AFRICA

Jeffrey A . Lefebvre
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THE GEOPOLITICS OF THE HORN OF

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Dr. Lefebvre is Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at the
University of Connecticut at Stamford. He is the author of Arms for the Horn:U.S.
Security Policy in Ethiopia and Somalia, 1953-1991 (Pittsburgh: University of
Pittsburgh Press, Pitt Series in Policy and tnstitutional Studies, 1991).1

D
uring the Cold War U.S. secu-
rity policy in the Third World
was driven by a globalist im-
pulse to preempt or counter So-
viet penetration. Now, with the end of the
Cold War, strategic disengagement is seen
as a viable as well as desirable strategy in
countries and regions of the world where
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U.S. policy had largely been a perceptual
function of Soviet involvement or success.
The case for a more selective policy of
strategic engagement is made in the re-
cently leaked classified draft of the Penta-
gon’s “Defense Planning Guidance for the
Fiscal Years 19!3&1999,” a post-Cold-War
version of George Kennan’s call for a pol-
icy of selective containment in the indus-
main thrust behind the Pentagon’s pro-
posed post-Cold-War strategic blueprint is
for the United States “to prevent any hos-
tile power from dominating a region whose
resources would, under consolidated con-
trol, be sufficient to generate world pow-
er.”* In this regard specific reference is
made to Western Europe, East Asia, the
territory of the former Soviet Union, and
Southwest Asia-notably the Persian Gulf
and the Middle East.
Washington’s attempt to redefine its vital
interests, however, will not be made in a
political vacuum. Although U.S. global
geopolitical interests are being reordered,
those of local and regional allies remain
largely unchanged. U.S. sensitivity to the

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trial areas of Europe and Asia. While noting
that the United States has “important inter-
ests at stake in Latin America, Oceania and
sub-Saharan Africa [and should] be con-
cerned with preventing the domination of
key regions by a hostile power. . . ,” the
‘I would like to express my appreciationto several
U.S. government officials who wish to remain anony-
mous but generously lent their insights on U.S. policy
in the Horn during interviews conducted between
August 1990 and March 1992.
security concerns of its friends and allies
may in some instances supercede the di-
minished globalist impulse to intervene.
One region where this clash between global
versus local and regional geopolitical inter-
ests may cause a reversal in Washington’s
attempt to maintain a low-level military
profile is the Horn of Africa.
*PatrickTyler, “U.S.Strategy Plan Calls For Insur-
ing No Rivals Develop,” New York Times (March 8,
1992).

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MIDDLE EAST POLICY,VOLUME 1, NUMBER 3, 1992
POLITICAL DISINTEGRATION
IN THE HORN
The Horn of Africa may broadly be de-
fined as encompassing Ethiopia, Somalia,
Djibouti, Kenya and Sudan. Of course the
way things are going in the Horn these
days, the identification of national actors as
well as ethnonational forces is becoming
rather problematic. The five national enti-
ties currently recognized internationally
may soon subdivide into six, seven, eight or
even more states. Then when one attempts
to keep track of the various subnational
movements operating in the Horn, which
seem to proliferate daily, one appreciates
the sardonic reference to the Horn as “al-
phabet-soup land.”
Somalia is an example of
ethnonational forces, or more
precisely inter-clan politics,
run amok.
Somalia is an example of ethnonational
forces, or more precisely inter-clan politics,
run amok. In May of 1991 the Isaaq-based
Somali National Movement (SNM),which
seized control of the north of Somalia fol-
lowing the overthrow of Siad Barre’s gov-
ernment the previous January, declared the
establishment of the Republic of Somali-
land-a declaration the U.S.Department of
State has refused thus far to recognize.
While the government in Mogadishu views
this secession as a betrayal of the pan-
Somali movement, and two clan-based
groups opposed to the secession have ap-
peared in the north, there is little the Somali
government can do given the confusion and
anarchy that reign in the south. In Mogad-
ishu, the interim government of Ali Mahdi
Mohammed, dominated by the Hawiye-
based United Somali Congress (USC), is
being challenged by an assortment of at
8
least six other clan-based politicallmilitary
groups-the most prominent of which are
the Ogadeeni-based Somali Patriotic Move-
ment (SPM), the resurrected Majeerteen-
based Somali Salvation Democratic Front
(SSDF) and the DaaroodMareehan-based
Somali National Front (SNF), the latter
presumed to be the stalking-horse of ousted
president Siad Barre. Moreover, in Sep-
tember 1991 a bloody power struggle
erupted within the ruling USC government
in what appears to be a Hawiye sub-clan
dispute between President Ali Mahdi’s Ab-
gaal sub-clan and that of the commander of
USC forces General Agdeed’s Habr Gidir
sub-clan. By the end of 1991 Mogadishu
was engulfed in civil war, and the country
of Somalia was not only split in half but, in
effect, had been sub-divided into at least
ten clan-based zones.3
In Kenya, political tensions are on the
rise due to human-rights abuses and politi-
cal repression by the government of Presi-
dent Daniel Moi. Using the political cover
of keeping a cap on Kenya’s ethnic divi-
sions, the ruling Kenyan African National
Union (KANU) declared Kenya a one-
party state and put an end to multiparty
democracy in 1982. However, over the past
two years Moi’s repressive practices have
brought condemmation from the United
States, the Western community and various
human-rights organizations worldwide, re-
sulting in the reduction and suspension of
Western economic and military assistance.
It was only under the threat by Western
donors for internal political and economic
reforms to be implemented, or for Kenya to
risk losing several hundred million dollars’
worth of current and future aid commit-
ments, that at the end of 1991 KANU
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announced a return to multiparty democ-
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racy and for national elections to be held by
the end of 1992. Depending upon whether,
’See New Africun, 290 (November 1991). p. 44.
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when and how these reforms are imple-
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mented, Kenya could be a powder keg
waiting to explode ~
Since gaining independence in 1977 Dji-
bouti, like Kenya, was seen as a bastion of
relative stability in the Horn, due in no
small part to the presence of several thou-
sand French Foreign Legion forces, who
helped keep in check Somalia’s irredentist
designs on Djibouti. However, at the end of
1991 the government of President Hassan
Goulet Aptidon found itself embroiled in an
internal crisis, one from which the French
have chosen to remain at arm’s length de-
spite the government’s request for France
to comply with the 1977 Mutual Defense
Pact. Part of the problem involves the ques-
tion of succession within the Issa-domi-
nated ruling party, the RPP (Popular Alli-
ance for Progress), as Goulet must step
down from the presidency after completing
his second six-year term in 1993. The more
pressing internal security problem involves
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two Afar-based movements, the AROD
(Rebirth) and the FRUD (Le Front de res-
tauration de l’unite et de la democratie),
that are challenging the government. While
the AROD movement is calling for greater
political participation for the Mars, the
FRUD is in open rebellion against the gov-
ernment. With reports filtering out of the
country of increasing repression by the
National Security Forces, Djibouti may too
wind up on Washington’s human-rights
sanctions list.
