Abstract: The article explores the changing story of Israel and Somaliland in the prismatic complexities of historical legality, strategic realignment, and modern recognition politics in the Horn of Africa. It posits that the unresolved international status of Somaliland cannot be properly explained in light of classical theories of recognition that give prominence to the formalism of juridical institutions and the territorial integrity of post-colonialism. Rather, Somaliland is a paradigmatic example of functional sovereignty, which is maintained by the institutional performance, domestic legitimacy, and strategic relevance. It is not a breach of international rules but a resumption of past experience with redesigned geopolitical circumstances, which is what the prospective involvement of Israel with Somaliland represents. Placing Somaliland into the Red Sea security relationships, the Turkish-Israeli strategic discord, the economic penetration of the Gulf states, and emerging multilateral forms of geometries involving Ethiopia and India, specifically the Indian structural interests in the Egyptian domination of the Suez Canal, this paper shows that recognition practices in the twenty-first century are being formed by strategic utility, historical continuity, and capacity to govern as much as by formal legal criteria.
Recognition, Sovereignty, and the Frontiers of Formalism
Somaliland takes a unique and enduring niche in the modern arguments on sovereignty and recognition in international relations. Since its independence was restored in 1991 following the fall of the Somali Republic, Somaliland has had effective and continuous control over a defined area, internal security, multiple competitive elections, and functioning state institutions to a level of stability almost unheard of in the Horn of Africa. However, even with these empirical features of the state, Somaliland is not a country that is formally recognized.
Such incongruity between empirically based statehood and juridically recognized statehood reveals the inherent deficiencies of the orthodox concept of sovereignty. Classical recognition theory, which is based on Westphalian assumptions, alternates between declaratory and constitutive interpretations. The declaratory school of thought believes that recognition is only the statement of the existence of a given reality, whereas the constitutive theory considers recognition to be the creation whereby a state is put into existence. Somaliland is a country that is in an uncomfortable position in both structures. When recognition is declaratory, its further exclusion can be analytically defended. To the extent that recognition is constitutive, the Somaliland case shows that recognition is a matter of political choice and not a matter of legal judgment.
Somaliland thus forces one to reconceptualize sovereignty as a relational, contingent, and practice-based phenomenon. In this approach, sovereignty is not merely granted by international recognition; it is created and recreated by governance, legitimacy, and delivery of security and public goods. The case of Somaliland shows that international non-recognition does not imply the absence of the process of consolidation of state power and does not necessarily imply a lack of domestic legitimacy.
In the context of this more general theory, it is of special importance that Israel is re-emerging as a possible participant in the recognition discourse of Somaliland. The historical acceptance of Somaliland by Israel in 1960, as well as the current changes of security in the Red Sea and Middle East geopolitics, makes Israel one of the few countries to stand between the validity and strategic adjustment. This article maintains that the prospective Israeli involvement in Somaliland is not a challenge to the norms of international law but the combination of history and modern-day strategic discourse.
2. Historical Sovereignty and the Legal Afterlife of 1960
The assertion of sovereign statehood by Somaliland is essentially quite different from most of the unrecognized or partially recognized ones. After the end of the British colonial rule on 26 June 1960, Somaliland became an independent state as a result of a lawful and internationally monitored decolonization procedure. Within the short time of its operation as an independent state, Somaliland was formally recognized by a minimum of 35 states, including international and regional superpowers.
These were not symbolic and temporary recognitions. Somaliland was engaging in international relations through the diplomatic exchange of communication and full treaty-making capacity. When committed under international law, these acts bring about long-term legal effects. Once duly made, statehood cannot readily be put out by a succeeding political structure unless that structure conforms to the required legal criteria of dissolution or amalgamation.
The resultant consolidation with the old Italian-administered Trust Territory of Somalia was a political choice and not a binding necessity. More importantly, such a union was flawed procedurally. The Act of Union was not duly ratified, and the order that came after the constitution entrenched imbalances that marginalized Somaliland systematically politically, economically, and administratively. These procedural and substantive drawbacks are not simply historical complaints; there is legal significance in understanding their applicability and sustainability to the validity and endurance of the union.
At the fall of the Somali Republic in the year 1991, the political structure that had held Somaliland sovereignty in suspension did not exist. The legal continuity viewpoint of Somaliland was that it did not break away from an existing state. Instead, it reclaimed a previously established sovereignty after the disintegration of an ill-fated union. This difference defines Somaliland as being outside the traditional secessionist models and more in line with the examples of state continuity that are not killed by political union but are disrupted by it.
