Terrorism, A Security Threat To The Horn Of Africa: A Case Study On Ethiopia

Security in the earlier times was defined either from Realist or Neoliberal theoriesperspective. Military might the nation has or the cooperation level and institutionalization amongstates was the big deal. But these days neither the realist theory pillar concepts (self help, statism,and survival) nor the neoliberal pragmatic approaches look to secure peace. The nontraditionalsecurity (NTS) where non state actors play a great role has been increasingly challenging to states.In this regard, terrorism takes the lead because conventional war and institutionalism did not helpthe world to solve security problems. That is why the horn of Africa in general and Ethiopia inparticular has been suffering from security threats of terrorism.There could be questions if terrorism is a real threat to the Horn and Ethiopia, and if so,why Ethiopia-a country which is victorious in other battles with invaders-remained unable to defeatterrorism. My analysis of the data from1991to2012reveals that on average there were fourterrorist incidents in Ethiopia resulting in forty three fatalities and thirty eight injuries every year.That clearly indicates terrorism has been a real security threat to Ethiopia and the country hasfailed to defeat its security challenge, terrorism. Moreover, there are indicators that domesticterrorism is potentially a security threat, giving opportunities to the international terrorists to carryon their distractive missions via their networks.Why did Ethiopia fail to defeat terrorism? I argue it is because the country did not followthe right approach to combat terrorism. On top of cooperating with global and regional players,Ethiopia has to employ domestic mobilization approach together with materializing equitableEconomic progress, checking foreign religious teachers in the country, maximizing the peace withits neighbors, and increasing its role in IGAD. This disenables terrorist operations for it deniesthem a hide in the society. Rather than the realist and neoliberal theories, social constructivistapproach is better applicable to fight terrorism. In this regard, Ethiopia can learn from China’sexperience of Pseudo Military Organization, formally known as the Xinjiang Production andConstruction Corps (XPCC), and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).