Addis Abeba — The Horn of Africa presents a striking paradox for scholars and policymakers: it is simultaneously one of the world’s most fragile regions and one of its most strategically indispensable. Politically, the region is characterized by recurrent instability, from the security crisis in Somalia to recurrent coups and authoritarian reversals in Sudan. Chronic humanitarian crises, recurring famine, and weakened governance institutions reinforce the Horn’s reputation as a textbook case of fragility.
Despite this instability, the Horn of Africa occupies a critical geopolitical position. Overlooking the Bab el-Mandeb Strait–which links the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden, and the wider Indian Ocean–the region serves as a vital artery for global commerce. Nearly one-tenth of global maritime trade, including energy shipments from the Persian Gulf to Europe and North America, passes through these waters. The Horn is therefore a frontline of global energy security and a chokepoint in maritime governance.
This duality, where fragility is combined with indispensability, has transformed the Horn from a peripheral concern into a central theater of multipolar competition. Western powers (the U.S.A., France, U.K., and Germany) and their allies (Japan, South Korea, Italy, and Spain) are competing for military footholds with China, Russia, the Gulf States (Saudi Arabia, the U.A.E., and Qatar), and Middle Eastern actors (Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and Israel).
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Djibouti is the most militarized country in the region, with at least eight foreign powers maintaining bases there, including the United States, France, China, Japan, Italy, Germany, Spain, Saudi Arabia, and the U.A.E. Eritrea also hosts Russian and Emirati facilities.
In Somalia, the Turkish “Camp TURKSOM” is one of Turkey’s largest military facilities abroad. Although not internationally recognized, Somaliland also hosts a U.A.E. base at Berbera. This heavy military presence reflects a convergence of regional and global power struggles, where international ambitions collide with local sovereignty and resource conflicts.
The following are key developments driving this transformation: the ongoing process of political recognition for Somaliland, Ethiopia’s drive to gain access to the sea, and the dispute over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD). While each is concerned with local contestations of sovereignty and natural resources, together they indicate a shift toward a new structural division of power in the Horn.
These developments are not isolated. They are interconnected in a way that both strengthens and undermines each other, as they become intertwined in a web of regional and global interactions concerning recognition, access, and resources.
This article examines the shifting strategic dynamics of the Horn of Africa. It traces Somaliland’s campaign for recognition from a marginal aspiration to a disruptive force in regional diplomacy, explores Ethiopia’s maritime ambitions in alignment with Somaliland’s leverage, and analyzes the GERD as both an energy project and a geopolitical instrument. It also situates the Horn within a multipolar framework, evaluates Ethiopia’s evolving “two waters” policy, and considers potential scenarios that may shape the region’s trajectory.
Somaliland’s recognition push
In the years since gaining independence in 1991, Somaliland has developed functional institutions and conducted a series of competitive elections, as well as enjoyed relative stability in comparison to southern Somalia. Still, the African Union (AU) and the international community in general believed in Uti possidetis juris and recognized colonial-era borders to be sacred and secession to be impermissible.
The change has not been a change in aspiration in Somaliland, but rather a change in the functionality of adding the recognition question to the strategic interest of other actors. Hargeisa has been strategic in positioning its sovereignty claim on great-power interests within the maritime security, counterterrorism, and supply-chain resilience dimensions. By posing as a democratic and stable state with a strategic location, Somaliland shifted recognition away from a normative question of self-determination to an instrumental demand of international security and trade. In the United States, this readjustment created real political muscle.
The introduction of the Somaliland Partnership Act of 2022 formalized the need to report on the activities of the U.S. and Somaliland engagement, which anchored the issue in bureaucratic statements. Although it never amounted to an official recognition, the Act effectively legitimized Somaliland within the latter system of American foreign policy. Parallel efforts–like that of Republican Scott Perry and his Republic of Somaliland Independence Act (2024)–went a step further, asking for legislative approval. These bills fell short of passing, but this kept the push to recognize recognition as a political issue. The wider American debate has even shown signals that recognition may be “on the horizon,” particularly under more favorable political alignments.
