Modern Eritrea V. Modern Ethopia, who would win?

Let's assume that the 2012 border clashes escalate and Eritrea declares war on Ethopia. The PoD isn't very important, but what would the war be like? Who would win? How long would it it take? Who would other counties support? What would this mean for Somalia?
 
Most def a stalemate. Ethiopia doesn't have the weapons good enough to retake Eritrea, and Eritrea has too small manpower to gather from - along with being shit poor.
 
If Eritrea did something incredibly stupid that caused the international community not to do anything + pissed off your average Ethiopian then given enough time the Ethiopians can break through. But it's likely to end up in a bloody stalemate, provided no one major gets onvolved soon, that ends with Ethiopia being forced to throw in the towel and/or revolution in Eritrea.
 
Eritrea is one of the most heavily militarized nations in the world. The ruling group is also pretty high on nationalistic frenzy (and has been about since before the country even existed) although this does not seem to alleviate the feelings of the average Eritreans, who are voting with their feet trying the risky way out of the place by the thousands, not rarely dying in the process.
Ethiopia is also a fairly repressive place, and it has plenty of internal fixtures awaiting to emerge (or re-emerge). Economic growth helps sweeping a lot of issues under the rug, but there is discontent.
A war in 2012 would be a nasty mess.
My understanding is that the Ethiopian military is both better and larger than Eritrea's, but Eritrea has some advanteges. Unlike Ethiopia, it has the luxury to focus exclusively on preparing a fight with the Ethiopians (one could say that the whole point of there being an Eritrea in the first place is to piss off Ethiopia anyway) and doing it. The government has an ability to mobilize the scarce national resource solely for war with Ethiopia that has probably few parallels anywhere after the Soviet Union around 1944.
There are probably large sections of Eritrean society that would dislike the government if even remotely allowed to do so, but I am under the impression that even there many would dislike Ethiopia more. So, war with Ethiopia is hardly a good way to bring to light the inherent flaws of the Eritrean system, while it may help catalyzing discontent in the relatively less subdued Ethiopian homefront.
Somalia would be thoroughly ignored by Eritrea is fighting broke out on the frontier. Ethiopia would also likely backpedal on its commitments there, probably making Kenya even more involved.
 
It would also cause a nasty refugee crisis... primarily to Yemen and Sudan, neither a good place to be a refugee to (both are actually net exporters of those).
Repercussions on Yemen are hard to predict, but unlikely to make things any better there.
Sudan has been home to Eritrean refugee camps for decades, so it might manage marginally better.
We are taking of countries on the edge (if not beyond it, like Somalia), all of them in the Horn and whereabouts. Ethiopia is probably the better off one right now, but that's hardly high bar.
 
Ethiopia wouldn't exactly wipe the floor with Eritrea, but it could definitely beat Eritrea in a limited war, as it did in 2000.

In a total war Ethiopia would simply outlast Eritrea; though the fighting would be very brutal it would also likely take place mostly on Eritrean soil.

Eritrea could put up a hell of a fight if it needs to, but Ethiopia is just too big to defeat. I don't think Ethiopia would ever be insane enough to try and reconquer Eritrea, but if they did I think that Eritrea could make the losses too much to bear.

Other than that, Ethiopia wins 9 times out of 10.
 
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