Maritime Muscle: Cairo and Riyadh Stage Massive Drill as Addis Ababa Sounds Alarm.
A major Red Sea naval exercise involving Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and key regional partners has sparked unease in Ethiopia, which views the growing maritime alliance as a potential threat to its long-term security and access to sea routes.
The exercise — known as Red Wave 8 — began this week in Saudi Arabia and brings together naval forces from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Sudan, Yemen, and Djibouti, the Egyptian military announced Tuesday.
The multi-day drills include simulations of asymmetric maritime threats, coordinated mission planning, and exercises aimed at improving interoperability among participating fleets.
Egypt said the operation is designed to strengthen coordination and enhance readiness among states bordering the Red Sea — one of the world’s most critical maritime corridors, linking the Suez Canal to the Indian Ocean and facilitating much of the trade between Asia, the Middle East, and Europe.
The participating countries are all members of a Red Sea alliance launched by Cairo and Riyadh in 2019.
The bloc, later joined by Eritrea, Sudan, Somalia, Djibouti, Jordan, and Yemen, aims to institutionalize regional maritime cooperation amid intensifying global competition along the Red Sea.
Djibouti, where the United States, China, France, and Japan each maintain military bases, has become a focal point of that rivalry.
India and Russia have also sought greater engagement in the Horn of Africa, while Turkey, Iran, and the Gulf states have deepened their defense and trade links with coastal governments.
Analysts say the Red Sea is increasingly crowded with competing military and intelligence interests, making stability there critical for global shipping and energy flows.
Ethiopia, which has no coastline but considers maritime access essential to its sovereignty and economy, has grown wary of the new alliance.
Ambassador Dina Mufti, a member of Ethiopia’s parliamentary foreign affairs committee, told the BBC that Egypt’s leadership of the bloc “is intended to isolate Addis Ababa diplomatically and economically.” She described Cairo as the dominant force in the grouping after Saudi Arabia.
Mufti’s comments reflect Ethiopia’s broader anxiety that regional naval cooperation could consolidate around states with shared security interests — excluding Addis Ababa at a time when it is seeking new port access through deals with Somaliland and Eritrea.
She did not specify what steps Ethiopia might take, but said the country “will push back diplomatically against efforts to sideline it.”
The Red Wave exercises underscore how Egypt and Saudi Arabia are leveraging defense diplomacy to shape the Red Sea’s evolving security order.
Landlocked Ethiopia finds itself on the periphery of a maritime competition that could redefine the balance of power along one of the world’s most vital waterways.
