Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud (HSM) just embarked on a working visit to Eritrea in a move that’s expected to see him get tangible support for Mogadishu’s opposition to the recent Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between Ethiopia and Somaliland. The first will receive commercial-military port rights in exchange for recognizing the second’s independence and granting it stakes in at least one national company, among other possible terms. Here are some background briefings:
* “Ethiopia’s Port Deal With Somaliland Is A Diplomatic Masterstroke”
* “Somalia Should Negotiate A ‘Dignified Divorce’ With Somaliland As Soon As Possible”
* “The Somali Authorities & Al-Shabaab Are On The Same Side Against Ethiopia’s Somaliland Port Deal”
* “Forthcoming Arms Shipments To Somalia Should Be Conditional On Strict End-User Agreements”
* “The Ethiopian-Somaliland MoU Heralds A New Future For The Horn”
In short, Ethiopia will finally resolve its landlocked dilemma, though at the expense of worsening the regional security dilemma. Readers can learn more about both from the preceding three hyperlinked analyses, but they boil down to preemptively averting domestic-international problems connected with its lack of reliable access to the sea as well as associated inability to protect maritime (mostly fertilizer and fuel) logistics and worsening some coastal states’ mistrust with hinterland Ethiopia.
Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki (PIA) briefly freed himself from the pernicious influence of the aforesaid security dilemma from 2018-2022 during the first half-decade of Ethiopian Prime Minister (PM) Dr. Abiy Ahmed’s time in office but reverted back to that way of thinking in November 2022. The Cessation Of Hostilities Agreement between the federal Ethiopian government and Eritrea’s TPLF foes that ended the two-year-long Northern Conflict was seen by PIA as a betrayal, after which relations noticeably cooled.
PM Abiy’s revival of his country’s long-running peaceful port plans last summer that then intensified following his address to lawmakers in fall was maliciously spun by Eritrea’s agents of influence on social media and its assets in foreign academia as speculatively implying annexationist intentions. The popularization of this false narrative toxified the Ethiopian leader’s plans to swap stakes in national companies for commercial-military port access and left him no choice but to cut a deal with Somaliland.
That unrecognized state objectively meets all the criteria for recognition by UN member states but hasn’t yet received it due to their own regional and global policymaking calculations, with Ethiopia being the notable exception due to its need to receive reliable access to the sea as was explained. Djibouti and Somalia fell under the influence of Eritrea’s information warfare operation over the past half year, which is why they declined his pragmatic swap proposal, thus compelling him to negotiate with Somaliland.
After the signing of their MoU, Somalia sprung into action to assemble an alliance aimed at containing Ethiopia and reconquering Somaliland, the first step of which was to “nullify” their agreement so as to establish the pseudo-“legal” pretext for these plans. The UN lifted its three-decade-long arms embargo on that country last month, and while it was intended to bolster Somalia’s anti-terrorist capabilities, Mogadishu will now likely exploit that move to bolster its conventional ones instead.
Al-Shabaab (AS) is supposed to be the Federal Government of Somalia’s (FGS) existential enemy, but that group’s condemnation of the MoU led to those two aligning against Ethiopia, which both now misportray as being an existential threat to Somalia due to its deal with Somaliland. Accordingly, the FGS no longer has any urgent reason to plan forthcoming operations against AS since the latter could soon function as the former’s informal foot soldiers for waging hybrid war against Ethiopia and Somaliland.
Before any such action is taken, the FGS wants to enhance its conventional capabilities in order to respond to the cross-border strikes or on-the-ground anti-terrorist operations that Ethiopia could launch if it’s attacked by AS or in defense of Somaliland if they clinch a mutual defense deal. Eritrea and the FGS are on the same side vis-à-vis Ethiopia in the regional security dilemma, it already trains members of the Somali Armed Forces (SAF), and was sanctioned by the UNSC from 2009–2018 for allegedly arming AS.
It’s therefore the perfect place for HMS to visit as his first foreign trip since the MoU was signed, and he might also then travel to nearby Egypt afterwards too since that country is also against Ethiopia due to their dispute over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), which Cairo falsely claims will cut off the Nile. Eritrea has formidable conventional and hybrid/unconventional capabilities but is too poor to share them with the SAF at scale, hence why the FGS might send HMS to Egypt to secure funding for this.
Egypt is also in dire economic straits but its obsession with containing Ethiopia due to their GERD dispute could influence President Sisi to cut costs elsewhere even at his citizens’ expense in order to finance this joint Eritrean-Somali hybrid war against that country and possibly also Somaliland too. In that event, Ethiopia’s close Emirati and Saudi partners would do well to reconsider reviewing their loans to Egypt lest Cairo secretly siphons some of those funds to Asmara and Mogadishu for that aforesaid purpose.
There’s also the chance that HMS might visit Turkiye, whether during his ongoing trip or sometime thereafter, seeing as how its largest overseas base is in Somalia. That country is also one of Ethiopia’s close partners and is practicing a very careful regional balancing act between it and Somalia so Ankara should also think twice about extending financial and/or military support to the FGS in this tense context. Any country that does, be it directly or indirectly, might ultimately end up bolstering AS.
To be absolutely clear, while Eritrea and Egypt will likely participate in the FGS’ prospective hybrid war plot against Ethiopia and Somaliland for the security dilemma reasons that were explained, there’s no indication that Saudi Arabia, the UAE, or Turkiye are interested in getting involved. They each have their hands full dealing with the latest Israeli-Hamas war, and the first two are also focused on de-escalating the related Houthi crisis, plus all three have excellent and mutually beneficial ties with Ethiopia.
Those three should therefore warn their Somali, Eritrean, and Egyptian partners against waging a regional hybrid war in unholy alliance with AS, which will only benefit Western hegemony, under threat of pulling their economic and military support for those states if they still go through with this plot. In the worst-case scenario that another war of some sort soon breaks out in the Horn over the MoU, everyone should know that Somalia, Eritrea, and Egypt are to blame, not Ethiopia and Somaliland.
