The 2026 U.S. National Defense Strategy (NDS) signals a decisive shift toward what can best be described as transactional realism. Departing from the liberal order maintenance and Biden-era emphasis on integrated deterrence, the strategy narrows U.S. commitments, prioritizes regional primacy only where core interests are at stake, and redefines stability as control at acceptable cost rather than political transformation or long-term state-building.

This doctrinal recalibration translates into a more selective, interest-driven U.S. posture globally. Within this framework, the Horn of Africa does not emerge as a primary sphere of conflict, but rather as an instrumental arena valued for access, transit, and leverage rather than political ownership.

Historically peripheral in U.S. grand strategy, the Horn of Africa is now being recast as a maritime and resource gateway. The Horn is thus framed less as a zone for conflict resolution and more as a transit and buffer space critical to Red Sea security, resource access, and strategic competition.

U.S. engagement in the Horn is explicitly transactional and security-first, prioritizing containment and risk management over sustained political ownership. The preferred operational model is offshore balancing naval deployments, overflights, and selective partnerships over large-scale ground presence.

This approach is reinforced by the NDS’s broader re-prioritization of U.S. defense objectives. Homeland defense and the Western Hemisphere take precedence, while China is explicitly framed as the pacing strategic competitor, with deterrence pursued through strength rather than confrontation.

Conventional deterrence in Europe is largely delegated to regional partners through burden sharing arrangements, with sustained U.S. force presence minimized. While Russia is acknowledged as a significant but manageable threat.

Compared to the previous Biden era emphasis on integrated deterrence, the new strategy prioritizes deterrence by denial and sharper alignment with U.S. national interests over broader multilateral frameworks.

Recent crises in the Red Sea have reinforced this risk-management posture. Houthi attacks on commercial shipping prompted limited multinational operations to secure maritime routes vital to global trade. Within this framework, U.S. engagement across the Horn is sharply differentiated. The Horn of Africa is no longer relegated as secondary status. Instead, it has become a strategic concept where maritime security, counter-terrorism, and great-power competition especially with China intersect.

Sudan’s protracted civil war has weakened a key Red Sea littoral state, intensifying regional rivalries and reinforcing U.S. preferences for containment over intervention. Sudan’s fragmentation has transformed it into a focal point of regional rivalry, reshaping Gulf power alignments, further complicating the Horn of Africa security; a place manage risk than dominate within the NDS.

Meanwhile, Djibouti sits as a critical U.S. strategic asset, with Camp Lemonnier functioning as the United States first permanent military base in Africa and a central hub for spanning the Middle East, the Arabian Peninsula, and the Indian Ocean. Its proximity to China’s first overseas military base fundamentally alters Djibouti’s strategic character, transforming the country into a high-stakes arena of direct U.S.-China competition evident .

Somalia occupies a parallel but distinct role, remaining central to U.S. counterterrorism objectives. U.S. involvement emphasizes intelligence support, logistics reflecting a posture focused less on state-building and more on preventing state collapse. Somali forces, rather than U.S. troops, carry the primary weight of stabilization, consistent with Washington’s preference for burden-sharing and minimal political ownership.

Eritrea, by contrast, is classified as a destabilizing neither a security partner nor a priority engagement zone. U.S. policy toward Asmara is defined by strategic distance, marked by limited engagement in close monitoring.

Ethiopia occupies a conditional yet consequential position within the recalibrated U.S. approach. Engagement is explicitly instrumental rather than normative, shifting from aid-centered cooperation toward trade, investment, and strategic leverage. Ethiopia’s exclusion from AGOA since 2022 significantly curtailed foreign direct investment, particularly in industrial parks, weakening its industrialization drive.

According to the National security strategy(NSS) explicitly referencing AGOA as a framework subject to revision under this new transactional approach. Ethiopia’s exclusion from AGOA since 2022 has significantly curtailed foreign direct investment, particularly in industrial parks, undermining its broader industrialization and export-led growth strategy.

Under the Trump administration’s transactional realism, AGOA re-entry is framed as a form of strategic leverage than moral conditionality, increasingly tied to stability, market openness, and alignment with U.S. economic. This aligns with Ethiopia’s own shift toward an investment and growth paradigm.

As U.S. cooperation focuses on sectors of strategic value, critical minerals, energy, and maritime security, with early 2026, U.S. signaling linking future economic engagement to Ethiopia’s reserves. Ethiopia’s long-standing role in regional counterterrorism operations, particularly against Al-Shabaab, reinforces its perception in Washington as a capable security actor and a reliable partner for containment-focused cooperation.

The recent high-level engagements, including discussions between Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, AFRICOM Commander General Dagvin Anderson,underscore Washington’s immediate priority: conflict prevention and risk containment over long-term political commitment,where General Anderson praised Ethiopia’s ongoing contribution to regional peace and security and confirmed U.S. support for Ethiopia’s efforts to counter terrorism.

Ethiopia is thus valued functionally, as an enabler of uninterrupted extraction, logistics, and supply-chain, security for the U.S. Defense Industrial Base, particularly as U.S. seeks to counter China’s  growing dominance across global critical mineral supply chains.

By Selamawit Getachew, Researcher, Horn Review