The implications of Somaliland’s recognition push reach well beyond Somalia’s contested borders. Recognition–or even its serious consideration–reshapes Ethiopia’s maritime ambitions, heightens Mogadishu-Addis Ababa tensions, recalibrates Gulf port strategies, and compels global powers to rethink Red Sea security. In effect, Somaliland has become a structural variable in the Horn’s geopolitical equation. Its campaign carries the potential to reorder alignments, redefine African sovereignty norms, and influence the strategic calculus of Washington, Beijing, Moscow, and Ankara. Whether or not recognition ultimately materializes, the very possibility ensures Somaliland’s continued centrality in regional diplomacy, underscoring that the Horn’s trajectory will be shaped not only by local actors but also by external powers with decisive influence.
Strategic symbiosis
Ethiopia is landlocked, which has been a characteristic structural constraint. Ethiopia, which broke away from Eritrea in 1993, has also depended on neighboring country Djibouti to supply more than 95 percent of all its external trade, which is done via sea. This reliance has had long-term expenses: bottlenecks at ports, overdependence on external stakeholders, and limited bargaining power. Thus, maritime access cannot be considered as an ancillary issue–it is central to the sovereignty and strategic autonomy of Ethiopia.
By positioning itself as both a hydroelectric hub and a maritime actor, Ethiopia integrates water and port politics into a unified strategy.”
On 01 January, 2024, a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between Ethiopia and Somaliland was signed as a first step in an attempt to convert this weakness into leverage. The agreement, reportedly, allows Ethiopia a 50-year lease on some 1920 km of Somaliland coastline at Berbera This MoU represents a significant step forward in Somaliland’s decades-long pursuit of international recognition. In the case of Ethiopia, it provided a deconcentration around Djibouti and a means to exert direct Red Sea presence (potentially, a naval infrastructure as well as a commercial infrastructure).
The agreement was controversial nonetheless. Somalia retaliated legally by rendering the convention legally inapplicable through calling upon uti possidetis juris by defending its integrity and challenging any diminution of its sovereignty. Already alarmed at the GERD dispute, Egypt denounced the deal as destabilizing to Red Sea geopolitics. UAE actors took a defensive position as they perceived Berbera as a natural addition to their port network. Saudi Arabia and Qatar were giving a tactical evaluation of the dangers of being involved in a sovereignty tussle. Turkey positioned itself as a mediator that, on one hand, supports Somalia’s sovereignty, and on the other hand, has direct ties with Ethiopia.
Analytically, it is the strategic symbiosis one can point to: on the one hand, Ethiopia turns geographic dependency into bargaining power, and on the other, Somaliland turns its political liminality into diplomatic recognition. In these transactional pragmatisms, the two actors are eroding the conventional multilateral frameworks and sovereignty principles.
The strategic connectivity between the maritime approach of Ethiopia and the recognition bid of Somaliland is dynamic and dependent upon recent cultural changes in the region. The emerging leadership in Somaliland has indicated that the MoU could be reviewed to reflect unison with national interests. In the meantime, technical discussions between Somalia and Ethiopia, facilitated by Turkey, took place early in 2025, which were aimed at protecting Somalia’s territorial integrity whilst alleviating bilateral tensions.
The result was the Ankara Declaration in December 2024, a formal attempt at reconciliation between Ethiopia and Somalia under which both countries agreed to work within Somali territorial confines, although the post-MoU is unclear. With reference to Ethiopia, the MoU with Somaliland shows how the combination of maritime access and international recognition is a strategic lever that cannot be separated. The geographic exigency is turned into diplomatic clout by changing Somaliland’s pursuit of autonomy to a faction of Latin regional realignment. The relationship between Ethiopia and sea access, between Somaliland and de facto status, and between the GERD and resource sovereignty, accordingly, constitute a triad that explains the structure of the Horn at this stage of the reordering.
Ethiopia’s hydro-political sovereignty
The GERD embodies Ethiopia’s most audacious effort to transform structural vulnerability into sovereign assertion. Initiated in 2011, the dam has a projected capacity of more than 5,100 megawatts, promising not only to meet domestic electricity needs but also to position Ethiopia as Africa’s largest energy exporter. Yet beyond its technical profile, the GERD carries profound geopolitical implications.
