Within the volatile architecture of modern international relations, few strategic temptations appear as attractive – yet prove as precarious – as bandwagoning with extra-regional powers in pursuit of security. States situated in volatile environments often seek the protection of distant patrons, assuming that alignment with powerful actors will deter rivals and stabilize their surroundings. Yet the experiences of the Persian Gulf over the past decade suggest that such expectations are frequently misplaced. The Gulf and the Horn of Africa, two regions that mirror each other in striking ways, offer a particularly instructive comparison. Both occupy pivotal geostrategic positions in the global system; both are deeply penetrated by external powers; both are shaped by internal rivalries and asymmetries between large and small states; and both have experimented extensively with the politics of external patronage. The Gulf’s recent experience – from the Qatar diplomatic crisis to the grinding conflict of the Yemeni Civil War and the disruptions of the Red Sea crisis, and of course the Iran war – has revealed a sobering reality: reliance on outside powers rarely produces durable security. Their priorities ultimately supersede those of the states that host them. For the Horn of Africa, this evolving Gulf experience offers a cautionary lesson of considerable urgency.

The structural similarities between the two regions begin with geography. Few places on earth rival the Persian Gulf and the Horn of Africa in their strategic location. Each commands one of the world’s most consequential maritime chokepoints. The Strait of Hormuz channels roughly a quarter of global seaborne oil trade, meaning that even minor disruptions reverberate across energy markets from East Asia to Europe, Africa and even the United States. The Bab el‑Mandeb Strait, by contrast, links the Indian Ocean to the Red Sea and ultimately the Mediterranean Sea through the Suez Canal. Barely thirty kilometers wide at its narrowest point, it serves as the southern gate to one of the busiest shipping corridors in the world. Together, these maritime passages form a continuous artery of global commerce. The strategic leverage that accompanies influence over such chokepoints has inevitably drawn intense attention from external powers. Both the Gulf and the Horn have thus evolved into arenas of persistent geopolitical competition.

Geography alone, however, does not fully explain the deep affinities between the two regions. For centuries, the waters separating them have been less a barrier than a conduit for cultural exchange. Long before the advent of European colonialism, Arab merchants, scholars, and travelers traversed the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea, linking the ports of the Arabian Peninsula with the coastal societies of the Horn. In places such as Somalia, Djibouti, and coastal Eritrea, these interactions left enduring linguistic, religious, and cultural imprints. Arabic vocabulary entered local languages; Islamic jurisprudence and educational traditions became embedded in social life; and architectural forms – from coral-stone houses to mosque minarets – reflect centuries of shared aesthetic influence. Sufi brotherhoods and networks of scholars tied communities across the sea into common religious landscapes. These affinities created a dense fabric of historical interdependence that continues to shape political perceptions today. They have also made it easier for actors from one shore to intervene politically or economically on the other, reinforcing a pattern of cross-regional entanglement that persists in contemporary geopolitics.

Because of their geographic and economic importance, both regions have attracted an unusually dense constellation of external powers. The United States maintains the United States Fifth Fleet in Bahrain while also operating its largest permanent military installation in Africa at Camp Lemonnier. China established its first overseas naval base in Djibouti while investing heavily in ports and infrastructure throughout both the Gulf and the Horn. Other actors – including France, Japan, United Kingdom, Russia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, and Iran – have established military footprints, security agreements, or port concessions across the same strategic arc. Arms sales, training missions, intelligence facilities, and commercial port operations have proliferated to the point that both regions now function as laboratories of great-power presence. Smaller states, in particular, have often invited this engagement in the belief that the involvement of powerful patrons could shield them from regional threats.

Yet beneath the apparent stability provided by external partnerships lies a complex landscape of internal competition. Both regions feature pronounced asymmetries between large and small states, which generate enduring insecurities. In the Gulf, Saudi Arabia and Iran occupy the role of dominant regional powers, while smaller actors such as Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, and Bahrain navigate a delicate balance between autonomy and dependence. The Horn of Africa displays a comparable dynamic, where Ethiopia historically functions as the region’s demographic and economic heavyweight, while neighboring states – including Djibouti, Somalia, and Eritrea – operate within a far narrower margin of strategic maneuver. Historical trajectories deepen these asymmetries. Ancient political traditions coexist with relatively new state formations: Saudi Arabia’s monarchical lineage and Ethiopia’s long imperial past contrast with the modern creation of the UAE federation in 1971 or Eritrea’s emergence as an independent state in 1993. Such structural imbalances frequently encourage smaller states to seek external protection against perceived threats from their larger neighbors. Bahrain’s hosting of the U.S. naval presence reflects anxieties about both Saudi and Iranian influence.

Djibouti’s decision to host multiple foreign military bases – from the United States, China, France, and Japan – serves as a hedging strategy against potential regional instability. Boundary disputes remain persistent sources of tension in both regions. The Gulf has witnessed disagreements over maritime demarcations and island sovereignty, while the Horn has long contended with territorial conflicts such as the Ogaden and the unresolved border tensions that followed the Eritrean–Ethiopian War. Political fragmentation adds further complexity.

The status dispute between Somaliland and Somalia illustrates the enduring fragility of state consolidation in parts of the Horn. External alliances often intersect with these internal rivalries, creating fertile ground for proxy dynamics. Gulf powers have repeatedly projected influence into the Horn by backing different political actors or investing in competing port and military projects. During the war in Yemen, the UAE cultivated security partnerships with Eritrea and Somaliland, while Qatar and Turkey developed close relationships with factions inside Somalia. The Yemeni conflict itself illustrates how these dynamics spill across regional boundaries. The Houthi movement, supported by Iran, has transformed Yemen into a frontline of the Saudi-Iranian rivalry, with consequences that extend well beyond the Arabian Peninsula.