For nine years, Sudan has not known
peace. Achieving it again may require po-
litical separation between the north and the
south. However, given the decision by the
new government in Addis Ababa to expel
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the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army
(SPLA) from Ethiopian territory and Ken-
ya’s commitment to terminate assistance
for the rebels, coupled with the factional
infighting that has split the SPLA, the Su-
danese government believes a military so-
9
LEFEBVRE: GEOPOLITICS OF THE HORN
lution may now be imposed in the south.
This approach, many observers feel, is
doomed to failure while staining even more
Khartoum’s already tarnished image in the
West. Moreover, during the past three
years the Islamist-dominated military gov-
ernment fronted by Lt.-Gen. Omar al-Be-
shir has become increasingly isolated inter-
nationally for (1) supporting Iraq during the
Gulf crisis and war, (2) committing human-
rights abuses in waging war against the
SPLA in the south, and (3) allegedly be-
coming a safe haven for terrorists and Is-
lamic extremists.
Since the overthrow of the Mengistu gov-
ernment in May 1991, Ethiopia has been
making its way toward experiencing peace
for the first time in 30 years. Much will
depend upon whether the government of
Meles Zenawi, leader of the victorious
Ethiopian Peoples’s Revolutionary Demo-
cratic Front (EPRDF), honors its pledge to
respect the Eritrean people’s right of self-
determination. More important, now that
Eritrea is under the control of the Eritrean
People’s Liberation Front (EPLF) and the
result of the Eritrean referendum (to be
held before the end of 1993) a foregone
conclusion in the minds of most observers,
the question is whether Addis Ababa will
accept an Eritrean declaration of indepen-
dence. The reverberations of such a decla-
ration will be felt throughout Ethiopia, a
heterogeneous ethnoreligious conglomera-
tion that, except for the use of military
force by the central government, would
have come apart at the seams two decades
ago. Ethnic Somalis in the southeast, the
Oromos of the south and central part of the
state, and the Mars in the east are three
groups among many that may demand
greater autonomy from the center, if not
renew their struggle for independence.
While the Tigre-dominated EPRDF govern-
ment has sought to find an ethnic balance in
the makeup of the Executive Council of
MIDDLE EAST POLICY, VOLUME I , NUMBER 3,1992
Representatives by including the Oromo
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Liberation Front (OLF), the Western So-
malia Liberation Front (WSLF), and the
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Afar Liberation Front (ALF) to name a
few, fighting continues in the north against
the Coalition of Ethiopian Democratic
Forces (COEDF), comprising the Ethio-
pian People’s Revolutionary Party (EPRP)
and the All-Ethiopia Socialist Party (MEI-
SON).
The post-independence political systems
established in the Horn of Africa are ex-
tremely fragile and have survived either by
finding a balance between competing eth-
nonational claims or, more commonly, by
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employing brute force. Adding fuel to the
fire is the fact that the Horn is a highly
penetrable regional subsystem. Given the
local obsession with internal and external
security matters, influence has accrued to
those foreign powers willing to provide
arms. More often than not, foreign inter-
vention has been sought out and welcomed
by local actors. Until recently, the super-
powers were willing to oblige.
SUPERPOWER ARMS
COMPETITION AND
DISENGAGEMENT
Perhaps nowhere has the move toward
strategic disengagement on the part of the
United States as well as the former Soviet
Union been as sudden and dramatic as in
the Horn of Africa. Given the centrifugal
forces that have been set loose in the Horn,
it is not surprising that Washington and
Moscow wanted out. During the 1970s and
1980s, however, the Horn was the site of
one of the largest externally funded military
buildups in the Third World. An estimated
$15 billion worth of arms, assorted military
equipment and training were provided to
Ethiopia, Sudan, Somalia, Kenya and mi-
bouti by a wide array of actors, including
Britain, Italy, France, China, Iran, Egypt,
Iraq, Israel and Libya, and most promi-
10
nently the United States and the Soviet
Union.
In assessing the impact of superpower
arms transfers to the Horn of Africa, one is
tempted to say that nowhere have so few
spent so much for so little. After providing
some $300 million worth of arms to Somalia
in the mid-1970s only to be kicked out by
the Somalis in November 1977, the Soviet
Union turned around and transformed the
Ethiopian military into one of the largest
and best-equipped in all of Africa, transfer-
ring an estimated $10-$12 billion in arms
between 1977 and 1991. The $375 million
worth of military assistance, training, cred-
its and arms sales provided to Ethiopia by
the United States between 1953 and 1977
paled in comparison to the approximately
$2.75 billion worth of U.S. security assis-
tance and cash sales approved for Sudan
($1.4 billion), Somalia ($600 million),
Kenya ($700 million) and Djibouti ($60 mil-
lion) between 1977 and 1992. This was all
done in the name of geopolitical counterbal-
ancing. In the final analysis, besides fueling
internal and external conflicts, superpower
military involvement in the Horn never
really accomplished anything except to cre-
ate the perception in Washington and Mos-
cow that something was actually being
done to offset the actions of the other.
Today, however, the situation has
changed dramatically. In the case of the
Soviet-Ethiopian military partnership, Mi-
kail Gorbachev began warning Addis Ab-
aba in 1988 that the days of large-scale
Soviet arms transfers were coming to an
end-of course, the Mengistu regime met
its end first. The US-Sudanese military
connection, which began in 1977, started to
deteriorate in the second half of the 1980s
and collapsed completely following the
June 1989 military coup in Khartoum.
American military relations with Somalia,
initiated in August 1980 as part of the
military infrastructure developed in the In-
 LEFEBVRE: GEOPOLITICS OF THE HORN

dian Ocean under the rubric of the Carter ton hopes France, Italy, Britain, Egypt and
Doctrine, were suspended in the fall of 1989 Saudi Arabia will fill the security void left

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due to persistent human-rights abuses by by the superpowers and help stabilize the
the former government of Siad Barre. area. But in recent years Libya, Iran and
While the U.S.-Kenyan military partner- Iraq, and also Israel, have been actively
ship goes back to 1976 and was formalized
in 1980 under the Carter Doctrine, over the
past two years U.S. security assistance has Given the new strategic
been withheld and reduced to the bare environment of the
minimum due to U.S. concern about hu- post-Cold-War world, U.S.
man-rights abuses. The minimal security-
policymakers must determine

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assistance program maintained with Dji-
bouti since 1982, now ranks this mini-coun- whether local, regional or
try among the top two recipients of U.S. global geopolitical interests
security assistance in sub-Saharan Africa. exist that are worth defending
This is not saying much when one considers
that the amount of U.S. security assistance
in the Horn of Africa.
requested for the entire Africa region was
$62 million for FY 1992 and $41 million for using arms transfers to penetrate the Horn,
Fy 1993, less than one-fifth the amount for possibily setting the stage for renewed U.S.
