Regional Security Interdependence: The Middle East and the Horn of Africa

The operation conducted by the Ethiopian Federal Army in the northern Tigray region threatens to trigger a further wave of instability in one of the most vulnerable areas of the world. Ethiopia is one of the hot spots of a very fragile arc of instability that has Afghanistan on one side, and Libya on the other. Accordingly, it would be narrow-minded to consider the impact of the current crisis on the Horn of Africa alone. At the same time, Sudan's decision to embark on the normalization of relations with Israel seems to be influenced by the role assumed by the UAE following the overthrow of Omar Al-Bashir's regime. The two episodes are just the latest hints of a growing intertwining between the political dynamics of the Horn and the Middle Eastern players. In fact, in the post-Arab Spring era, the area has become increasingly sensitive to the Middle East’s power politics. As a result, security interactions between the two sides of the Red Sea have increased. The chapter aims to analyze the growing enlargement of the spheres of competition from the Middle East into the Horn of Africa by using a neoclassical realist approach. Moreover, the study intends to grasp some of the effects that the rivalry among Middle Eastern powers has had on the local political dynamics in the Horn of Africa. The main argument is that the clashing interests among regional Middle Eastern powers and the power asymmetry with the countries of the Horn of Africa are creating a harmful security interdependence between the two Red Sea shores, feeding local tensions and threatening to exacerbate regional instability. To substantiate this argument, the chapter analyses the interregional security dynamics by focusing on two empirical cases in the 2015-2020 period: The Gulf Cooperation Council’s (GCC) crisis and its effects on the Horn of Africa, and the complex power transition developments in Sudan.