The proliferation of transnational militant groups further complicates the security landscape shared by the two regions. Organizations such as Al‑Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, Islamic State affiliates, and Al‑Shabaab operate across porous borders and maritime routes. These actors exploit weak governance structures and geopolitical rivalries to entrench themselves within local conflicts. The disruption of international shipping during the recent Red Sea crisis offers a vivid illustration. Beginning in late 2023, Houthi missile and drone attacks on commercial vessels passing through the Bab el-Mandeb forced major shipping companies to reroute traffic around the Cape of Good Hope, dramatically increasing transit times and insurance costs. Although the attacks were framed by their perpetrators as acts of solidarity with Gaza during the Israel–Hamas War, the economic consequences fell disproportionately on countries far removed from the immediate conflict zone, including those in the Horn of Africa whose trade depends heavily on the same shipping corridor.

These developments underscore the fragility of security arrangements built primarily around external patronage. The Gulf’s recent experience offers particularly revealing evidence. The Qatar blockade demonstrated that even a state hosting major American military facilities could not rely on its security partnership with Washington to deter pressure from neighboring powers. Doha ultimately weathered the crisis not through reliance on a single patron but by diversifying its relationships, strengthening ties with Turkey and maintaining pragmatic engagement with Iran. Saudi Arabia and the UAE’s intervention in Yemen similarly revealed the limits of external backing. Despite advanced Western weaponry and logistical support, the coalition found itself trapped in a prolonged conflict that inflicted humanitarian devastation while failing to achieve decisive victory.

The Red Sea shipping crisis reinforced another uncomfortable reality. Even when the United States and the United Kingdom launched military strikes against Houthi targets in an effort to secure maritime navigation, the broader stability of the region remained contingent on geopolitical calculations far beyond the control of Gulf or Horn states. External powers operate according to global priorities – whether managing strategic competition with China, maintaining energy flows, or projecting military influence – that do not necessarily coincide with the immediate security concerns of local actors. When those priorities shift, as they have with Washington’s growing focus on the Indo-Pacific, the reliability of external security guarantees becomes increasingly uncertain. The structural flaw underlying bandwagoning therefore lies in the asymmetry of interests between host states and their patrons.

For a small country, the presence of a foreign base may appear to provide an insurance policy against regional threats. For the external power operating that base, however, the installation is simply one node within a global network designed to advance its own strategic objectives. When local disputes become entangled with these broader agendas, they risk being internationalized rather than resolved. Domestic political conflicts can transform into proxy confrontations between rival patrons. Economic arrangements may become skewed toward concessionary deals that privilege foreign investors or military access over sustainable national development. And when geopolitical winds shift, the state that has relied most heavily on external guarantees may find itself abruptly exposed. For the Horn of Africa, the implications are profound. The region today faces the same strategic temptation that the Gulf confronted decades earlier: the belief that security can be outsourced to powerful external actors.

Yet the Gulf’s experience suggests that such arrangements rarely deliver lasting stability. Instead, they tend to entrench dependency while amplifying regional rivalries. The Horn possesses an alternative path rooted in its own institutional and historical resources. Regional bodies such as the Intergovernmental Authority on Development and the African Union already provide frameworks through which disputes could be mediated and collective security arrangements strengthened. A strategy centered on regional integration would require several interlocking steps. Long-standing border disputes must be addressed through African diplomatic mechanisms rather than external arbitration. Support for proxy actors across neighboring states would need to be curtailed in favor of cooperative security initiatives targeting common threats such as Al-Shabaab and maritime piracy. Economic integration could transform the Horn’s geography from a source of vulnerability into an engine of shared prosperity. Coordinated port development, cross-border infrastructure projects, and the freer movement of goods and people would help bind the region’s economies together.

The framework of the African Continental Free Trade Area offers precisely such an opportunity, provided that the Horn’s states choose to engage it proactively rather than remain peripheral participants. Historical precedent suggests that durable security is far more likely to emerge from regional cooperation than from reliance on distant patrons. The integration processes that followed the Second World War in Europe, the economic coordination pursued by Southeast Asian states, and even the Gulf Cooperation Council’s partial experiment in regionalism all demonstrate that pooling sovereignty can mitigate the structural anxieties that drive interstate rivalry. The Gulf’s recent fractures – despite decades of American security guarantees – illustrate that external protection cannot substitute for genuine regional trust. The Horn of Africa therefore stands at a strategic crossroads. One path continues the pattern of inviting outside powers to arbitrate disputes and secure maritime corridors, accepting the trade-off of diminished autonomy and persistent vulnerability to shifting global priorities.

The other path embraces a more demanding but ultimately more sustainable vision: resolving internal rivalries through regional institutions, constructing collective security mechanisms, and pursuing economic integration that binds neighboring societies together. If the Gulf’s recent experience offers any lesson, it is that bandwagoning with extra-regional powers provides, at best, temporary respite. Long-term stability emerges only when neighboring states recognize that their security is fundamentally intertwined. By transforming their shared geography and cultural heritage into the foundation for cooperation rather than competition, the states of the Horn can convert their strategic location from a liability into a durable source of strength.

By Abdi Zenebe, PHD (Deputy Director of the Ethiopian Institute of Foreign Affairs)