Historically, the Nile Basin has been governed by colonial-era treaties (1929, 1959) that granted Egypt extensive rights over Nile waters while marginalizing upstream states. Ethiopia, despite contributing approximately 85% of Nile flows, was excluded from meaningful decision-making. The GERD ruptures this asymmetry by asserting upstream control, effectively recalibrating decades of hydrological dependency.
Domestically, the GERD functions as a nationalist emblem. Financed in part through citizen bonds, it symbolizes collective resilience and modernity, mobilizing support across Ethiopia’s diverse polity. Internationally, it represents an assertion of hydro-political sovereignty, signaling Addis Ababa’s refusal to accept externally imposed constraints.
Cairo, however, perceives the GERD as an “existential threat” and has demanded legally binding guarantees on its operations. Sudan, situated between Ethiopia and Egypt, has fluctuated between supporting the dam–citing benefits such as electricity and flood regulation–and opposing it, reflecting the country’s volatile domestic politics. For its part, Ethiopia has pursued a strategy of “legal minimalism,” agreeing to consultations but resisting binding commitments, which reinforces its sovereign prerogatives.
Crucially, the GERD cannot be understood in isolation; it intersects directly with Ethiopia’s maritime ambitions. By positioning itself as both a hydroelectric hub and a maritime actor, Ethiopia integrates water and port politics into a unified strategy. Energy generated by the GERD can be exported through Red Sea corridors, linking hydro-political sovereignty to maritime agency. This dual assertion of power–over the Nile upstream and the Red Sea downstream–illustrates how Ethiopia seeks to convert structural constraints into strategic assets.
Together, the GERD and Ethiopia’s maritime pursuits exemplify a sophisticated strategy in which sovereignty, resources, and infrastructure intersect to redefine power and influence in the Horn of Africa. This provides a model for understanding the region’s evolving geopolitics under the pressures of multipolarity.
Three developments encapsulate this transformation: Somaliland’s international recognition campaign, Ethiopia’s pursuit of maritime access, and the contestation surrounding the GERD. The interplay among these dynamics reflects shifting regional alignments and underscores the structural reconfiguration of authority and legitimacy in the Horn of Africa.
….. the Horn illustrates how multipolarity manifests not as a binary confrontation but as a fluid interplay of competition and cooperation……”
Somaliland’s recognition campaign, in particular, has entered a decisive phase. Traditional multilateral mediation platforms, such as the Turkey-sponsored Ankara Process, have effectively collapsed, with the Ankara Declaration failing to establish a durable Somalia-Ethiopia framework. In contrast, Somaliland’s strategy of pursuing incremental bilateral recognition has yielded tangible outcomes. The MoU with Ethiopia represents a landmark achievement: it is both a breakthrough in Somaliland’s decades-long struggle for legitimacy and a strategic lever for Ethiopia’s maritime ambitions. The success of these quasi-recognition initiatives, even as multilateral tracks falter, illustrates how alternative pathways of recognition can recalibrate claims to statehood and influence regional dynamics.
Horn of Africa as multipolar laboratory
The Horn of Africa exemplifies how sovereignty, recognition, and resource politics intersect with global strategic interests. Somaliland’s recognition campaign, Ethiopia’s maritime ambitions, and the GERD dispute cannot be analyzed in isolation; they are mutually reinforcing dynamics shaped by internal agency and external pressures. Global power rivalries, Gulf state pragmatism, and regional defensive postures converge to transform the Horn into a multipolar chessboard. Local initiatives, from Berbera to the Blue Nile, reverberate across global strategic architectures, making the region a laboratory of 21st-century diplomacy where transactional pragmatism, strategic ambiguity, and bilateral maneuvering define outcomes.
