From Siege to Strategy: Alliances, Necessity, and Political Ownership in Tigray

… the immediate path forward requires the weakening, dismantling, or even elimination of TPLF.
That conclusion is not strategic; it is reckless!

Tigray is navigating one of the most complex and consequential periods in its modern history today. Emerging from a devastating war marked by immense human suffering, loss of life, displacement, famine, and systemic destruction, the region remains under pressure, uncertainty, and strategic constraint. In such a context, political choices are neither abstract nor comfortable. They are shaped by necessity. It is therefore essential to move the conversation away from superficial judgments and toward a more grounded understanding of reality: how a people under siege transition into a position of strategic agency.

At the outset, one clarification is necessary. When we speak of “Tigrayans” in the context of political decision-making, strategy, and future direction, we are not referring to ethnicity in the abstract. We are referring to a political community rooted in Tigray as its homeland, for whom Tigray is not just an identity, but a lived reality, a territorial belonging, and an existential stake. The ownership of strategy does not arise from shared language or heritage alone; it arises from responsibility, consequence, and direct attachment to the land and its people.

There is a recurring question in certain media circles: “What does Tigray gain by aligning with Fano or Shabiya?” At face value, this may appear to be a legitimate inquiry. It is neither surprising nor particularly meaningful that such a question circulates within the propaganda spaces of Abiy’s government, its surrogates, and aligned factions. This reflection is not addressed to them. But it rests on a flawed premise, one that assumes political decisions are made in a vacuum, detached from pressure, risk, and survival. Tigray’s current situation must be understood for what it is: a transition from siege to strategy. Under conditions of siege, choices are rarely ideal. They are inconvenient, constrained, and often misunderstood. But they are also necessary. Strategic alliances, in this context, are not expressions of preference; they are instruments of survival, stabilization, and repositioning.

At the core of this discussion lies a fundamental principle: the right to determine Tigray’s political, strategic, and tactical direction belongs solely to Tigrayans. This includes decisions about alliances, whether temporary or strategic, with any actor. This is not about endorsing or rejecting specific alignments; it is about ownership of consequence. Tigrayans are the ones who have endured war, displacement, destruction, and ongoing insecurity. Therefore, those who bear the cost must define the strategy.

Clarity is necessary. No Tigrayan has forgotten the actions carried out by Shabiya, in coordination with Abiy Ahmed’s government and its surrogates, including the Fano militia. These events are not subject to reinterpretation. They are documented, remembered, and deeply embedded in the collective consciousness of the Tigrayan people. Accountability and justice remain inevitable. This is not negotiable, and it is not dependent on present political maneuvering. Every Tigrayan carries this responsibility, not only as memory, but as a commitment to ensure that future generations understand what occurred and why it must never be repeated.

It is therefore essential to draw a clear distinction: strategic engagement does not equal moral concession. The fact that Tigray may pursue tactical or strategic positioning in the present moment does not imply forgiveness, reconciliation, or abandonment of justice. It reflects a different reality: a people under pressure must act strategically to reduce threats, break isolation, and create space for recovery. This includes, where necessary, reducing the number of active adversaries, opening channels of engagement, and recalibrating relationships through pragmatic means. These are not ideological shifts; they are strategic maneuvers under constraint.

A further point must be stated with equal clarity. There are voices, including some Eritrean activists, who argue that the future of Tigrayans, whether in the North or the South, lies in the hands of the younger generation. On that narrow point, there is truth. The long-term future of the Tigrayan people must indeed be shaped by a new generation capable of imagining a political horizon beyond the traumas, rigidities, and inherited failures of the past and the present. But from that valid observation, some draw an absurd conclusion: that the immediate path forward requires the weakening, dismantling, or even elimination of TPLF. That conclusion is not strategic; it is reckless.

At this critical moment, the issue is not what political order one may ideally prefer in some future historical phase. The issue is who, in the present, carries the burden of Tigray’s survival, politically, institutionally, diplomatically, and militarily. Whether one likes it or not, that burden still rests primarily on TPLF and its broader constituents. This is not an argument for uncritical loyalty; it is an argument for political seriousness. One does not respond to a wounded people emerging from siege, displacement, economic suffocation, and unresolved occupation by calling for the immediate destruction of the very structure under whose shadow that people is still trying to survive. To do so is to confuse frustration with strategy, and desire with reality.

There is also a second point that many miss. Tigray’s present strategic orientation cannot be reduced to military calculations alone. One of the most important moves available to Tigray today is the deliberate strengthening of public, to, public relations , ጽምዶ , among the peoples of Tigray and Eritrea, Tigray and Amhara, Tigray and Afar, Tigray and Sudan, especially in the border areas. This is not a sentimental gesture; it is a strategic necessity. Such relations help reduce the number of active enemies surrounding Tigray, create corridors of coexistence and de-escalation, and sustain economic survival. People recovering from war cannot live by slogans. Trade, movement, local coexistence, and practical regional accommodation are not secondary matters; they are part of survival itself.

This is precisely why strategic alignment in the present moment must be read with discipline, not hysteria. Not every contact is a surrender. Not every tactical opening is betrayal. Not every maneuver is an ideological conversion. People under pressure must often move through uncomfortable terrain to secure breathing space, reduce threats, preserve institutions, restore sovereignty, return the displaced, and send children back to school. That is where the real argument lies. Those who speak loosely about dismantling TPLF without reckoning with the immediate consequences for Tigray are not offering a strategy; they are offering abstraction, and abstraction, in moments of national vulnerability, becomes its own form of irresponsibility.

What is increasingly concerning is not the existence of debate, but the posture of external prescription. When non-Tigrayan actors attempt to define what Tigray should or should not do, particularly in matters of survival, they move beyond commentary into assumed authority. This confusion is often reinforced by a blurred use of identity, where “we Tigrayans” is invoked without clarity on whether it refers to ethnicity or political belonging. Such ambiguity cannot serve as a basis for prescribing strategy. Political ownership cannot be derived from identity alone; it must be grounded in responsibility, consequence, and lived attachment to Tigray itself.

If Eritrean matters belong to Eritreans, then Tigrayan matters belong to Tigrayans, in the same precise sense. It is important to acknowledge that many in the Eritrean diaspora stood in solidarity with the people of Tigray during the war. That solidarity is recognized and appreciated. But clarity must accompany appreciation: solidarity does not translate into political entitlement, and support does not grant the authority to dictate. Respect for Tigray requires respect for its agency.

In the long term, the relationship between Tigrayans, both in Tigray and in Eritrea, may evolve toward rebuilding a shared social and political space. But that is a generational project, one that must emerge gradually and by consent, not prescription. The present task is different: to keep Tigray standing, to protect its people, to prevent further collapse, and to widen the strategic space from which a better future can be built. That work demands sobriety, not grandstanding.

For now, the priorities are clear and urgent: avoid further war where possible, restore sovereignty and stability, return displaced populations to their homes, rebuild communities and institutions, and ensure children return to education. Achieving these goals requires careful, disciplined strategy, not external instruction. The question is not whether alliances are comfortable; they are not. The question is whether they are necessary. And that determination belongs to Tigrayans, those whose home, responsibility, and future are rooted in Tigray itself. No external actor has the mandate to define Tigray’s path. Because in the end, Tigrayans carry the memory, Tigrayans bear the consequences, and therefore, Tigrayans must define the strategy. From siege to strategy, from survival to agency, the decision remains ours.