La Chronique de l’Est

  Transactional Sovereignty and the New Geopolitics of the Horn of Africa   Strategic Analysis By    Al-Aghbari   Sovereignty in the Horn of Africa is no longer protected by law alone. Increasingly, it depends on strategic leverage: how many powers need a state, how indispensable its territory is, and how effectively its government can balance competing external interests. The post-1945 international order was built on the principle that sovereignty and international law could restrain power. That principle was always imperfectly applied, but for small states it provided a diplomatic language and, at times, a measure of protection. In the Horn, that protection has weakened. The region has become a dense arena of competition involving Gulf states, China, the United States, Turkey, European powers and regional governments. Ports, military facilities, trade corridors and political relationships now carry strategic value far beyond their immediate economic functions...

  Analysis Israel’s announced decision to recognize the Somaliland region represents far more than an isolated diplomatic gesture. It is part of a broader geopolitical realignment, in which the Horn of Africa ( already weakened by internal conflicts and interstate rivalries) emerges as a new arena for the indirect spillover of Middle Eastern tensions. The analysis conducted by Aden Omar Abdillahi (Researcher at IEPS-CERD) and Hassan Omar Ahmed (Associate Researcher at IEPS-CERD) highlights a series of systemic effects that go well beyond the question of Somaliland’s status alone. The move constitutes a potential turning point for regional security, African norms of sovereignty, and the strategic architecture of the Red Sea. Over the past decade, Somalia has followed a trajectory of gradual reconstruction, marked by the consolidation of federal institutions, expanded diplomatic recognition, and the progressive transfer of security responsibilities from international forces to nation...