The Horn’s strategic significance is further exemplified in Djibouti, where U.S. and Chinese bases exist within a few kilometers of one another, highlighting the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden as critical nodes in emerging Sino-American rivalry. Russia’s ambitions, Gulf investments, and Turkey’s influence amplify local dynamics, while Ethiopia leverages BRICS membership and transactional diplomacy to maximize strategic autonomy. The interplay of these factors demonstrates that local agency, regional tensions, and global power rivalries are inseparable, collectively shaping a Horn of Africa that is simultaneously a site of fragility and a theater of global strategic experimentation. Gulf State Engagement: Transactional Pragmatism
The United Arab Emirates has invested heavily in Berbera port, linking its commercial interests with Ethiopia‘s maritime needs and Somaliland’s recognition campaign. Abu Dhabi’s strategy is characteristically transactional, combining economic investment with security leverage. Saudi Arabia, while more cautious, views Red Sea stability through the lens of its rivalry with Iran and its guardianship of global energy flows. Qatar and Turkey, in contrast, align more closely with Mogadishu, offering financial aid and military training to reinforce Somalia’s sovereignty and counterbalance Emirati influence.
This fragmented Gulf engagement has entrenched competing alignments. Somaliland, Ethiopia, and the UAE form one axis centered on maritime access and recognition. Somalia, Qatar, and Turkey form a counter-axis grounded in sovereignty preservation. Egypt hovers over both, linking Red Sea control to Nile politics. Such overlapping alignments transform the Horn into a dense web of transactional diplomacy, where commercial investments double as instruments of strategic influence.
The involvement of great powers has also shifted. During the post-Cold War unipolar moment, the United States dominated Horn security through counterterrorism operations and humanitarian interventions. China’s entry, symbolized by its Djibouti base and Belt and Road Initiative infrastructure projects, signaled the onset of multipolarity. Russia, seeking to expand its global footprint, has cultivated naval access negotiations in Sudan and security partnerships with Horn actors.
The Horn thus functions as both a mirror and a laboratory of great-power competition. The proximity of American and Chinese bases in Djibouti encapsulates the global rivalry over maritime order. Yet unlike in other theaters, this rivalry coexists with overlapping cooperation in infrastructure and trade, reflecting the Horn’s pragmatic diplomacy. Local actors exploit this rivalry, extracting resources and recognition from external patrons while maintaining a degree of agency. In this sense, the Horn illustrates how multipolarity manifests not as a binary confrontation but as a fluid interplay of competition and cooperation, mediated by local sovereignty struggles.
Ethiopia’s “Two Waters” strategy
Ethiopia’s contemporary strategic posture can be conceptualized as a “two waters” strategy: the assertion of hydro-political sovereignty through the GERD on the Nile and the pursuit of maritime sovereignty through access to the Red Sea. Together, these imperatives embody a coherent strategic framework that seeks to transform structural vulnerabilities into instruments of regional power.
The GERD represents more than an energy project; it is a geopolitical declaration. By asserting unilateral control over Nile flows, Ethiopia redefines its relationship with downstream Egypt and Sudan, challenging decades of hydrological asymmetry. Its approach–characterized by legal minimalism, selective bilateralism, and resistance to binding commitments–embodies a distinct form of hydro-political sovereignty, projecting Ethiopia’s autonomy in the face of external pressure.
The dam also functions domestically as a nation-building project. In a polity marked by ethnic federalism and recurrent conflict, the GERD has been invoked as a symbol of unity, financed by popular contributions, and celebrated as a collective achievement. Thus, its significance operates simultaneously at the domestic, regional, and global levels.
Parallel to its Nile strategy, Ethiopia has pursued maritime emancipation. The 2024 MoU with Somaliland was a landmark, offering Berbera as a potential alternative to Djibouti. Maritime access is not only economic but existential: it secures trade autonomy, reduces dependency, and positions Ethiopia as an emerging actor in Red Sea geopolitics. Here, sovereignty becomes transactional. Ethiopia exchanges implicit recognition for Somaliland’s ports, while Somaliland leverages its liminality to attract diplomatic capital. This reciprocity demonstrates how geographic necessity can be converted into political currency.
The interdependence of Ethiopia’s hydro-political and maritime strategies is crucial. Hydraulic sovereignty provides bargaining capital for maritime negotiations, while maritime access enables the export of GERD-generated electricity, embedding Ethiopia within regional energy networks. Together, they constitute a dual sovereignty framework that projects Ethiopia as both a riverine and maritime power.
