. Sudan had for years been the regional pariah and Bashir vied with Washington in the region's proxy wars. A functional ally of China, he saw his country partitioned with the US-sponsored creation of South Sudan – a project which has fallen on hard times with a continued low-grade civil conflict.

Ethiopia has gone back and forth in terms of its relationship with Washington. Under the Derg, Ethiopia was the target of US enmity in the 1980's but in the 2000's Addis Ababa became a US ally and regional proxy especially with regard to the ongoing war in Somalia. The new Abiy government has shaken up the region as he has worked to pacify regional conflicts and boost Ethiopia's standing in the world. While a friend to the markets, some of his moves have not entirely pleased Washington – and this is being signalled by American opposition to the GERD project and the threat of sanctions.

The US is in the perfect position to mediate this water struggle as all three nations are currently in good standing with Washington. But of course under Trump – the vacuum is palpable. Trumpian isolationism and unilateralism has resulted in opportunities for others who would assert themselves in the region.

But there are further considerations. Egypt is becoming increasingly entangled in the Libyan War and as Egypt begins to assert itself in that conflict, the logic of war demands that the forces opposing Egypt (such as Turkey and Italy who support the Tripoli government) will reach out to its enemies and make trouble for Cairo wherever they can. One obvious place to turn would be to Ethiopia. Indeed Turkey has been reaching out to Addis Ababa requesting the nation close its Fethullah Gülen-related schools. If Abiy concedes to this point it will send a signal both to Turkey and to Washington – the one of friendship, the other of mild antagonism.

Erdogan under the auspices of his now renewed Neo-Ottomanism has also moved to establish closer ties with Somalia but he must be careful as to not antagonise Ethiopia and Kenya – nations he would like to befriend. The move in Somalia is directed more against the United States and its attempts to control the Horn of Africa.

And while the EU (and in particular France) is opposed to Turkey, it is noteworthy that Paris has also reached out to Addis Ababa. With the recent Eritrean peace deal Ethiopia stands ready to gain its historical access to the sea – something it lost in the 1990's. France is maneuvering to play a role in the establishment of an Ethiopian Navy even while its EU-rival Italy has contracted to build the Renaissance-Nile Dam.

While the Nile Conflict is nascent at best – it's a warning. Tensions are growing in the Mediterranean and as geopolitics are interlinked it's not hard to imagine how one conflict could quickly (in domino fashion) affect another. The flashpoint is Libya but there are larger regional implications stretching from North Africa to the Aegean, from the Levant to the Horn of Africa and beyond.

And of course it also must be remembered there are other forces in play. There are the various shadowy Islamist groups such as ISIS and al Qaeda who for all their nihilism and self-serving interest have been repeatedly manipulated and used by other forces including NATO. China, still a regional economic power has suffered some setbacks and yet its 2017 construction of a naval base in Djibouti signals that Xi has invested himself in the region – and you can be sure Beijing is watching and waiting for opportunities to capitalise on chaos and form new friendships. The Horn of Africa is one of the most important shipping choke points on the globe and as the growing Mediterranean conflict also touches on the question of shipping – the two are not unrelated.

Moscow continues to involve itself in the region's geopolitics. As the West has effectively declared a new Cold War on Russia, Putin is aggressively seeking to strengthen Russia's hand and as much as possible keep the West busy elsewhere – deflecting the conflict away from his borders. In many respects Putin's agenda in recent years has become something of a self-fulfilling prophecy – the re-created enemy some in the West wanted. Western hostility and aggression toward his non-liberal regime has driven him to become more active and to seek to expand Russian influence – something you didn't really see in the first fifteen years of his rule.

The situation is complicated and uncertain and yet it bears watching. The world is volatile right now and as the tension-factors increase it becomes that much easier for a chain reaction to begin. As Christians we needn't fear, as this is but part of the struggle of Beasts, the wars and rumours of wars we're told to expect.

But then factor in the growing influence of Dominion Theology and in other cases the Dispensational Eschatology which also continues to drive some within the US foreign policy sphere. Ethiopian president Abiy Ahmed is a devout Pentecostal Christian and this now globally dominant movement is increasingly affected and shaped by the theology of Dominion. In other words for men like Abiy their politics are in no small part influenced by their understanding of the Kingdom and how it manifests itself on the Earth. This provides a potentially dangerous ideological sub-structure to their thought and certainly opens them up to influence – especially from the United States which is the very heartbeat of the larger and increasingly ascendant theological movement.