East Asia and one-eighteenth the level for involvement if American friends and allies
Latin America proposed by the Bush ad- are unable to offset the inroads made by
ministration over the past two years. hostile powers. Given the new strategic
Thus, if arms transfers are a barometer of environment of the post-Cold-War world,
the relative strategic value of a country or U.S.policymakers must determine whether
region, African real estate and that of the local, regional or global geopolitical inter-
Horn in particular is negligible in the eyes ests exist that are worth defending in the
of Washington. The fact that Somalia, Horn of Africa.
Sudan and Kenya, not to mention Ethiopia
in 1977, have been targets of U.S.human- THE RISE AND FALL OF U.S.
rights sanctions-in contrast to other U.S. GEOPOLITICAL STAKES IN
clients in Southwest Asia-suggests that THE HORN
the Horn’s diminished global geopolitical In looking at the global dimension of this
value underlies Washington’s altered (and problem, a strong case can be made that the
certainly more sensible) agenda. What the Horn of Africa was a logical place for the
Bush administration or its sucessor may United States and the Soviet Union to
take note of, however, is the movement by begin winding down their geopolitical ri-
several regional powers, with some of valry in the Third World. Tellingly, before
whom the United States is not on the best the mid-1970s U.S. defense planners rarely

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of terms, to fill the strategic vacuum left by talked about geopolitics in justifying mili-
the superpowers. tary aid to Ethiopia. Of course geopolitical
If global geopolitics has lost much of its justifications were not necessary at this
potency in terms of the U.S. security cal- time since the limited U.S. military aid
culation in the Horn, the same cannot be granted to Ethiopia was “rent” for Kagnew
said regarding the geopolitical equations of Station, a strategic communications facility
local and regional actors. Ideally, Washing- located in what became Ethiopia’s north-

11
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MIDDLE EAST POLICY,VOLUME I , NUMBER 3,1992
east province of Eritrea in 1962. From the
1940s into the mid-1970s Kagnew was the
focal point of U.S. interest in Ethiopia,
serving as a vital link in the U.S. defense
communications system and allowing
Washington to electronically monitor and
gather intelligencein Africa and the Middle
East. With the deployment of Polaris nu-
clear submarines in the early IWs, Kag-
new Station became a crucial link in the
strategic communications (STRATCOM)
network. In the mid-I960s, Kagnew be-
came the host site for the top-secert
“Stonehouse Project” to aid in the devel-
opment of U.S.ballistic missiles. Not sur-
prisingly, during each phase of Kagnew’s
strategic development U.S.military assis-
tance to Ethiopia increased, as did Wash-
ington’s willingness to transfer sophisti-
cated weapons.
However, by the early 1970s Kagnew’s
strategic importance had become a function
of advances in satellite technology. The
development of communications facilities
on Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, out of
the way of the growing rebellion in Eritrea,
further diminished Kagnew’s value. By the
end of 1973 most of Kagnew’s operations
had been shut down or were in the process
of being phased out. Thus, when Washing-
ton’s long-time friend, Emperor Haile Se-
lassie, was deposed by the Ethiopian mili-
tary in 1974, the United States was already
on its way out of Ethiopia.
The strategic decline of Kagnew Station
undercut the arms-for-bases quid pro quo
underlying the US.-Ethiopian military re-
lationship. Executive Branch officials then
attempted to connect Ethiopia to U.S. geo-
political interests in the Indian Ocean, cit-
ing the Soviet-sponsored military buildup in
Somalia and the related development of
naval and port facilities at Berbera by the
Russians as posing a potential threat. How-
ever, the Pentagon preferred to counter
Soviet activities in Somalia and South Ye-
12
men not from Ethiopia, but from Diego
Garcia. Thus, as the U.S.-Ethiopian mili-
tary relationship deteriorated and was fi-
nally terminated in the spring of 1977, there
was little strategic incentive for Washing-
ton to attempt to salvage the situation,
making it a relatively easy proposition for
the Carter administration to make an exam-
ple of Ethiopia by imposing human-rights
sanctions.
However, the rapid manner in which the
Soviet Union seized the opportunity to re-
place the United States in Ethiopia gave
rise to the perception that America had
suffered a severe strategic blow in the
Horn. It became commonplace for policy
analysts to s u m up the Horn of Africa’s
strategic significance in one word-not
Kagnew, but “geography.”4 Given the
Horn’s location astride vital sealines of
communications (SLOCs) and the southern
entrance to the Red Sea (Bab al-Mandab),
and opposite the Arabian Penisula, perhaps
it was not surprising that defense analysts
became susceptible to worst-case argu-
ments about “chokepoints” and Cold War
domino theories. Of course, the setback in
Ethiopia also dealt a blow to the Africa
Bureau at the State Department, which
based U.S. policy on the idea that Ethiopia
was the most important actor in the Horn.
Where the strategists and the area special-
ists parted ways was over how to respond
to the events in the Horn, the former want-
ing to take over the Soviet position in
Somalia and the latter seeking to reestab-
lish the U.S.position in Ethiopia by not
antagonizing the Mengistu regime.
Subsequent events would lead the Carter
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administration to revise its wait-and-see
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approach. Soviet-Cuban military interven-
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tion in the 1977-78 Ethiopian-Somali war in
‘J. Bowyer Bell, The Horn of 4frica: Strategic
Magnet in the Seventies (New York: Crane,Russak &
Company,Inc., 1973), pp. 8-9.
 the Ogaden desert caused a well-publicized
breach between the Africa Bureau, which
favored a hands-off approach, and Zbig-
niew Brzezinski at the National Security
Council (NSC),who favored helping Soma-
lia.5 Although the Africa Bureau won and
held the line against jumping into Somalia
without guarantees from Mogadishu not to
invade Ethiopia, the Carter administration
instead began arming Kenya and Sudan in
what appeared to be a domestically and
geopolitically inspired policy of encircle-
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ment. Events in Iran and Afghanistan dur-
ing 1979 finally broke down the remaining
resistance in Washington to the Somali ini-
tiative. Ronald Reagan took over from
there and global geopolitics became en-
z
trenched as the basis for Washington’s arm-
ing of the Horn through the 1980s.
Because U.S. security
assistance to Sudan, Somalia
and Kenya had been a
perceptual function of the
success of the Soviet effort in
Ethiopia, Washington’s
interest in arming the Horn
correspondingly declined
By the end of the decade, however, the
circumstances which had driven Washing-
ton’s militant policy of containment in the
Horn had changed. While U.S. security
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assistance was being reduced worldwide
due to the growing fiscal crisis, it was
noteworthy that Moscow had pulled its
troops out of Afghanistan and was scaling
back its involvement in Ethiopia. By the
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end of the 1980s Ethiopia posed a threat to
no one, given its mounting internal prob-
~~~
5Elizabeth Drew, “Bnezinski,” The New Yorker
(May I , 1978).