Symbolic gestures–such as inviting Somaliland’s leadership to GERD inaugurations–could fuse these strategies into a narrative of emancipation, linking Nile control and Red Sea access as twin pillars of sovereignty. In doing so, Ethiopia redefines its own vulnerabilities and reshapes the Horn of Africa’s regional order.
Toward new strategic geometry
The Horn of Africa is no longer defined by static alignments or frozen disputes. Instead, it is entering an era of strategic reconfiguration, where sovereignty, recognition, and survival are constantly renegotiated under the pressures of multipolarity. At the heart of this transformation lies Ethiopia’s evolving “two waters” policy: a dual strategy to consolidate upstream sovereignty through the GERD on the Nile and to secure downstream maritime access through Somaliland and other Red Sea actors. These imperatives, though analytically distinct, are intrinsically interdependent. They form the backbone of Ethiopia’s strategy to convert structural vulnerabilities–hydrological dependence and landlocked isolation–into sources of regional leverage.
The GERD embodies hydraulic sovereignty, signaling control over the Nile’s resources, while Red Sea access symbolizes geopolitical emancipation, reducing reliance on Djibouti and circumventing regional vetoes. Together, they reposition Addis Ababa from a reactive, structurally constrained actor into a proactive architect of regional order. Within this strategic lattice, Somaliland has emerged as a disruptive pivot. By converting its unrecognized status into strategic currency, Hargeisa challenges long-standing African sovereignty norms, compelling both regional and global actors to recalibrate their positions.
The 2024 Ethiopia-Somaliland MoU transcended a mere logistical arrangement over Berbera port; it constituted a political shockwave, demonstrating that recognition politics–once assumed dormant–can be reactivated as a bargaining instrument for both security and statehood. By linking Addis Ababa’s maritime ambitions with Mogadishu’s sovereignty anxieties and Cairo’s Red Sea doctrine, Somaliland entangles local recognition disputes within broader strategic rivalries, effectively becoming a linchpin of regional reordering. Superimposed on these local dynamics are the external overlays of great-power competition and Gulf transnationalism.
Ethiopia embodies proactive maneuvering, integrating Nile sovereignty with maritime diversification while courting Gulf capital and BRICS partnerships.”
The Horn represents one of the few theaters where U.S. and Chinese military bases directly confront each other across Djibouti, while Russia and Turkey probe for maritime influence, and Gulf states–UAE, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia–translate commercial port investments into security instruments. These external actors amplify the stakes of Ethiopia’s two-waters policy: the GERD is not only a Nile dispute but a test of Egyptian strategic autonomy within Gulf politics; Berbera is not merely a Somaliland port but a node in Emirati and Saudi maritime strategy; Djibouti is not only Ethiopia’s trade artery but a proxy battlefield of Sino-American rivalry. The Horn thus emerges as a laboratory of multipolarity, where local fragility and global ambition converge in complex, often unpredictable ways.
From these intersecting pressures arises a new strategic geometry, defined less by static blocs than by fluid alignments. Ethiopia embodies proactive maneuvering, integrating Nile sovereignty with maritime diversification while courting Gulf capital and BRICS partnerships. Somaliland exemplifies disruption, exploiting its liminal status to challenge conventional sovereignty norms and elevate bargaining leverage. Somalia embodies reactivity, clinging to legalistic defenses of unity even as coercive capacity erodes. Egypt represents continuity, anchoring its strategic posture in both Nile waters and Red Sea security. Gulf actors operate transactionally, embedding themselves in critical ports and trade corridors with little regard for collective regional norms. In this geometry, adaptability and multidimensional maneuvering are rewarded, while rigidity and adherence to narrow legalistic claims invite marginalization. Multipolarity itself.
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Future scenarios
The Horn of Africa’s trajectory is contingent on the operationalization of Ethiopia’s “two waters” policy and the evolving recognition dynamics surrounding Somaliland. Three distinct scenarios outline potential futures for the region.
