Interview With 77 Veteran And Former SNA Chief General Indhaqarshe On The 1977 War With Ethiopia
- Thread starter IKHALIIL
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The war was a insane decision. Ethiopia had 6x the population and was in the Soviet Sphere, it's not like the Americans were funding us. There was literally no way to win.
The upper echelon were total clowns, and shows the limit of strongman rule. Somalia needed something like a Guided Democracy where dictators allow for relatively free elections at lower levels was. Indonesia under Suharto, Pakistan under Ayub Khan, Nepal under the Panchayat system, etc.
I don't think we go to war in 77 if we weren't a 1 man show.
The upper echelon were total clowns, and shows the limit of strongman rule. Somalia needed something like a Guided Democracy where dictators allow for relatively free elections at lower levels was. Indonesia under Suharto, Pakistan under Ayub Khan, Nepal under the Panchayat system, etc.
I don't think we go to war in 77 if we weren't a 1 man show.
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Ethiopia was in midst of brutal civil war. He made calculation that Russia wouldn’t care enough to intervene and if they did America would back Somalia to even odds like they did in Korea’s when it was USA vs China and Soviet proxy. Still was hella of gamble. hard to imagine 18k Cubans 1k Russian and Yemenis fighting in Ogaden what value does that land hold to them not like it’s resource rich, strange times Cold War as same can be said about Vietnam and Afghanistan . At least Russia did stop the war once we were defeated as Ethiopians wanted to use them to take Somalia. This whole fiasco did help Eritrea though who were even smalller than Somalia and even Somali region gain freedoms
The problem was that the Soviets called our bluff. People forget, but they only increased their aid to Ethiopia and sent troops after Barre switched from the Soviets to the Americans. This was a huge mistake because our military relied on Soviet training, weapons, and equipment. When we made the switch, the flow of replacements stopped, and the U.S. was never going to send more than basic arms and ammunition. The Soviet Union and its allies boycotted us, except for China, which was still very poor back then.
The war itself wasn’t the issue; our officers were making good progress. We should have stayed close to the Soviets to stop them from escalating their support to Ethiopia. Instead, we could have prolonged the conflict, destabilized Ethiopia internally, and backed rebel groups.
In defence of Siad Barre (
) at the time no one, not even the US expected the scale of the Russian intervention. They believed it to be in violation of an easing in hostilities at the time. Siad Barre also misread some of the signals coming from the US as a tacit approval of his invasion and potential future military support.The Soviets were upset Siad Barre wasn't a good socialist and decided to invade his fellow socialist brothers. In reality, the Somali revolution was ethno-nationalist in character and not really socialist. They hoped in vain that Siad Barre would come to the table and negotiate after they supported Ethiopia and they could maintain relations with both (and Berbera) and freeze out the US. They were wrong too because Somali territories were non-negotiable to Barre and many Somalis.
Siad Barre's mistake wasn't in the initial invasion it was not knowing when he was beaten and negotiating. A theme that would be repeated later on with terrible consequences for the Somali state.
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Siad barre lost in matters of diplomacy militarily the SNA dominated the ethiopians in warfare the war was similar to that of germany vs soviets a small high quality army vs a large low quality army and the feats done by our army was pure military genius and strategy but siad and the kacaans had the underlying factor where they lost in diplomacy and didnt anticipate or have the necessary foresight to see the americans wouldnt support them due to hard core anti communist richard nixon and henry kissinger not being incumbent and instead the more laid back and pacifist gerald ford being in power where he reportedly stated about the war "How could I arm the killing of christians" something along those lines (If I find the quote I will post it here" anyways with little to none US support and the soviets switching sides and rallying the entire communist bloc we were forced to retreat and end the war and from there thats when our troubles began.
In the battle of harar we broke through 3 of the 4 gates and intense fighting happened at the 4th gate forcing mengitsu to send in paratrooper divisions when the garissom retreated and the remnants were corned JUST as yemeni, soviet and cuban support arrived and relieved the city I think. Honestly we shouldnt have been complacent and shelled the gates and employ more AA to gun down the paratroopers but I guess the generals on that front wanted to preserve the historic city and not damage its sacred walls
The war was always a risky gamble and we paid the price dearly for it. There was no guarentee that the Soviets would side with Somalia and no back up plan or assurance from America existed either. MSB really thought he could take the Ogaden and the USSR would stay neutral or support him. I really wonder though what drove the Soviets to give such huge amount of support. Was the SNA really beating them that badly or was there something else? Ethiopia didn't seem to be a reliable or useful ally to the Soviets during the 80s so I'm just left wondering.
Milestones in the History of U.S. Foreign Relations - Office of the Historian
history.state.gov 3.0 shell
Bigger population.
Also had sea access through Eritrea at the time.
Went on to build biggest army in Sub-saharan Africa.
I like what HSM is doing here.
They were humiliated by Egypt signing camp David and Sudan expelling them and they wanted to appear tough so that any other country would get scared before switching sides.
Bad luck all around it seems with that and Jimmy Carter being president and being far less aggressive towards communism than Nixon and Reagan were.
