Jacques is an African business intelligence researcher with a specialty in international relations. He has agreed to fill us in on a complicated and oft-overlooked topic in African geopolitics.

The last week or more has seen little rest for the horn of Africa. No sooner had the region been bathed in the afterglow of Houthi rocket attacks on shipping and Western reprisals than news emerged of yet another new flashpoint in the region, this time from quite an unexpected source.

Ethiopia and Somaliland’s confirmation of a potential port deal in the works between the two countries has caused much upset and clamour across an already tense region. Most upset are government officials in Mogadishu, who consider the unrecognized Somaliland government to their north to be little more than wayward rebels with no right to parcel away what they still maintain to be their territory. On Sunday the 7th, in a  swift response to the news, the (Mogadishu) Somali legislature signed into law a new regulation which they claim “nullifies” this deal.

A silver bullet

The only problem is that neither Ethiopia nor Somaliland are likely to care. For them, this agreement has come at just the right time, offering their respective leaderships a way to shore up their support amidst a series of simultaneous crises that risk unravelling decades of political and economic gains that each had sought to achieve since the 1990s.

Starting with Ethiopia, the sub-Saharan powerhouse to be had before covid garnered a reputation for itself as Africa’s next great success story but has in recent years found itself in increasingly dire straits. Prior to Covid the country's prospects seemed limitless, It was Africa's second most populous country, garnering an average of 11% economic growth a year and could boast of a growing industrial base, the world fastest growing cargo air carrier in the shape Ethiopian Airlines and was receiving clamouring interest for the liberalization of its state-owned enterprises, including notably Ethio telecom.

In Africa however, things rarely proceed in a straight line. When the covid pandemic caused a local election delay, local militants in the Tigray region called foul and started an open rebellion. This conflict, which came to be known as the Tigray War, killed tens of thousands, displaced millions and forced the Ethiopian government to take on a mountain of debt in the state's defence. The result was an economic downturn, high inflation, a foreign debt default and a recent downgrade to junk status, This, along with reneging on deals to liberalise the telecoms sector has turned away critically needed FDI. Compounding matters is the fact that the state is also squaring off against militants in the Amhara and Oromo regions, whilst also being locked in a diplomatic row with Egypt over the latter's access to the Nile.

Beset by threats on all sides, the Ethiopian leadership has for years desperately sought a port deal it could leverage for renewed legitimacy. To demonstrate quite how keen Ethiopia was to see this deal through, consider the fact that in In his speech last October, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed presented his coastal neighbours with an option that included obtaining a stake of up to 30% in vital Ethiopian institutions, such as the Renaissance Dam, Ethiopian Airlines, or the Ethiopian Telecommunications Company, in exchange for securing sovereign access to the sea. Then when no one immediately took up the offer, veiled threats of war were made. The achievement of a port deal with Somaliland is likely therefore to come as an immense relief.

For Somaliland, very similar dynamics are at play, with the stakes even greater. The de facto independent yet mostly unrecognized statelet owes its existence to the anarchy which befell Somalia after the death of ex-dictator Said Barre in the early 1990’s. While the southern government based around Mogadishu evaporated and the majority of Somalia sank into the chaos and warlordism which today still defines this region in the global imagination, the Isaaq clan authorities in what was once the former British protectorate of Somaliland chose to go their own way. Despite many years of comparative stability and prosperity the Somaliland government has never quite managed to secure its much sought-after international recognition. Recent instability, including election delays and armed clashes with the minority Dhulbahante clan, who wish to rejoin Somalia now gives the impression of a state on the knife edge, jeopardizing years of lobbying efforts in the UK & US legislatures. The Ethiopia port deal, which implies official recognition from a major regional power, is thus for them nothing short of a godsend.

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The global response

Celebrations in both countries would at this stage still be premature. Somalia's outright rejection of the deal, the legal grey areas surrounding Somaliland’s sovereignty and the vital nature of regional waterways for international shipping mean that the opinion of both regional and global powers would need to be accounted for before the deal is allowed to proceed.

Here the picture is very mixed. There is a strong likelihood that the port deal was brokered by the UAE (United Arab Emirates), This small gulf country has dramatically expanded its footprint across the region in recent years, peppering the horn of Africa with its military bases and utilising DP world, a ports company owned by its royal family to dramatically revamp port infrastructure across the east African seaboard, including Berbera. Ethiopia has proven to be a reliable partner of the UAE in the region, as demonstrated by a history of both investment and military deals. Reactions further afield may prove less receptive. The US and UK, international institutions such as the United Nations, the African Union, and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation have all issued statements reaffirming the sovereignty of Somalia. Indicating where they stand on the whole matter.