13
LEFEBVRE: GEOPOLITICS OF THE HORNzy
lems. Because U.S. security assistance to
Sudan, Somalia and Kenya had been a
perceptual function of the success of the
Soviet effortin Ethiopia, Washington’s in-
terest in arming the Horn correspondingly
declined.
Any remaining doubts about the wisdom
of disengaging from the Horn were put to
rest by the Gulf War. Both the Carter and
Reagan administrations had based U.S.
arms transfers to Sudan, Somalia and
Kenya on the assumption that the Horn
provided a necessary staging site for U.S.
military intervention in the Middle East and
Persian Gulf. The Gulf War demonstrated
the geopolitical marginality of the Horn in a
major military contingency of the type used
to justify the arms-for-access arrangements
concluded with Somalia and Kenya in 1980,
the opponent having changed from the So-
viet Union to Iraq.
Events in the Horn mattered little during
the 1 W 9 1 Gulf crisis and war because, as
the critics expected, everything in the re-
gion was opened to the United States in this
contingency. Although Sudan’s alignment
with Iraq was a cause for alarm in Cairo and
Riyadh, due to the fear that Khartoum may
have acquired missiles from Baghdad
which might be fired at the Aswan Dam,
Red Sea shipping or Saudi oil terminals, the
Beshir government maintained a low profile
throughout the crisis. U.S. operations at
the much-heralded and controversial mili-
tary facilities at Berbera were closed down
before the start of the airwar against Iraq.
In fact, the U.S. embassy in Mogadishu had
been evacuated in eariy January 1991 due
to the increasing dangers posed by the civil
war in Somalia. While military facilities in
Kenya proved useful in evacuating the U.S.
embassy in Sudan in January 1991, and
acting as a backup for the American evac-
uation in Somalia, they played no direct
role in supporting U.S. military operations
against Iraq. Only Djibouti played a minor
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MIDDLE EAST POLICY, VOLUME 1, NUMBER 3,1992
strategic role. In short, the war against Iraq
proved that U.S.power projection capabil-
ities in the Middle East were not dependent
upon maintaining access to strategic facili-
ties in the Horn of Africa.
The geopolitical value of the Horn of
Africa was and will remain a function of the
U.S. strategic position in the Gulf. If the
higher-profile U.S.military posture in the
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Gulf is no longer welcome, then perhaps
Washington might once again look to the
Horn. Even under that scenario, it appears
the Department of Defense believes Diego
Garcia, bases in Turkey and the pre-posi-
tioning of military equipment in Saudi Ara-
bia, Israel and Egypt can provide the nec-
essary flexibility to respond to any given
military contingency in the region. Under
current conditions strategic redundancy,
which is largely what military facilities in
the Horn provided, is a luxury Washington
can no longer afford economically and no
longer desires, given the associated politi-
cal costs of supporting unstable and repres-
sive regimes in the Horn.
ETHIOPIA’S DRIVE FOR THE
RED SEA
If the United States is unlikely to reen-
gage militarily in the Horn on global geopo-
litical grounds, what local geopolitical in-
terests might counteract U.S. disengage-
ment? To answer this question one must
first appreciate that the indigenous roots of
conflict in the Horn of Africa are manifold.
Ethnonationalism and pan-Somali irredent-
ism are two of the forces that were un-
leashed by the colonial partition of the
Horn of Africa in the late nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries. However, the
colonial division of the Horn was unique
among Third World regions in that one of
those conquering imperial powers was a
local actor-Ethiopia-driven by its own
geopolitical imperative.
14
Ethiopia’s foreign and domestic policies
have been driven by a desire to acquire and
maintain access to the sea. Prior to the
Italian invasion of Ethiopia in 1935,Addis
Ababa’s geopolitical ambitions were con-
strained by the British, French and Italian
colonial presence along the Red Sea in the
Somalilands and Eritrea. Ethiopia’s only
access to the sea was indirect, via the Addis
Ababa-Djibouti railway, which transvered
areas inhabited by many non-Christian,
non-Amharic peoples conquered during the
reign of the Ethiopian emperor Menelik II
(1889-1913). Addis Ababa’s dependence
upon the French-controlled port at Djibouti
was for the Ethiopians an unsatisfactory
situation. Ethiopia’s experience of hostile
powers (the Ottoman Turks in the sixteenth
century, the Italians in the 1890s and 1930s)
lodging themselves along the Red Sea and
using this position as a staging ground for
the invasion of the Ethiopian heartland
made the Red Sea coastline vital not only as
an access point, but as a buffer zone as
well.
Thus, following the liberation of Ethiopia
from Italian control in I941 Emperor Haile
Selassie put in motion a diplomatic strategy
aimed at acquiring direct access to the Red
Sea. Recognizing that Ethiopia was in no
position to acquire this by force since what
he had in mind was sure to be opposed by
the Arab states, Italy and France, not to
mention the local population in the area,
the emperor looked to the United States to
act as Ethiopia’s great-power patron. In
February 1945 Haile Selassie met with
Franklin Roosevelt and broached the idea
that Ethiopia should acquire control over
Italy’s Red Sea colony of Eritrea. Although
the Americans were favorably disposed to-
ward the idea that at least some part of
Eritrea should be given to Ethiopia, it was
not until the latter half of 1949 that the State
Department and Pentagon agreed that Ethi-
opian control over the whole of Eritrea
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would serve U S . strategic interests
-namely, guaranteeing U.S. access to a
small naval communications facility (Radio
Marina) that had been taken over by the
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United States during the war. Subse-
quently, the United States facilitated the
passage of a U.N. resolution calling for a
10-year federation between Ethiopia and
Eritrea which took effect in December
1952. Not content with this temporary ar-
rangement, Selassie annexed Eritrea in
1962 and thus began the 30-year war in
Eritrea.
zy
Addis Ababa’s drive to the Red Sea ulti-
mately planted the seeds for the disintegra-
tion of the Ethiopian state. Selassie’sforeign-
policy triumph created internal as well as
zyx
external security problems for the emperor
zyxw
and his successors: conflict with Somalia and
war in Eritrea and other peripheral prov-
inces. Moreover, the fear of a domino-like
effect engulfing the empire ruled out compro-
mise with the opposition. A conception of
Ethiopian nationalism built on the geopoliti-
cal objective of maintaining access to the Red
Sea and preserving the temtorial integrity of
the Ethiopian state transcended ideology, as
indicated by the fact that a conservative
monarch, his reform-minded military succes-
sors (1974-1977), and the radical-leftist mili-
tary government of Mengistu Haile Mariam
(1977-1991) pursued the identical geopolitical
agenda.