The fact that Israel recognized Somaliland in 1960, therefore, carries a new meaning. It forms a legal foundation that strengthens the argument of Somaliland in keeping up with the law. In contrast with other situations like Kosovo or South Sudan, which depend on extraordinary principles, like remedial secession or negotiated secession, the claim of Somaliland is based on a historically established sovereignty, which is not a recent development compared to the modern impasse of recognition.
3. Recognition Deferred, Not Denied: Israel’s Strategic Patience
The subsequent Israeli policy towards Somaliland since 1991 has been one of strategic silence as opposed to normative denunciation. Although the Somali Republic officially became recognized by Israel after the 1960 union, this did not annul its previous recognition of Somaliland as an independent state. Identification of a successor does not necessarily terminate identification of a predecessor in a case where the successor is no longer operating as a sovereign state.
During the 1990s, Somaliland pursued diplomatic relations with Israel, considering it to be in a well-placed position to listen to the legal argument presented by Somaliland as well as its strategic geographic location. This has been manifested in the correspondence between the leadership of Somaliland and Israeli officials, such as the overtures by the leadership of Somaliland to Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. The answer of Rabin is cautious but analytically informative: it did not deny the legal claims of Somaliland but pointed out the poor regional and diplomatic conditions.
This warning was based on wider strategic limitations of Israel in the aftermath of the Cold War. The insight into African Union standards, Arab League politics, and the very fact that Israel was isolated in the region restricted the practicability of early recognition. When Somaliland was recognized as such in the 1990s, its recognition would have incurred diplomatic costs without giving equal strategic advantages, especially at a time when Somalia as a state, despite state failure, remained under the protection of the international principles of territorial integrity.
Israeli containment should be seen, hence, as an expression of judicious waiting and not juridical protest. With this act of recognition being postponed, Israel retained the flexibility of diplomatic action and strategic choice. This style is in line with a more general tradition of Israeli foreign policy, which values timing, leverage, and contextual advantage over declaration commitments.
Somaliland as an Operational Security Ally
In addition to the issues of legal continuity and historical precedence, the current applicability of Somaliland is based on its ability to act as a security-creating political order. For over thirty years, Somaliland has been building a hybrid system of governance that combines traditional power (xeer), clan-based systems of mediation, and bureaucratic institutions. This has been a synthesis that there is a certain amount of political stability, which is in stark contrast to the disintegration and instability that has defined much of the Horn of Africa.
Security-wise, Somaliland has had good territorial control, a relative internal order, and has avoided the infiltration of transnational extremist groups on a long-term basis. Somaliland has not been immune to security issues but has, to a large extent, shielded itself against the forms of chronic violence that have afflicted southern Somalia. This has been done especially since there was no major international military support, peacekeeping efforts, or externally imposed state-building models.
This is where analysis with functional sovereignty is of use. Functional sovereignty describes not formal acknowledgement, but the actual practice of sovereign power, the capacity to rule territory, to control violence, to demand consent, and to deliver public goods. This is in the sense that Somaliland is a more functional sovereign than several formally state-organized states whose power is disbursed or which rely on external powers. This fact makes it more difficult to believe that juridical recognition is the main factor determining state capacity.
To Israel, where reliability, institutional coherence, and predictability are of paramount importance in its external relations, the functional sovereignty of Somaliland is a strategic asset. The relations with Somaliland would not involve keeping weak institutions afloat or working through fragmented lines of power. Instead, it would entail collaboration with a political entity that has exhibited resilience, flexibility, and the ability to endure over time in terms of maintaining institutions.
This is another strategic value enhanced by geography. The coastline of Somaliland on the Gulf of Aden borders one of the most important seaways on the planet, and the connection between the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. The possession of, or access to, this space has implications for maritime security, intelligence gathering, and logistic support. To Israel, whose strategic interests are growing out of their local environment into the Red Sea approaches, Somaliland is a stable and politically independent partner in a strategically cluttered environment.
Threat Reconfiguring: Somalia, Turkey, and the Red Sea
A strategic turning point in the Israeli strategic analysis of the Horn of Africa has come about due to the increasing interest of Turkey in Somalia. Ankara has grown to be the most powerful outside actor in Somalia in the last ten years and has created its largest foreign military installation in Mogadishu, has been training Somali security forces, and has integrated itself into the political and security fabric of Somalia.
Though it is a humanitarian and developmental involvement, the presence of Turkey does have explicit strategic connotations. It also projects Turkish power into the Horn of Africa, which borders major maritime chokepoints between the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. To Israel, this growth is an echo of wider interests in the increasingly aggressive foreign policy of Turkey in the Eastern Mediterranean and in the Levant as well as North Africa.
