Geo-Strategic Menaces: The Middle East & Greater Horn of Africa - RP Vol. IX No. XVIII, CXXII, MMXV

Geo-Strategic Menaces:

The Middle East & Greater Horn of Africa

Public Lecture, CX, MMXVI

Costantinos Berhutesfa Costantinos, PhD,

Professor of Public Policy, School of Graduate Studies,

College of Business & Economics, AAU,

Summary

       

      The Greater Horn of Africa (GHA) is a multiplicity of geo-politics, a rich chronicle and abundance of art, music and literature. It is situated at the cross roads the main trading route between the east and the west. This has made the region so prone to conflict that people pluck what they wish from that variety to generalize that have allowed outsiders to play proxy politics with the region. The Horn is also a region that has been at an historical crossroads. Traders have travelled through the region, north to south and west to east. Empires have grown and subsided. Islam and Christianity embedded themselves in the region from the earliest days of each faith. The river Nile links nations in a mortal association for survival. Along the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean, its people were engaged in trade for millennia. It straddles a geographical space of such strategic importance that those who treat it with indifference will one day pay a price for their neglect, whilst those who try to manipulate it will get their fingers burnt.

        Terrorism has intensified and the conflict in the Gulf has forged a shift in alliances with Yemen as an epicentre of a religious Armageddon. The GCC have unexpectedly converged in what many might think to be among one of the most unlikely of places. While it may have been difficult to foresee this happening, in hindsight it actually makes quite a lot of sense. The lecture ends by a discussion focused on the questions is the GCC’s move into Eritrea predicated on destabilising ‘Christian’ Ethiopia as much as silencing Shite ‘rebels’? Is the Saudi, Emirati and Qatari incursion onto one of the most contested regions as a staging point or is there a veiled schema that may strengthen the irredentist agenda of the pariah state and the Al Shabaab in Somalia against Ethiopia? (Korybko, 2015:1). Winning the hearts and minds of the people of GHA will steer a delicate path away from the caprices of clientelism; those from outside will do well to understand GHA history and politics, lest they contemplate it is an easy proxy.

Key words: GCC, Yemen, Eritrea, Somalia, proxy war, cannon fodder

See paper here