WI: USSR supports Somalia over Ethiopia in Ogaden War

The Ogaden War was two Soviet-aligned states fighting each other, and as such the USSR decided to pick a size. They went with Ethiopia over Somalia, causing Somalia to cut off all ties with the USSR and become US-aligned.

But let's say that the USSR decides to with Somalia. What happens next?
 
It would be weird for the Soviets to decide to back Siad after what was direct insubordination on the part of a client-state when Barre and his clique of generals refused a Soviet-brokered ceasefire and negotiated turnover of the Ogaden, but they don't even have to actively fight in the region. Even a situation where the Soviets throw up their hands and let their two allies fight out their grudge match would mean Somali tanks rolling into Addis Ababa. There's little way around it; the US wouldn't commit to troop deployments, the Ethiopian Army was torn apart in under five months of fighting, and the Somali Air Force had control of the skies from Hargiesa to Gambéla.

Now, other than breaking Ethiopia over his knee and ending it as a threat to Somalia once-and-for-all, I'm not sure what his plans were post-victory. Probably the Balkanization of Ethiopia into its ethnic regions with Oromia, Eritrea, etc. getting their own countries.
 
GoulashComrade is right - OTL, the only thing that saved Ethiopia from the Somalis was massive material support from the Warsaw Pact as well as troops from Cuba and South Yemen (and 1,500 "advisors from the Soviet Union) which came in to assist the Ethiopians with training and whatnot. If the members of the Warsaw Pact opt to instead support Somalia, then the Ogaden is going to be annexed by Somalia into a Greater Somalia which may or may not include Djibouti. Ethiopia will most likely balkanize as ethnic-based political parties seize control in different provinces and declare them independent as Mengistu is most likely overthrown along with the rest of the Derg leadership - the TPLF might seize power in Addis Ababa (similar to OTL) and what remains of Ethiopia are the Tigrean-Amharic northern, western and central provinces whereas the southern provinces dominated by the Oromos and Somalis become independent. Eritrea will become independent as Ethiopia collapses but it might suffer its own civil war, between the ELF and the EPLF - the Eritreans might even annex Tigray but this is unlikely.

If the Warsaw Pact opts to simply stay neutral, the Somalis will win eventually as they possess superior firepower and a better army whereas Ethiopia has numerical superiority but her people are going to launch a coup against the communist Derg and perhaps even call for a restoration of the Ethiopian Empire. Considering the US and a handful of western nations had just pulled out of Vietnam, there's not going to be any support but the Ethiopian rump state may drift back into the United States/Western sphere of influence.
 
Even a situation where the Soviets throw up their hands and let their two allies fight out their grudge match would mean Somali tanks rolling into Addis Ababa. There's little way around it; the US wouldn't commit to troop deployments, the Ethiopian Army was torn apart in under five months of fighting, and the Somali Air Force had control of the skies from Hargiesa to Gambéla.

Did the Somalis really have the logistics to project that much force to Addis Ababa? My understanding is logistics problems were a big part of why the offensive started to bog down - a bigger factor than Soviet aid and advisers starting to arrive in Ethiopia even.

But let's say that the USSR decides to with Somalia. What happens next?

From my own limited knowledge (which is very limited on the African end of this) is that the Soviets would be extremely unlikely to back Somalia. Remember, the Soviets were worried about the US and its allies trying to pick apart their own territorial integrity, especially in the Baltic states, where the US did not recognize the Soviet occupation. Also, they were still clashing with the Chinese over Soviet-held land the Chinese wanted along the border in Siberia. So for them to sanction Somalia annexing land from Ethiopia is setting a precedent that someone else could invade and annex their land.

So about the best the Somalis can expect from the USSR is for the Soviets to not get involved and eventually to accept some sort of plebiscite in Ogaden that created a Somali-aligned satellite state in the area or something like that.

Maybe the only exception is if the Ethiopians negotiate some sort of deal with Somalia and then break it in some way that pisses the Soviets off enough to back a Somali effort to create a new state in Ogaden.

fasquardon
 
Did the Somalis really have the logistics to project that much force to Addis Ababa? My understanding is logistics problems were a big part of why the offensive started to bog down - a bigger factor than Soviet aid and advisers starting to arrive in Ethiopia even.

This is true, mostly because Siad canned many talented generals (honestly many of the successes of the Somali Army came when commanders ignored orders from Mogadishu) and the flow of fuel shipped in through South Yemen was cut off. Despite this, though, even with their mechanized forces having to ration their fuel the Somali Army was making shocking progress. It wouldn't be much of an exaggeration to say that the Ethiopian Army had collapsed - Mengistu was a bad commander-in-chief as well as a bad human being - and the reason for my dire predictions for Ethiopia is more based on their non-presence as a fighting force than the logistical state of Somalia's army.
 
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Again, GoulashComrade is right.

Ethiopia isn’t going to win the Ogaden War or even retain some parts of it if the Warsaw Pact remains neutral or if it decides that Somalia must be supported over Ethiopia.
 
The Ogaden War was two Soviet-aligned states fighting each other, and as such the USSR decided to pick a size. They went with Ethiopia over Somalia, causing Somalia to cut off all ties with the USSR and become US-aligned.

But let's say that the USSR decides to with Somalia. What happens next?
The USSR has just alienated the entire African Union. Great job. I am sure we will hearing the partying in Washington all the way over in Moscow.
 
The USSR has just alienated the entire African Union. Great job. I am sure we will hearing the partying in Washington all the way over in Moscow.

The USSR supporting the Derg (who were pretty clearly not communists) and helping Ethiopia fight the fairly popular Somalia really upset their fellow socialist regimes. So for sure, intervening in favour of Somalia weakens their own territorial integrity and makes them unpopular with the AU, but relationships with other Socialist states, especially China and Romania, would be improved. (For both China and Romania, helping Said Barre was partly an opportunity to score nationalistic points by supporting the side fighting the Soviets, but I think a bigger motive was genuine distaste for Moscow behaving like counter-revolutionary thugs and putting their money where their mouth was.)

So while getting involved on the Somali side is a bad idea, it's not necessarily that much worse than getting involved on the Ethiopian side.

This is true, mostly because Siad canned many talented generals (honestly many of the successes of the Somali Army came when commanders ignored orders from Mogadishu) and the flow of fuel shipped in through South Yemen was cut off. Despite this, though, even with their mechanized forces having to ration their fuel the Somali Army was making shocking progress. It wouldn't be much of an exaggeration to say that the Ethiopian Army had collapsed - Mengistu was a bad commander-in-chief as well as a bad human being - and the reason for my dire predictions for Ethiopia is more based on their non-presence as a fighting force than the logistical state of Somalia's army.

Why was the flow of fuel cut off? Because the Soviets told South Yemen to cut Barre off?

I gotta say, it would be fun if Said Barre reached Addis Abbaba and helped the Ethiopian's People's Revolutionary Party and/or the All-Ethiopia Socialist Movement into power, successfully dressing his invasion as "spreading the true revolution and liberating the workers and the peasants from fascist oppressors".

I once toyed around with something like that in a TL, along with Somalia successfully convincing the leftist and nationalist enemies of the Derg to join a "horn of Africa federation". No idea if the Somalis could work with the Ethiopian anti-Derg factions so productively though.

fasquardon
 
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