The Red Sea region is a geopolitical hotspot. It holds strategic maritime importance as a global trade transit route and plays a crucial role in the broader region’s security and economic stability.
Various actors are vying for influence in this important region. They include Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, China, the US and Italy, which have set up military bases. Insecurity in the Red Sea region has a ripple effect on the cost of global trade. These military bases are intended to protect oil and merchant shipping.
With the interests at play here, the Red Sea basin has become an arena for complex global relations. This was especially evident following an early 2024 agreement between landlocked Ethiopia and the breakaway state of Somaliland to grant Addis Ababa access to the Red Sea. The agreement, which Somalia saw as an affront, has had huge implications that continue to play out. It sparked agreements that led to new alliances – but also tested old ones.
As local and foreign interests collide, new dynamics are shaping the region’s politics. The Conversation Africa has, over the years, worked with a range of academics to help readers understand the effects of these shifting alliances. Here are some of their insights.
Ethiopia-Somaliland agreement
On 1 January 2024, Ethiopian prime minister Abiy Ahmed and Somaliland president Muse Bihi Abdi announced a plan to give landlocked Ethiopia access to the Somaliland coastline for 50 years. In exchange, Ethiopia would consider supporting Somaliland’s quest for international recognition as a sovereign state. Somalia, which lays claim to Somaliland, declared the agreement an act of aggression. The deal – and the subsequent international opposition it drew – illustrate the complex web of alliances and rivalries shaping the region’s politics, as Aleksi Ylönen explains.