Scenario 1: Pragmatic Accommodations (Best Case)
In this scenario, Ethiopia successfully implements its “two waters” strategy while avoiding large-scale regional conflict. This involves incremental compromises with Egypt and Sudan, mediated by Gulf intermediaries that reconcile Egyptian water security concerns with Ethiopian developmental imperatives. The port of Berbera becomes a functional maritime corridor, granting Ethiopia economic autonomy while preserving Mogadishu’s symbolic sovereignty. Meanwhile, Somaliland leverages its unrecognized status to broaden international engagement without triggering formal recognition disputes. In this best-case scenario, the U.S. prioritizes stability in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. China continues its strategic infrastructure investments, and the E.U. and Russia coordinate diplomacy and development efforts to prevent escalation.
The strategic implications of this scenario are that Ethiopia converts its structural vulnerabilities into instruments of power, and Somaliland’s recognition gambit gains credibility without provoking a regional backlash. This is achieved through a calibrated multipolar engagement, which demonstrates pragmatic adaptability under pressure.
Scenario 2: Managed Tension and Cyclical Deadlock (Baseline)
This is the most likely scenario, in which a fragile stability persists, marked by persistent resistance to Ethiopia’s dual waters strategy and Somaliland’s incremental leverage. Ethiopia continues the unilateral filling of the GERD, while Egypt oscillates between coercion, diplomacy, and legal appeals. This sustains a deadlock without escalating into war.
In this scenario, the Berbera port deal generates recurring crises with Mogadishu, and recognition disputes remain unresolved. This constrains Ethiopia’s maritime ambitions while paradoxically enhancing Somaliland’s influence. The U.S. and China maintain proximate military postures, while Gulf actors expand port investments and security influence. Russia seeks opportunistic access, and the E.U. attempts multilateral mediation.
The strategic implications of this scenario are that the Horn of Africa becomes a zone of managed volatility. Ethiopia operationalizes its policy, but under constant friction, while Somaliland incrementally consolidates its influence. External powers engage in calibrated competition. This cyclical stalemate highlights the limits of rigid multilateralism and underscores the necessity of adaptive diplomacy.
Scenario 3: Destabilization and Proxy Escalation (Worst Case)
In this worst-case scenario, the aggressive pursuit of Ethiopia’s “two waters” policy or a unilateral recognition of Somaliland risks regional destabilization. Stalled negotiations over the GERD provoke potential Egyptian coercion or economic sanctions, possibly drawing Sudan into the conflict. Unilateral recognition or an acceleration of the port’s institutionalization triggers armed confrontation with Somalia, mobilizing Gulf patrons, Turkey, and other Arab League actors. The U.A.E. reinforces its base at Berbera, while Russia and China exploit the resulting disorder. The U.S. and other Western powers may intervene to secure the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, turning the Horn into a geopolitical flashpoint.
The strategic implications of this scenario are that local disputes could escalate into global crises, affecting energy flows, maritime security, and international trade. If mismanaged, Ethiopia’s “two waters” strategy risks transforming its sovereign instruments into triggers for regional conflict and proxy competition, with systemic repercussions for the multipolar world order.
The Horn of Africa functions as a mirror of emerging global reordering. Ethiopia’s “two-waters strategy” crystallizes the transformation from structural vulnerability to proactive sovereignty assertion. Somaliland’s recognition gambit exposes the fluidity of sovereignty norms in a multipolar era. Great-power engagement magnifies local disputes into systemic contests, embedding the Horn within Indo-Pacific rivalries, Gulf transnationalism, and regional security doctrines.
The three scenarios illustrate that adaptability, timing, and transactional acumen will define the Horn’s evolution: pragmatic accommodation, cyclical deadlock, or destabilization. Far from peripheral, the Horn’s waters–the Nile upstream, the Red Sea downstream–are strategic arteries of global significance, and sovereignty disputes here are tests of multipolarity itself. AS
Editor’s Note: Gulaid Yusuf Idaan is a senior lecturer and researcher specializing in diplomacy, politics, and international relations in the Horn of Africa. He can be contacted at [email protected]