The question now is whether the EPRDF
government will abandon or reformulate
Addis Ababa’s long-held geopolitical im-
perative and accept Ethiopia’s status as a
landlocked state. President Meles Zenawi,
head of the EPRDF, was criticized by many
in Addis Ababa when he recognized Eri-
trea’s right to secede. While the current
arrangement between Addis Ababa and the
EPLF allows for the port of Asab in the
south of Eritrea to be a free port under
Eritrean management and open for Ethio-
pia to send and receive goods without pay-
15
LEFEBVRE: GEOPOLITICS OF THE HORN
ing any tariffs, Addis Ababa has lost con-
trol over concessions granted to several
Western companies by Mengistu to drill for
oil in the Red Sea along the Danakil coast.
The discovery of oil in the Ogaden, where
Western companies also began exploring
for oil in 1986, could fuel Somali secession-
ist tendencies.
Prior to the collapse of the Ethiopian
military in Eritrea, the State Department
continued to operate on the Africa Bu-
reau’s policy guideline of respecting the
temtorial integrity of Ethiopia. Recent
events have forced a 180-degree turn in
U.S. policy toward Eritrea. While the State
Department’s preferred solution is for some
form of regional federation, the Africa Bu-
reau is adjusting to a new reality.6 So long
as the Eritreans follow the “proper pro-
cess” by going to the United Nations and
not simply making a unilateral declaration
of independence, U.S. recognition seems
inevitable. Conversely, Washington still re-
mains hostile to Somali irredentism in the
Horn.
Thus, Ethiopia’s geopolitical interest in
maintaining control over Eritrea is no
longer of vital concern to the United States,
except to the limited extent that it acts as a
spark for conflict in the Horn. I n the past,
the U.S. strategic interest in Kagnew con-
verged with Ethiopia’s geopolitical interest
in Eritrea. But once Kagnew Station disap-
peared as a strategic consideration in the
mid-1970s and American options in the
Arab world began to open up following the
1973 Arab-Israeli war, the U.S. stake in
‘See U S . Department of State, Bureau of African
Affairs, “The Horn of Africa: The Need for Federal-
ism and Dialogue,” address by Deputy Assistant Sec-
retary of State for African Mairs Irvin Hicks to the
African American Institute 1990 Forum Series, Wash-
ington, DC, November 18, 1990.
 zyxwvu
zyxwvu
zyxwvutsr
zyxwv
MIDDLE EAST POLICY, VOLUME 1, NUMBER 3, 1992
helping Ethiopia resolve its geopolitically
generated internal and external problems
. .. three sets of regional
geopolitical interests have
intersected in the Horn: Israeli
security interests in the Red
Sea; Egypt’s historical
entanglement in the water
politics of the Nile; and the
interdependence of Gulf and
Red Sea security issues for
Saudi Arabia, Iran and Iraq.
also disappeared. Thus, one is led to con-
clude that local geopolitics will not counter-
act Washington’s determination to disen-
gage militarily from the Horn.
REGIONAL GEOPOLITICAL
INTERESTS IN THE HORN
If local geopolitical imperatives are un-
likely to inspire a call to arms in Washing-
ton, then the impetus to intervene will be
generated by regional geopolitics. In the
post-World-War-I1 period, three sets of re-
gional geopolitical interests have inter-
sected in the Horn: Israeli security interests
in the Red Sea; Egypt’s historical entangle-
ment in the water politics of the Nile; and
the interdependence of Gulf and Red Sea
security issues for Saudi Arabia, Iran and
Iraq, In all three cases the Arab-Israeli
conflict has provided political cover for the
activities of these players. But it should be
noted also that there are two other currents
which have affected regional geopolitical
struggles in the Horn: the tension between
the conservative and progressive Arab
camps, and more recently between secular
and Islamic fundamentalist regimes.
16
ISRAELI SECURITY
The most politically sensitive issue in the
United States with regard to regional geo-
politics involves Israeli security. This ratio-
nale was first sounded on Capitol Hill in the
mid-1970s at a time when U.S. operations
at Kagnew Station were winding down and
the war in Eritrea was heating up. The
Eritrean insurgency was depicted as a rad-
ical Arab movement that would align Eri-
trea with the anti-Western, Arab rejection-
ist camp. An Ethiopian defeat in Eritrea
would turn the Red Sea into an “Arab
Lake” allowing Israel’s enemies to squeeze
it from the south.
Thus, the conflict in Eritrea came to be
viewed as a southerly extension of the
Arab-Israeli conflict. This scenario gained
currency in the aftermath of the 1967 war as
Arab support for the Eritreans increased
and allegations surfaced of links between
the Eritrean insurgents and the PLO.Arab
involvement in Eritrea was counterbal-
anced by the development of close military
and intelligence cooperation between Israel
and Ethiopia. The fact that operationally an
Arab-oriented Eritrea would do little to
enhance Arab military capabilities along
the southern stretches of the Red Sea, and
that by the mid-1970s Israel had developed
the deterrent capability to hit targets that
far south, did little to diminish the psycho-
logical and political impact both sides be-
lieved would accrue to the party that pre-
vailed in this proxy struggle in the Horn.’
Thus, for a quarter century the operating
guideline for Israeli foreign policy in the
Horn has been to support Addis Ababa in
zy
its bid to maintain control over Eritrea,
zyxwv
without reference to the ideological orien-
tation of the government in power. Even
‘See US. Senate, Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa,
Hearings before the Subcommittee on African Affairs
of the Committee on Foreign Relations, 94th Cong.,
2nd sess. (Washington, DC: GPO, 1976), pp. 53-54;
101-106.

zyxwvut
after Ethiopia’s realignment with the Soviet
Union in 1977, Israel continued to support
the Mengistu government. Although by the
end of the decade the Israeli military con-
nection was no longer necessary due to
massive Soviet support, and a break in
relations occurred, the Russians, in an even
more heavy-handed manner, did Israel’s
dirty work in Eritrea. Not surprisingly,
when it became clear that the Russians
were serious about scaling down their in-
volvement in Ethiopia in 1989, Mengistu
immediately looked to IsraeI for arms and
reestablished diplomatic and military rela-
tions. Although Israel was motivated to
renew its military relationship with Addis
Ababa in order to obtain the release of
Ethiopia’s Falashas, a potent geopolitical
incentive also existed for providing cluster
bombs, jet fighters and other arms for use in
Eritrea. While Israeli geopolitical designs
were stunted by the EPRDF victory in
Ethiopia, it appears the game has been
moved north to Sudan, where for the past
several years Israel has been providing mil-
itary support to the SPLA.
