Liam Karr
Competition involving the Gulf states and Turkey in the Horn of Africa is exacerbating preexisting African conflicts and risking a regional proxy war on both sides of the Red Sea. A new era of middle-power competition since around 2020 has mapped onto already existing African conflicts and hardened the local and regional divide between an Emirati- and Israeli-backed axis of revisionists and a coalition of status quo African states aligned with Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has been an essential ally for an ambitious Ethiopia, the main patron of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Sudan, and the leading partner for local Somali governments pursuing greater autonomy. Israel has followed suit in Ethiopia and Somalia. Egypt, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey have partnered with the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and their internationally recognized government and the Federal Government of Somalia (FGS). Egypt and Saudi Arabia have grown additional ties with Djibouti and Ethiopia’s archrival, Eritrea, to contain Ethiopia and the UAE-Israel duo, respectively, across the region.
No comments:
Post a Comment