Crossing Roads: The Middle East’s Security Engagement in the Horn of Africa

Abstract

This paper aims to analy ¶ se the growing enlargement of the spheres of competition from the Middle East into the Horn of Africa. It does so by using insights from regional order and realist neoclassical literature to understand the expansion of regional powers into this area as the result of strategic interactions within their own region. The central argument is that the clashing interests among Middle Eastern regional powers and power asymmetry with Horn of Africa countries are driving an increased security interdependence between the two Red Sea shores. This increasing security engagement by competing Middle Eastern states is producing an insecurity spillover which threatens to exacerbate regional instability in the Horn. It also presents a new role for Middle Eastern regional powers as security providers, particularly in the case of the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Israel and Turkey. To substantiate this argument, the paper analyses interregional security dynamics by focusing on three empirical cases in the 2015 ¶ -2020 period: The Gulf Cooperation Council's crisis, the establishment of a Turkish military bases in the Horn of Africa and Israel's new diplomatic engagement in Eastern Africa.

Transnationally entangled (in)securities: The UAE, Turkey, and the Saharan political economy of danger

“…In the following, we go beyond the focus on ‘great powers’ and the ‘BRICS’. Smaller actors like the Gulf states and Turkey in Africa have been subject to some studies, yet almost exclusively in East and Southern Africa (Berger and Eickhoff, 2022; Donelli and Gonzalez-Levaggi, 2021; Heibach, 2020). They are often portrayed as strategic actors who engage in Africa to increase their power and prestige on the world stage, in stark competition also with each other (Turkey/Qatar against Saudi Arabia/UAE against Iran).…”

A Critical Appraisal of Realist International Relations Concepts in the Horn of Africa-Persian Gulf Relations: The state, power, and agency

“…This is because scholars, adopting mainly a realist perspective of states as unitary actors, have focused on inter-state relations related to the involvement of the regionally powerful Arab states and Turkey in the Horn of Africa. They have observed the interaction through the realist lens, from the viewpoint of what they consider as the more powerful states engaging their weaker counterparts for strategic and security reasons (Cannon & Donelli, 2019;Dahir, 2019;Donelli, 2021;Donelli & Gonzalez-Levaggi, 2021;Huliaras & Kalantzakos, 2017;Vertin, 2019). This has been particularly the case after the Arab Spring and during the Yemeni civil war in the context of heating competition for regional influence among countries of the Persian Gulf and Turkey (Benzekri, 2018;Oluoch, 2019;Todman, 2018).…”