The Horn of Africa has once again emerged as a fulcrum of intense regional and international competition. What appears, on the surface, as a series of discrete developments—Israel’s recognition of Somaliland, reports of Egypt’s expanding port footprint in Eritrea and Djibouti, renewed diplomatic manoeuvring around the Red Sea—are in fact deeply interconnected. Together, they signal a reconfiguration of power in one of the world’s most strategically sensitive regions. For Ethiopia, the demographic, economic, and geopolitical centre of the Horn, these shifts present both profound risks and unavoidable choices.
1. The Strategic Re-Centralisation of the Horn
Geography has long relegated the Horn of Africa to a state of strategic irrelevance. Sitting astride the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, the region links the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean, serving as a gateway between Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. What is new today is not the interest of external powers, but the density and simultaneity of competing agendas.
Egypt seeks to project influence eastward to counter Ethiopia’s rise and to secure leverage over the Nile question by surrounding Addis Ababa with strategic pressure points.
Israel, facing regional isolation and post-Gaza geopolitical recalibration, is diversifying its Red Sea and African partnerships.
Gulf states and global powers continue to treat ports, bases, and corridors as instruments of influence rather than development.
The Horn is no longer a peripheral theatre; it is becoming a frontline arena of 21st-century geopolitical contestation.
2. Israel–Somaliland Recognition: Sovereignty or Instrumentalisation?
Israel’s recognition of Somaliland marks a diplomatic breakthrough for Hargeisa, but it also raises uncomfortable questions. Recognition is not neutral; it is always political, conditional, and strategic.
For Somaliland, decades of unrecognised statehood created incentives to accept recognition from any willing partner. Yet the reported narratives—whether accurate or exaggerated—about potential population transfers or the use of Somaliland as a geopolitical bargaining chip expose the structural vulnerability of small, recognition-seeking entities. When recognition becomes transactional rather than principled, sovereignty risks becoming instrumentalised.
Even if claims about resettling Gazans prove unfounded or speculative, their plausibility in public discourse alone reflects a deeper problem: the Horn is increasingly viewed by external actors as a space for offloading crises, rather than a region with its own political dignity and social limits.
3. Egypt’s Port Diplomacy: Containment by Other Means
Egypt’s reported involvement in Eritrean and Djiboutian port development aligns with a long-standing strategic logic: containing Ethiopia without direct confrontation. Unable to halt Ethiopia’s internal development or the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam through legal or diplomatic means, Cairo appears to be pursuing a strategy of encirclement—securing maritime and logistical nodes that can be leveraged politically, economically, or militarily.
This approach is destabilising for three reasons:
It militarises economic infrastructure, turning ports into instruments of rivalry.
It entrenches zero-sum thinking in a region already fractured by mistrust.
It incentivises smaller states to rent out sovereignty for short-term gains.
Rather than fostering regional integration, port diplomacy risks locking the Horn into a permanent posture of suspicion and proxy competition.
4. Ethiopia: The Unavoidable Centre
Ethiopia sits at the heart of these dynamics not by ambition alone, but by structural reality. With over 120 million people, a rapidly growing economy, and no direct access to the sea, Ethiopia’s choices have a profound impact on the region.
The challenge for Addis Ababa is threefold:
Avoid securitising its maritime aspirations in ways that alarm neighbours.
Resist encirclement without triggering escalation.
Reassert a principled regional vision rooted in mutual benefit rather than coercion.
Ethiopia’s pursuit of sea access—whether through Somaliland, Djibouti, or other arrangements—must be grounded in international law, consent, and economic logic, rather than nationalist rhetoric. Otherwise, legitimate needs risk being framed as expansionist threats, feeding precisely the coalitions Ethiopia seeks to neutralise.
5. The Moral Cost of Great-Power Games
Perhaps the most troubling aspect of the current moment is the erosion of ethical restraint. When fragile regions are treated as bargaining chips for unrelated conflicts, local populations bear costs they did not choose. The Horn has already suffered decades of war, displacement, and underdevelopment. Turning it into a geopolitical dumping ground—for rivalries imported from the Middle East or beyond—deepens historical injustice.
Recognition, ports, and alliances should enhance peace and prosperity. When they instead amplify division, demographic anxiety, and militarisation, they signal not progress, but failure of imagination.
Conclusion: Between Agency and Exposure
The Horn of Africa stands at a crossroads between agency and exposure today. External powers see opportunity; regional actors see survival. Whether the region becomes a corridor of cooperation or a chessboard of rivalries depends mainly on how its key states—especially Ethiopia—navigate this moment.
The path forward demands:
Strategic patience over reactive nationalism
Regional frameworks over bilateral brinkmanship
Developmental integration over securitised infrastructure
What is unfolding is not merely a reshuffling of alliances, but a test of whether the Horn can finally escape its historical role as an object of other people’s strategies and emerge as a subject of its own destiny. The new year opens with uncertainty—but also with the stark clarity that missteps now will echo for decades.
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