The Israeli security argument as it per-
tains to the Horn of Africa has camed
relatively little weight within the U.S. Ex-
ecutive Branch. Given today’s strategic en-
vironment, it seems highly unlikely that
Israeli security could be adversely affected
by anything that happens in the Horn. In
fact, because of the dependence of Red Sea
states, including an independent Eritrea, on
the free flow of trade through the region,
there is a convergence of Arab and Israeli
interests to avoid taking actions which
would disrupt this traffic. Rather ironically,
even those states in the area that opposed
the Camp David peace process recognize
that their economic interests have been
served by the stabilization of the Egyptian-
Israeli relationship that keeps the Suez Ca-
nal open. While anti-Israeli rhetoric is still
heard in the area, it stems largely from the
17
zy
zyx
LEFEBVRE: GEOPOLITICS OF THE HORN
fear that given Israel’s conventional and
nuclear capabilities, coupled with the ex-
tremist orientation of the former Likud gov-
ernment and uncertainty about Prime Min-
ister Rabin’s Labor government, Israel pos-
sesses not only the power but harbors the
political ambition to establish itself as the
first regional hegemon in the Red Sea re-
gion.* By continuing to engage in destabili-
zation campaigns in the Horn, Israel will
only exacerbate this fear and provide polit-
ical cover for intervention by other regional
powers.
Despite domestic pressures in this coun-
try that tend to support Israel’s geopolitical
agenda, renewed U.S. military involvement
in the Horn of Africa based on the Israeli
security argument will not get very far, due
to an array of countervailing forces. Bud-
getary problems aside, the Africa Bureau’s
agenda for the Horn now calls for the
United States to focus on human rights,
political reform, economic development
and assistance to refugees, not for U.S.
friends and allies to fan the conflicts which
have contributed to these problems. More-
over, the Israeli security argument in the
Horn would be offset by Washington’s in-
creasing sensitivity to Arab regional inter-
ests. Basically, there is an incongruence
between America’s overall strategic agenda
in Southwest Asia and Israel’s geopoliti-
cally inspired agenda in the Horn.
EGYPT AND THE WATER
POLITICS OF THE NILE
Egypt’s historical interest in the security
of the Nile River Valley may very well be
the force that could pull the United States
zyxw
back into the Horn, Water, not oil is the
‘See Prince Abdullah al-Faisal al-Turki al-Saud,
“Saudi Development Plans in the Red Sea Region,” in
Abdel Majid Farid, ed., The Red Sea: Prospects for
Stability (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1984), pp.
36-46.

zyxwvu
~~ ~ zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA
MIDDLE EAST POLICY, VOLUME I , NUMBER 3,1992
lifeblood of Egypt-ver 90 percent of
Egypt’s irrigation is furnished by the Nile.
Thus, Ethiopia’s control over the sources
of the Blue Nile, which converges with the
White Nile at Khartoum, accentuates
Cairo’s sensitivity to political turmoil on its
southern flank. In the late nineteenth cen-
tury, Gen. Charles Gordon provided the
zyxwvzy
geopolitical dictum that a century later still
influences Egyptian policy, and that of
Cairo’s various patrons and enemies: the
defense of the Middle East rests on the
defense of Egypt which in turn rests on the
defense of Sudan.9
Not surprisingly, since 1956, when the
British military evacuated Egypt and Sudan
gained its independence, Cairo has been
obsessed with monitoring or countering any
potential threats to its water sources.
Cairo’s paranoia was accentuated by Ethi-
opia’s realignment with the Soviet Union in
1977 and Arab hostility toward Egypt fol-
lowing the signing of the Camp David ac-
cords and peace treaty with Israel in
1978-79. One result was that in the 1980s
Egyptian policy was shaped by an exagger-
ated domino theory. Libyan intervention in
Chad, for example, was viewed as posing a
threat to Sudan and, thus, to Egypt.
For the most part, Cairo has succeeded
in blunting threats emanating from the
south either through confrontaion or ac-
commodation. Although Ethiopia’s align-
ment with the United States was a source of
irritation for Gamal Nasser, especially
since Kagnew Station was most certainly
being used by the Americans to gather
intelligence on Egypt, Washington and Ad-
dis Ababa refrained from undertaking any
projects on the Blue Nile that would
zyxwvut
threaten Egypt. Likewise with the Soviets,
zyxwvutsrq
who were too busy trying to help Addis
Ababa hold the empire together to get in-
’See Alan Cowell, “Egypt’s Friend in Need,” New
York Times Magazine (December 20, 1981), p. 40.
18
zyxwvu
volved in any major development projects
which would affect the waters of the Nile.
Still, Cairo remained sensitive to this se-
nario despite the fact that between 1%7 and
1987 only two dams were constructed in
Ethiopia on the Blue Nile. Given the limits
of Ethiopia’s financial and technological
capabilities, Cairo’s sense of threat seems
blown out of proportion.
Nonetheless, in the absence of a formal
agreement with Ethiopia concerning usage of
the Nile waters, Egyptian policymakers con-
tinue to operate on a worst-case analysis.
Thus, through the late 1970s and mid-I98Os,
Cairo supported the U.S. strategy of encir-
cling Ethiopia. However, in April 1988 Cairo
and Addis Ababa agreed to normalize rela-
tions. Subsequently, President Mubarak be-
gan distancing Egypt from the struggle in
Eritrea and verbalizing hostility toward the
EPLF-at one point declaring that Egypt
would never recognize the Eritrean people’s
right to seK-determination.10 Cairo’s diplo-
matic initiative was perhaps sparked by re-
ports that surfaced in 1987 that Ethiopia was
planning to build 30 new dams on the Blue
Nile.” For Cairo, the current geopolitical
configuraton of the Horn still dictates that it
is better to be on friendly terms with Ethiopia
than Eritrea.
Since Sudan declared its independence in
January 1956, Egypt has assumed the right
to play a special role in Sudanese affairs.
Between 1955 and 1972, Khartoum was too
weak and absorped in its own internal mat-
ters (a civil war) to pose any sort of threat
to Egypt. Besides, the Sudanese military
was thoroughly penetrated by the Egyp-
tians during this time. Then in 1%9 Jaafar
Nimeiri seized power in Khartoum and
created a Revolutionary Command Council
“Foreign Broadcast Iflormation Service (FBIS),
Sub-Saharan @rim (September 26, 1991), pp. 12-13.
“FBIS, Near East and South Asia (December 23,
1987). pp. 24-25.

(RCC) based on the Nasserite model, sug-
gesting that Sudan would coordinate its
policy with Egypt, which it did. In the
zyxwvu
mid-1970s Nimeiri followed Sadat's lead
zyxwvu
and took Sudan out of the Soviet orbit and
moved into the American camp.
