American Empire: The Perpetual Scramble For The Horn Of Africa

This is American Empire, Splinter’s rolling series of articles exploring the power of the United States and the different ways it is unleashed upon the world. Read our other entries here.

The Horn of Africa, despite its profound geopolitical importance, does not make international headlines all that often. But the peninsula, jutting out of the continent’s eastern flank, has for centuries captured the attention of foreign powers, which seek to control the land and the waters it straddles. Both the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea are essential routes within the global economic system, allowing for the transportation of massive amounts of goods and, crucially, oil from the Persian Gulf, which means, through sheer coincidence of geography, this area is perceived by great powers to be exceptionally valuable.

But, of course, the Horn is not just a geopolitical node. When defined in its broadest terms — which means counting the states of Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, and Uganda — the Horn is home to an estimated 298 million people, who belong to a diversity of ethnicities, speak a range of languages, and who harbor all sorts of ideas about how their lands should be governed. It is they who are forced to defend themselves against the violent whims of great powers and the local elites they support.

The Horn is a complicated place, and not every problem the region faces can be flatly attributed to the horrors of colonialism and its enduring effects — but it’s a fine place to start. The area was among the first parts of Africa to be colonized by European powers, which, ultimately, shaped the independent states that later emerged there. Even after ostensibly gaining independence, the economies of these countries remained oriented towards providing raw materials for European industry, while they were forced to contend with the ethnic tensions which had been exacerbated — or outright created — by borders arbitrarily drawn up by European powers during the 19th century.

The countries of the Horn were eventually sucked into the Cold War, where the two superpowers of the United States and the Soviet Union twisted and pulled at the region in a bid to gain influence. Even after the Soviet Union collapsed and the Cold War ended, there was little respite for the Horn as, before long, America’s endless, borderless “war on terror” had been launched. Africa was presented in the West as a lawless zone, where nefarious terrorists roamed freely and constantly plotted the end of Western civilization, which, from the perspective of American leaders, justified the ramping up of its military presence there. American bases remain dotted around Africa to this day.

The U.S., broadly speaking, looks upon the states of the Horn in a binary way: either they are friends, or they are enemies. Friends of the U.S. are those with governments willing to be complicit in America’s activities in the region, who, in exchange for their loyalty, are lavished with aid, diplomatic support, and weapons, even if they are accused of committing atrocities against civilians — keen observers may note an echo in how America treats its genocidal friend Israel. Enemies, on the other hand, are designated as “pariahs” and correspondingly subjected to sanctions. The problem, of course, is that when states are treated like enemies, they may begin to act like them — and the cycle of animosity perpetuates itself.

On the other hand, friendly governments are encouraged to serve the interests of the United States over those of their own people, which can create the fog of resentment and despair in which radicalization thrives. In fact, despite America’s ostensible “war,” more terror has actually been created since the early 2000s, calling into question what exactly the U.S. is still doing across Africa. Not only has it failed to defeat “terror,” it has arguably made things worse.

The U.S., and its obsequious partners in Europe, remain hugely invested in the Horn of Africa, but they are not the only foreign power to hold sway over the region. China, too, has deeply embedded itself within the Horn, but it has done so in a rather different way. While it does have a military presence in the region, China has primarily flexed its might by issuing massive loans to governments there. In exchange, it gains access to raw materials and, theoretically, develops the ability to influence political decision-making within the countries it has loaned to. Critics of this tactic have labeled it as “debt-trap diplomacy,” wherein debtor nations face profound economic instability, and even the possibility of collapse, because of the billions of dollars they owe to China. Others, though, caution against this idea, pointing towards the fact that China has demonstrated a willingness to restructure loans when governments are unable to pay them.

In any case, China has clearly become a significant player in the Horn, but it is not alone in seeking to gain a foothold there. India, too, has invested in the region, where it seeks access to resources while allegedly displacing locals through its environmentally damaging land-grabbing practices. Russia deals arms to countries in the Horn, as well as in Africa at large, while its infamous private paramilitary force, the Wagner Group, is known to have operated in Sudan, where it has helped to shore up Russian access to gold. Regional powers, too, such as leading Persian Gulf states like Saudi Arabia and the UAE, not to mention Turkey, have invested in the Horn, establishing military bases and intervening in local conflicts with the intention of expanding their own power throughout the wider region.

There is, then, a contemporary scramble for the Horn of Africa taking place today, with major global powers like the U.S. and China, middling powers like India and Europe, and more regional powers like the Gulf States, all jostling for their share of power and riches. To the foreign leaders and the local elites they support, it is all just a game with lucrative prizes to be won. But to those who are forced to endure it, the game means a near permanent state of instability in their homelands, where wars rage, ecosystems collapse, and ordinary people, through conflict or illness, die.