The Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF) (Amharic: የኢፌዲሪ መከላከያ ሠራዊት, romanized: Ye'īfēdērī mekelakeya šerawīt, lit.

Leontiev formed the first regular battalion, the kernel of which became the company of volunteers from the former Senegal shooters, which he chose and invited from Western Africa, with the training of the Russian and French officers.

Russian military experts advising Menelik II suggested trying to achieve full battle collision with Italians, to neutralize the superior firepower of their opponent and potentially nullify their problems with arms, training, and organization, rather than engaging in a campaign of harassment.

During the Scramble for Africa, Ethiopia remained the only nation that had not been colonized by European colonial powers, due in part to their defeat of Italy in the First Italo-Ethiopian War.

For every Abyssinian, war is normal business, and military skills and rules of army life in the field enter in the flesh and blood of each of them, just as do the main principles of tactics.

On the march, each soldier knows how to arrange necessary comforts for himself and to conserve his strength; but on the other hand, when necessary, he shows such endurance and is capable of action in conditions which are difficult even to imagine.

"[15]In obedience to the agreement with Russia and the order of Menelik II, First Ethiopian officers began to be trained at the First Russian cadet school in 1901.

After the Italians had been driven from the country, a British Military Mission to Ethiopia (BMME), under Major General Stephen Butler, was established to reorganize the Ethiopian Army.

[18] The Anglo-Ethiopian Agreement of 1944 removed the BMME from the jurisdiction of East Africa Command at Nairobi and made it responsible to the Ethiopian Minister of War.

[20] In keeping with the principle of collective security, for which Haile Selassie was an outspoken proponent, Ethiopia sent a contingent under General Mulugeta Buli, known as the Kagnew Battalion, to take part in the Korean War.

Balambaras Abebe Aregai was one of the noted patriotic resistance leaders of Shoa (central Ethiopia) that rose to preeminence in the post-liberation period.

The US Army Handbook for Ethiopia notes that each service was provided with training and equipped from different foreign countries "to assure reliability and retention of power.

However, over the following month's radicals in the Ethiopian military came to believe he was acting on behalf of the hated aristocracy, and when a group of notables petitioned for the release of several government ministers and officials who were under arrest for corruption and other crimes, three days later the Derg was announced.

[34] The Derg, which originally consisted of soldiers at the capital, broadened its membership by including representatives from the 40 units of the Ethiopian Army, Air Force, Navy, Kebur Zabagna (Imperial Guard), Territorial Army and Police: each unit was expected to send three representatives, who were supposed to be privates, NCOs, and junior officers up to the rank of major.

In July 1974 the Derg obtained key concessions from the Emperor, Haile Selassie, which included the power to arrest not only military officers but government officials at every level.

Soon both former Prime Ministers Tsehafi Taezaz Aklilu Habte-Wold, and Endelkachew Makonnen, along with most of their cabinets, most regional governors, many senior military officers, and officials of the Imperial court found themselves imprisoned.

[41] By the beginning of 1981 recruitment for the 21st and 22nd Mountain Infantry Divisions was underway; soon afterward, preparations for the large Operation Red Star were stepping up.

The mechanized forces of the army comprised 1,200 T-54/55, 100 T-62 tanks, and 1,100 armored personnel carriers (APCs), but readiness was estimated to be only about 30 percent operational, because of the withdrawal of financial support, lack of maintenance expertise and parts from the Soviet Union, Cuba, and other nations.

[54] Approximately 50,000 to 60,000 ENDF troops backed by tanks, helicopter gunships and jets were involved in the military offensive against the Islamic Courts Union during December 2006.

[55][56][57] Colonel Gabre Heard, a senior ENDF officer and Tigrayan Peoples Liberation Front (TPLF) official, was commander-in-chief of Ethiopian troops during the invasion.

[63] Human Rights Watch reported that the Ethiopian army extensively utilized BM-21 Grad rocket shelling to bombard densely populated Mogadishu neighborhoods.

[64] The ENDF characterized the violence in this period as being part of a 'final push' against the rebels,[65] but the fierce fighting in Mogadishu during the first half of 2007 failed to quell the growing insurgency.

[66] Urban warfare in Mogadishu proved to be especially difficult for the ENDF and caused heavy losses,[67] which had reached unsustainable levels by the end of 2007.

These mere accusations include rape and other gender based violence, as well as extrajudicial killings in Hagere Selam, Hitsats, Humera, Debre Abbay, and other areas where the conflict is ongoing.

The prime minister of Ethiopia, Abiy Ahmed, has publicly acknowledged the possibility of war crimes taking place within the Tigray Region.

Abiy did not however link these actions to the Ethiopian military, and instead cited such reports were likely "propaganda of exaggeration" by the Tigray People's Liberation Front, currently opposing federal forces in the northern region.

[81] The Italian weekly magazine Panorama published a graphic video in which Amharic-speaking ENDF soldiers killed a group of 9 people in Humera in August 2021 and then put their bodies on fire.

In June 2018, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed called for the eventual reconstitution of the Ethiopian Navy as part of a wider program of security sector reforms, saying that "we should build our naval force capacity in the future".

[95] In March 2019, Abiy Ahmed signed defense accords with France's Emmanuel Macron, including on support in establishing a naval component.

[103] In November 2007, nearly 1,800 Ethiopian troops serving with the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) were presented with UN Peacekeeping medals for their "invaluable contribution to the peace process.