Sudanese-Egyptian relations slowly dis-
integrated following the overthrow of
Nimeiri in April 1985. First, the Transi-
tional Military Council (TMC)moved to
improve relations with Libya at a time
when Egyptian-Libyan relations were quite
poor. The civilian government of Prime
Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi, which was elected
in April 1986, continued this policy and also
maintained a cordial relationship with
Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini. Tehran had
suspended diplomatic relations with Egypt
in 1979 after Anwar Sadat granted political
asylum to the former shah of Iran. While
Khartoum may have simply been trying to
assert a more independent stance vis-a-vis
Egypt and to appease Libya, which had
been providing support to the SPLA insur-
gents and Ethiopia, Cairo viewed Prime
Minister Sadiq's Umma party as inherently
anti-Egyptian and assumed something more
was going on than met the eye.12 An at-
tempt to bridge the gap between Cairo and
Khartoum produced the Brotherhood Char-
ter of friendship, signed in February 1987,
and the conclusion of a joint defense pact.
zyxwv
But by the spring of 1989, Cairo was on the
outs again with Khartoum, and the Sadiq
government announced in midJune that
Sudan would abrogate the joint defense
zyxwv
pact.
After Prime Minister Sadiq was over-
thrown in a military coup on June 30, 1989
~
zyx
Egyptian-Sudanese relations went from bad
to worse. 'This in spite of recent attempts by
zyxwvutsr
Libya, whose relations with Egypt have
vastly improved, to mediate the dispute.
"See "Egypt: Water Diplomacy," Africa Coflden-
rial, 29, 6 (March 18, 1988), pp. 6-7.
pp. 8-9.
zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA
19
LEFEBVRE: GEOPOLITICS OF THE HORN
Khartoum's desire to improve relations
with Cairo were undermined, however, by
a number of developments: the influence of
the National Islamic Front (NIF) within the
Beshir government; Khartoum's continuing
diplomatic support for Iraq; Egyptian con-
cern about where the Libyan-Sudanese in-
tegration agreement signed in March 1991
will lead; growing concern that Sudan is
becoming a safe haven for terrorists and
Islamic extremists who would like to bring
down the secular government in Cairo; and
Through the years the United
States has viewed the problem
of the water of the Nile from
the point of view of both an
opponent and a friend of
Egypt*
~~ ~ ~
reports that in December 1991 Khartoum
concluded a security pact with Tehran. The
Beshir government, in turn, has been the
target of Egyptian propaganda attacks; Su-
danese citizens have been expelled from
Egypt; and President Mubarak has refused
to clamp down on the political activities of
Sudanese dissidents, prompting specula-
tion that the United States might assist a bid
by former president Nimeiri to regain pow-
er.13 At the same time the U.S.embassy in
Khartoum has been playing a "good cop,
bad cop" routine to keep the Beshir gov-
ernment on its toes, and Assistant Secre-
tary of State for African Af€airs Robert
Houdek traveled to Khartoum to caution
the NIF-backed government that it risked
being placed on Washington's blacklist of
states that support terrorism.14
"FBIS, Near Easr and South Asia (April 16, 1991),
"See Raymond Bonner, "Letter Fron Sudan," The
New Yorker (July 13, 1992). 70-83.
 zyxwvu
MIDDLE EAST POLICY, VOLUME 1, NUMBER 3,1992
zyxwvut
Through the years the United States has
viewed the problem of the water of the Nile
from the point of view of both an opponent
and a friend of Egypt. In the spring of 1956,
the Eisenhower administration considered
increasing U.S. influence in Sudan as a way
to punish Nasser for his cooperation with
the Soviet Union. However, Washington’s
basic stance through the 1960s was to stay
out of the Nile water issue and not to
espouse the particular position of any of the
riparian states.15 But once Cairo realigned
with the United States in the 1970s, it
became difficult for Washington not to be
responsive to Egyptian security concerns in
the south. During the first half of the 1980s,
Libyan military intervention in Chad and
zyxwv
destabilization activities directed against
Sudan prompted, on at least four occa-
sions, a U.S. military response ranging
from the dispatch of AWACS early-warn-
ing aircraft to Egypt and Sudan to the
stationing of an aircraft carrier off Egypt’s
Mediterranean coast. Still, the notion that
“if there is trouble in Khartoum, Cairo is
going to rumble” seems highly exaggerated
given the fact that Sudan has been unstable
for almost a decade with little effect on
zyxwvu
Egypt. While Washington prefers that
Cairo handle matters to the south on its
own, or with Saudi assistance, Egypt plays
much too important a role in U.S. regional
strategy for Washington to allow develop-
ments in the Horn to overwhelm Egypt.
zy
THE GULF OIL POWERS
The geopolitical interests in the Horn of
Africa of the oil-exporting states of the Gulf
run parallel to those of the Western oil-
consuming nations, namely securing
zyxwvuts
SLOCs running through the region. Red
Sea and Gulf security issues became in-
”See Jeffrey Lefebvre, “Globalism and Regional-
ism: U.S.Arms Transfers to Sudan,” Armed Forces &
Society, 17, 2 (Winter 1991), pp. 21 1-227.
20
creasingly intermeshed after the Suez Ca-
nal was reopened in 1975. The construction
of new pipelines across the Arabian Penin-
sula and the discovery of commercial quan-
tities of oil in the Yemens in the 1980s
means that the disruption of shipping in the
Red Sea could prove more devastating than
the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. It
would necessitate rerouting all Gulf oil traf-
fic and render the trans-Arabian pipelines
useless. Some analysts have projected that
the Red Sea will be the strategic flashpoint
of the 199Os, as the Gulf was in the 1980s.16
But the Horn’s role in the outcome of that
game seems marginal at best.”
Among the three major Gulf powers,
Saudi Arabia is most directly affected by
events in the Horn. Oil routes, pipelines,
the location of Mecca and Medina, along
with major development plans to expand its
seaport, airport, oil-refinery and desalina-
tion facilities along the Red Sea coast all act
in concert to heighten Riyadh’s sensitivity
to developments in the Red Sea region.
Saudi military involvement in the Horn
reached a peak in the mid-l970s, when
Riyadh led a pro-Westem Arab-Red-Sea
axis seeking to contain and destabilize the
Soviet-backed regime in Ethiopia by pro-
viding arms and assistance to the Eritrean
insurgents and Somalia.’* While pan-Arab
solidarity, the Arab-Israeli conflict and an-
ticommunism provided political cover for
Riyadh’s proxy intervention in the Horn,
the Saudis were also seeking to tame radi-
cal Arab forces. The ascendance of the
‘?See “The Red Sea: The Middle East’s Next Trou-
blespot,” The World Today, 44, 5 (May 1988), pp.
76-71.
”Richard Remnek, “The Strategic importance of
the Bab el-Mandeb and the Horn of Africa,” Naval
War College Review, 43,4 (Autumn 1990). pp. 6-30.