These reactions were not prompted by any great feelings of warmth towards the Somali government. With the Panama Canal closed off by drought, the chokepoints between the horn of Africa and Yemen which Somaliland directly borders have become possibly the most important waterways on earth, The recent Houthi attacks have shown how catastrophic the impacts on global supply chains can be when this waterway is shut for even short bursts at a time and over the last decade or more a host of global powers have raced to secure military positions in this region to hedge against just such an eventuality. At the time of writing, Somalia, Djibouti and other nearby countries host military forces from the US, France, Japan Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) all to secure this waterway for their shipping should future conflict necessitate that step.

Ethiopia's entry into this race complicated the picture for regional powers considerably. Addis Ababa has proven itself to be difficult and belligerent diplomatically, swinging erratically between cooperation with the Western bloc and Russia/China. Signing military partnerships with France in one moment whilst simultaneously considering joining the BRICS alliance. The notion of Ethiopia having a strong military presence in the region whilst being anti-western aligned spooks the United States, who initially supported the port deal under the assumption that it could potentially lead to the development of the Heemaal-1 and Heemaal-2 oil blocks identified by the American oil company Chevron in the 80s.

Others in the region also have their misgivings, Eritrea a former part of Ethiopia that broke free in 1993 has steadfastly taken Somalia's side in the ongoing dispute. Neighbouring Djibouti has historically had good relations with Ethiopia but has nevertheless rejected Ethiopia's attempts at a port deal last year, Sudan is far too caught up in its ongoing internal conflict to factor much for now.(Though this might change if the UAE-aligned RSF opposition faction ultimately comes out on top in that conflict)  Egypt might prove a major concern, as it could use this latest controversy to further its own position in the ongoing diplomatic row between it and Ethiopia over the filling of the GERD dam.

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Weighing Options

Opponents of the deal still have numerous options at their disposal. Diplomatically isolating Ethiopia at a time when it desperately needs US approval for its IMF programme could force Addis Ababa to renege on the deal, which isn't yet as formal as Somaliland would like to imagine. Alternatively, should Ethiopia's administration keep to its usual intransigence, regional powers have the option of supporting local militants in Amhara, Oromo and Sool, and pressuring the respective governments in that way. Finally, there is the armageddon option. Armed conflict that restores Somaliland to Mogadishu’s control and expels Ethiopia for good,

Option three is naturally quite an extreme response, one which all interested parties would seek to avoid, fearful of the impacts a regional war would have on shipping and international commerce. Furthermore, it's quite clear that at the moment Somalia, the only country with any real right to intervene, is not all in a position to do so.  At the time of writing. No formal complaints have been laid charging Ethiopia with violating Somalia's sovereignty. Diplomatic ties between the two nations have not been severed and Ethiopian troops operating at Somalia's request in the country have not been asked to demobilize. All signs would have pointed to a real conflict being in the offing.

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All eyes on Mogadishu

However, while the means to expel Ethiopian influence from the Horn of Africa are not yet at hand, the desire to do so certainly is. The animosity between Islamic Somalia and its Christian neighbours goes back to time immemorial and reached its apex in the post-colonial period during the height of the Cold War.  In the late 70’s  The newly independent Somali government under autocrat Said Barre sought to bring Somalis living in the border countries under the banner of a united “greater Somalia”. The resulting Ogaden War with Ethiopia ultimately led to Somalia's defeat, the fall of the Barre regime and the fracturing of Somalia into the loose, squabbling collection of statelets that it is today. Despite these events, the dream of a “greater Somalia” still endures.

As recently as 2006 when Somalia was still a patchwork of warring fiefdoms, Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, head of the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) that then controlled much of southern Somalia, declared, "We will leave no stone unturned to integrate our Somali brothers in Kenya and Ethiopia and restore their freedom to live with their ancestors in Somalia'' It is not difficult to see why, in this milieu, the cooperation between Ethiopia & Somaliland strikes  Mogadishu as such a grave insult. It is quite noteworthy that in a country bitterly divided along factional lines where few can agree on much, the news of the Ethiopian deal has drawn crowds together in mass protest.

When looking at the still ramshackle nature of the Somali government today it would be easy to scoff at such pretensions, but some in the region take this threat seriously, not the least of whom are Ethiopia & Somaliland, who’s military chiefs have recently met to discuss tensions.

The arch of history can be long and unpredictable, as Ethiopia's recent experience demonstrates. In the coming decades, amid the return of educated exiles from abroad, and a gradual trickle of investments and committed international support, Somalia could well find itself in a position to rekindle its geopolitical ambitions, beginning with the forceful reintegration of would-be breakaways like Somaliland. All we can be sure of is that none of the potential belligerents have much room to back down, and in a region of such geopolitical importance, the first shot fired could have the whole world holding its breath.