How Are Alliances Reengineering the Horn of Africa? (1)

As I See

Adel El-Baz

The Horn of Africa is no longer merely an arena of conflict between fragile governments and rival armed groups, nor a conventional theater of border disputes and civil wars. What is unfolding today marks a qualitative transition into a far more complex phase: an era of alliance politics and bloc formations, where security calculations intertwine with economic interests, coastlines are transformed into instruments of leverage, political recognition becomes a strategic weapon, and natural resources serve as fuel prolonging wars rather than gateways to stability.

The region has entered what can aptly be described as an “era of regional reconfiguration,” shaped by informal alliances that emerge from chaos, feed on it, and ultimately reproduce it in more dangerous forms. The struggle is no longer about who governs, but about who redefines sovereignty in the region—or who institutionalizes disorder.

More troubling still, these alliances no longer operate solely according to traditional logic of influence. They increasingly function through a strategy of “reproducing the state” itself: dismantling the centralized state into multiple entities and repurposing them within cross-border security and economic networks—the Rapid Support Forces militia offering a telling example. The conflict, therefore, is not about changing a government or toppling a regime; it is about redefining the very concept of the state in the Horn of Africa as a divisible, fragmentable, and reconfigurable project shaped by external interests.

Within this climate, what may be termed the “Alliance of Secessionists” has emerged. This is not a single formal alliance sealed by a public treaty, but rather a network of practical interests linking the United Arab Emirates, Israel, and Ethiopia, with India increasingly present in the background. The core objective of this alignment is control over the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden, and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, and the reshaping of influence across the Horn of Africa through ports, political recognition, and decentralized entities.

The United Arab Emirates stands out as the most assertive actor within this alignment, leveraging the strength of its port investments. For Abu Dhabi, a port is not a neutral commercial facility but a platform for political and security influence. A 2023 report by Chatham House captured this reality succinctly: “Ports can function as instruments of geopolitical influence.” Accordingly, ports such as Berbera and Bosaso have evolved from economic projects into strategic nodes within a broader network of influence stretching from the Horn of Africa to the Gulf—tools for imposing new political realities without direct military intervention.

Control of ports alone, however, is no longer sufficient. Ports themselves have become components of an undeclared military architecture: logistical support bases, maritime surveillance hubs, communications nodes, and storage facilities beyond effective international oversight. Investment thus transforms from an economic activity into a comprehensive security infrastructure that redraws the map of power.

Israel forms another pillar of this alignment, having redefined the Red Sea as an extension of its national security perimeter, particularly amid escalating Houthi threats to international navigation. Within this framework came Israel’s recognition of Somaliland in December 2025—a move far from a routine diplomatic gesture. It represented a calculated step in reshaping legitimacy for a secessionist entity, granting Tel Aviv a strategically sensitive foothold opposite Yemen. Somalia’s federal government rejected the move in a December 2025 statement, describing it as a “violation of Somalia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.” The contest thus shifted from territorial encroachment to a battle over sovereignty and legitimacy.

Ethiopia constitutes a central axis of this alignment, driven by its existential need for reliable maritime access. As a landlocked state, Addis Ababa views dependence on a single corridor through Djibouti as a strategic bottleneck. It has therefore sought to diversify its options at considerable political cost. This was reflected in the memorandum of understanding signed with Somaliland on January 1, 2024, which triggered an immediate political crisis with Mogadishu, as reported by Reuters. The following day, Reuters cited the Somali parliament’s rejection of the agreement as illegal. Ethiopia’s approach, therefore, is not guided solely by economic considerations but by geopolitical calculations aimed at reshaping the balance of power in the Red Sea basin.

The internal cohesion of the so-called Alliance of Secessionists becomes evident in the complementary roles of its members: the UAE provides capital, port management expertise, and logistical networks; Israel supplies recognition and security and intelligence support; Ethiopia contributes strategic necessity and a willingness to absorb the political costs of confrontation. This integration enables the alliance to generate new realities on the ground without declaring war.

India, though less visible in media narratives, operates according to the logic of major trade corridors and competition with China for influence in the Indian Ocean and East Africa. It thus appears more inclined to support port and transit projects than to prioritize the consolidation of nation-state stability—an essential distinction in understanding emerging regional balances.

The most consequential intersection within this alignment lies in the strategy of “functional entities”—local authorities and militias structured as alternatives to centralized states because they are less costly and more susceptible to control and direction. In 2024, the Institute for Security Studies described this approach explicitly as one centered on “supporting alternative local authorities rather than central governments.”

This formulation underscores that the issue at hand is not mere “economic cooperation” or “port investment,” but a deliberate policy aimed at weakening central states and reproducing them as fragmented, pliable structures.

A further layer of intersection concerns natural resources—foremost among them gold—which have become both a source of conflict financing and a cross-border instrument of leverage. The 2023/2024 report of the United Nations Panel of Experts on Sudan stated unambiguously: “natural resources, including gold, are being used to finance the conflict.”

That sentence alone reveals that the war in Sudan—and its surrounding regional dynamics—is no longer purely political. It has become an economic war, financed from within the fractured geographies of the states themselves.