“See Fred Halliday, “US. Policy in the Horn of
Africa: Aboulia or Proxy Intervention,” Review of
Mrican Political Economy I, 1 (SeptembedDecember
1978), pp. 8-31.
 progressive EPLF in Eritrea during the
1980s at the expense of its more conserva-
tive and erstwhile ally and rival, the ELF,
zyxwv
zyx
led to a decrease in Saudi support for the
insurgency. In fact, the Saudis play host to
the conservative Afar Liberation Front
(ALF), which claims Afar-inhabited areas
in the southern part of Eritrea. Today,
Riyadh confronts a rather complex situa-
zyxw
tion at the southern end of the Red Sea: a
united Yemen linked to Iraq, an Islamist
government in Khartoum friendly with both
Iran and Iraq, and a progressive govern-
ment in Eritrea.
Iraq emerged as an active player in the
Horn during the 1970s, providing diplo-
matic and military support to the Eritreans
and economic aid to Somalia. However,
Baghdad was forced to terminate much of
its assistance following the outbreak of war
with Iran in September 1980. But by the end
of the decade Iraq had reemerged as a
major player in the Red Sea and the Horn,
where Baghdad became an important
source of arms and miliatry aid. With the
tacit approval of Cairo, Iraq began supply-
ing significant quantities of weapons to
Sudan in late 1987 and early 1988, including
rockets, rocket launchers, heavy guns,
warplanes and, reportedly, chemical weap-
ons. After the June 1989 military coup in
Khartoum, Iraq became Sudan’s second
leading arms supplier behind Libya. This
military linkage was disrupted by the erup-
tion of the Kuwait crisis in the summer of
1990.
Until the Gulf crisis Baghdad was playing
a number of hands in the Horn.In February
1989, Iraq and Ethiopia restored diplomatic
relations, ruptured several years before due
to Baghdad’s support for the EPLF. During
1989 and 1990 Iraq also delivered some
arms to Somalia and Djibouti. In the latter
case a joint military pact proposed by Iraq
was declined by the Goulet government due
to French pressure. With U.N. sanctions
21
LEFEBVRE: GEOPOLITICS OF THE HORN
still in place against Iraq, Baghdad’s at-
tempt to establish a strong position of influ-
ence in the Horn is on hold.
Iran’s geopolitical interest in the Horn
also dates back to the 1970s. Following the
Soviet realignment with Ethiopia in 1977,
the Shah of Iran nurtured close political and
military ties with Sudan and Somalia,
which disintegrated following the Islamic
revolution. But as a result of Iraq’s isola-
tion under the U.N.-imposed embargo, Iran
has emerged as the predominant outside
influence in Sudan. In a rare excursion
outside his country, Iranian President
Hashemi Rafsanjani arrived in Sudan in
mid-December 1991 with more than 150
Iranian officials, including many army and
intelligence officers. Although there has
been speculation that a formal security pact
was concluded between Khartoum and Teh-
ran, what is known is that Iran agreed to
finance the purchase of $3004400 million
worth of Chinese arms by Sudan, including
18 F-7 and F-8 fighters; 160 T-54, T-59and
T-70 tanks; 270 armored personnel carriers;
rocket launchers and artillery.19 Iran’s geo-
political interest in establishing a perma-
nent foothold south of Egypt and along the
Red Sea converges with Tehran’s ideologi-
cal interest in supporting the Islamic funda-
mentalist government in Khartoum. It also
places Tehran on a possible collision course
with Washington.
It appears that only under circumstances
that pertained between 1967 and 1975,
when the Suez Canal was not in operation,
would the Horn of Afiica attain a higher
strategic prominence. In that instance, oil
now piped across the Arabian Peninsula to
Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea port of Yanbu
would have to pass through Bab al-
zyxw
Mandab. Even in such a scenario, the Red
Sea could be bypassed through the use of
Sudan: guns, not butter,” Africa Confidential 32,
1966
25 (December 20. 19911, p. 10.
 zyxwvu
zyxwvutsr
MIDDLE EAST POLICY, VOLUME I , NUMBER 3,1992
tankers in the Gulf and pipelines through
Turkey, Syria and Lebanon. Pipelines, of
course, create another type of strategic
dependency and vulnerability for oil ex-
porters.
Otherwise, the construction of oil pipe-
lines across the Arabian Peninsula over the
past decade has decreased rather than in-
creased the Horn’s strategic importance,
since these pipelines bypass both the Strait
of Hormuz and Bab al-Mandab. In the case
zyxwv
of Yemen, oil in the northern part of the
country is being shipped by pipeline to the
port of Salif north of Bab al-Mandab, while
oil exported south through Aden can avoid
the Red Sea altogether. Minor disruptions
of shipping, such as the indiscriminate and
covert mining of the Red Sea in 1984, pose
the most likely threat to shipping in the
area. An imposing American presence in
the Horn at that time, however, did not
deter this behavior. Thus, such a scenario
will not be prevented or countered any
more effectively whether the United States
is strategically entrenched in the Horn or
not.
CONCLUSION: THE HORN AT
THE END OF THE COLD W A R
With the end of the Cold War, patron-
client relations in the Horn of Africa have
undergone a fundamental transformation.
Arms clients will no longer be able to
manipulate U.S. policy by threatening to
defect to the Soviet camp. Moreover, the
Gulf War demonstrated the geostrategic
marginality of the Horn, eroding the ability
of client states to manipulate Washington’s
22
sense of strategic vulnerability. Thus, the
simpleminded globalist geopolitical logic of
the Cold War that “the enemy of my enemy
is my friend” should no longer distort U.S.
policy.
However, U.S.policy in the Horn may
be susceptible to distortion by becoming a
function of regional or local geopolitics.
Because U.S. strategy in the Middle East
and Gulf hinges upon mutual cooperation
with Cairo and Riyadh, Washington’s sen-
sitivity to their respective security con-
cerns will be particularly acute, especially
if they are unable to tame what they per-
ceive as threatening forces in the region.
Although U.S.policy toward Eritrea is now
only partially framed by Ethiopian geopo-
litical concerns, with the State Department
favoring a return to federation, Sudan is the
potential flashpoint which could suck the
United States back into the Horn. Much
will depend upon whether Washington is
willing to deal with Islamic radicalism in
Sudan, or Iran for that matter, on its own
terms and not allow U.S. policy toward
Sudan to be held hostage by Egyptian geo-
political interests.20 Thus, the danger in the
post-Cold-War era is that U.S.policy in the
Horn will be guided by a regionaYloca1
geopolitical variation of Cold War global-
zy
zyx
ism whereby “the enemy of my friend is my
enemy.”
*‘See John Voll, “Islamization in the Sudan and the
Iranian Revolution,” in John Esposito, ed., The Ira-
nian Revolution: Its Global Impact (Miami: Florida
International University Press, l w ) , 283-301.