The Horn of Africa is transforming from a “backyard of crises” into a true geostrategic arena where Gulf rivalries, global shipping routes, energy stakes, and battles for influence between regional and global powers intersect.

From Blind Spot to Strategic Epicenter

Long reduced in the media to civil wars, famines, and piracy, the Horn of Africa—Ethiopia, Somalia, Somaliland, Djibouti, Eritrea, and bordering Sudan—is now a hub of global competition. At the entrance to the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, facing the Arabian Peninsula and on the India-Suez Canal-Europe route, the region is seeing an influx of military bases, port investments, and international naval operations.

A Geography That Creates Power

The Horn of Africa controls one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes, linking Asia and Europe via the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, the Red Sea, and the Suez Canal, through which 10 to 15% of global trade and nearly 30% of container traffic pass. This strategic location makes ports like Djibouti, Berbera, and Assab coveted assets for securing energy routes, food supplies, and submarine telecommunications cables.

The Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden thus play the role of the “western flank” of the new Indo-Pacific chessboard, where Western navies, Asian powers, Gulf States, and emerging African players converge. The slightest disruption—militia attacks or state tensions—immediately impacts insurance costs, logistics delays, and global value chains.

Gulf Monarchies in Search of Strategic Depth

For the Gulf States, the Horn of Africa has become a crucial arena in geopolitical and geoeconomic competition, extending their interests into the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. The United Arab Emirates, in particular, is positioning itself as a “kingmaker” through a strategy combining investment, port control, and a military presence, from the Eritrean coast to Somaliland.

The UAE has acquired numerous ports in the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea—often accompanied by military bases—to secure its oil routes, trade logistics, and food imports. Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey are pursuing competing strategies, alternately supporting governments, separatist movements, or security forces, which risks fueling local rivalries rather than easing them.

Resources, Markets, and Major Economic Bets

Beyond its military importance, the Horn of Africa holds considerable economic potential: mineral resources (gold, potash, rare earth elements, lithium, uranium), offshore hydrocarbons, agricultural land, and rapidly expanding urban markets. The Gulf countries are major importers of meat and agricultural products from the region, which reinforces investment in agri-food and logistics value chains.

Driven by dynamic population growth (excluding war-torn Somalia and Sudan), the Horn represents a rapidly expanding infrastructure and consumer market—ports, special economic zones, data centers, telecommunications—likely to attract Asian, Arab, and Western capital. In this context, the battle for access to land, water, and transport corridors is becoming a central issue in negotiations between local states and external investors.

Djibouti, Somaliland, Ethiopia: The New Hubs

Djibouti has established itself as a major logistics and military hub, hosting French, American, Chinese, Japanese, and other bases, while controlling access to the sea for landlocked Ethiopia. Its strategy is to capitalize on its position to monetize port and road access, at the cost of a high dependence on external flows and regional stability.

Somaliland—a self-proclaimed independent entity not recognized by Mogadishu—signed an agreement with Ethiopia in 2024 to grant Addis Ababa sovereign access to a port on the Gulf of Aden, in exchange for diplomatic recognition. This deal is reigniting tensions with Somalia and reshaping the regional landscape, as it could redraw trade routes and strengthen Berbera’s strategic importance vis-à-vis Djibouti.

Towards a more assertive African diplomacy?

Faced with this reconfiguration, several think tanks are advocating for strengthening collective African diplomacy on maritime issues, from cable security to naval escorts, so as not to leave external powers solely in control of the rules of the game. The African Union and regional organizations could play a greater role in coordinating responses, harmonizing standards, and negotiating balanced partnerships with the Gulf States and global powers.

For the capitals of the Horn of Africa, the challenge is to transform the strategic interest they attract into levers for development: making port agreements contingent on skills transfers, demanding industrial benefits, pooling regional infrastructure, and diversifying partners.