A technology change has also changed the perception of threats. The protection value of the geographic distance has been diminished by the development of missile technology, unmanned aerial systems, and naval capabilities. In this regard, the strategic relevance of Somalia does not depend on its inherent capacities anymore but on its use as a tool of external power projection.
This rebranding even changes the strategic meaning of Somalia itself. Somalia is becoming a more and more likely location for opposing strategic networks instead of being considered solely as a vulnerable state that needs to be stabilized. Such an impression raises the premium of other partners in the Horn of Africa who are capable of generating political stability and external military engagement isolation. Somaliland is structurally counterbalanced to this dynamic threat environment due to its independence and a track record of effective governance. The importance of Somalia is based on its strategic geographical location, as well as its willingness to collaborate with the countries of the Westernization bloc as a firm with stable, moderate, and predictable states in a volatile environment. It is critical in its position at the entrance to the Gulf of Aden, opposite southern Yemen, and this has a particular significance, which was acknowledged historically by the British Empire and, during the Cold War, by the United States, securing military entry.
The coastline of Somaliland is approximately 800 kilometers from the Yemen Houthi-controlled territories. To Israel and its allies fighting the Houthi menace, Somaliland can be a forward base of intelligence, logistics, and direct operations similar to the alliance Israel has with Azerbaijan against Iran. Although other regional players, such as Eritrea or Djibouti, are either hostile or neutral, Somaliland presents an unprecedented blend of location and willingness to cooperate with Western states, and this is reinforced by its increasing relationship with the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Somaliland has made indications of openness to extensive security relations with the United States and Israel and has continued to take an overall positive position, even in the Gaza conflict.
Israel needs partners in the Red Sea area, and Somaliland is the perfect partner to collaborate with in the fight against the Houthis, which will provide possible operational access. In addition to security, ties have economic and reputational value, as Somaliland possesses mineral resources and Israel is interested in relationships with the Muslim population of the region. However, Israel has strong grounds to avoid being the first state to recognize Somaliland because premature recognition will create barriers to close relations because of a regional backlash. The suggestion is thus to develop the relations to the level of lower than recognition, stronger security and economical associations, creation of interest offices, and symbolic acts such as recognition of Somaliland passports, hopefully in cooperation with the UAE and the United States.
Ethiopia as a Strategic Mediator and Regional Point
Ethiopia plays a central role in the changing correlation between Israel and Somaliland as it serves as a strategic intervener and as a regional anchor. Addis Ababa has had one of the most extensive and enduring partnerships in Africa with Israel, including intelligence collaboration, counterterrorism, agricultural technology, water security, and development aid. The basis of this relationship is a common perception of strategic vulnerability, demographic pressure, and regional instability.
The geopolitical interests of Ethiopia are themselves becoming geopolitical clashes with the expectations of Somaliland. Since the independence of Eritrea, Ethiopia has been a landlocked country, which means that it has structural limitations in its economic development and strategic independence. The availability of safe and diversified maritime routes has henceforth been a primary goal of Ethiopian foreign policy. The ports of Somaliland (especially Berbera) provide a politically secure and geographically convenient gateway into international trade pathways.
The strengthened Ethiopia-Somaliland relationship has created an adjacent strategic space between the interior and the coast of the Horn. The arrangement will make Ethiopia less reliant on individual corridors and more stable to regional shocks. In the case of Somaliland, Ethiopian involvement offers economic and political legitimacy as well as some strategic protection.
The role of Ethiopia is twofold to Israel. To begin with, Ethiopia can be considered a diplomatic validator, which reduces the political cost of interaction with Somaliland, as it is included in an existing regional alliance. Second, Ethiopia serves a strategic purpose as a connection between Israeli interests in the Horn of Africa and the rest of the continent. A policy approach that involves Somaliland based on an Ethiopian-focused model would enable Israel to achieve its strategic goals without seeming to forcefully interfere with accepted norms of recognition.
Gulf States, Berbera, and the Political Economy of Recognition
Participation of the Gulf states and, more specifically, the United Arab Emirates, has continued to entrench Somaliland in the political and economic frameworks of the region. The construction of the Berbera Port and the related corridor is one of the largest infrastructural reforms in the history of Somaliland after 1991. This project has opened up the economy of Somaliland and opened it up to the world supply chains and regional logistic networks.
Such investments are both political and economic. They are an indicator that powerful players within the region are ready to interact with Somaliland as an independent and dependable partner, regardless of its non-formal status. As a matter of fact, integration of economies has been before diplomatic normalization, which disputes the notion that recognition should come before substantial international interaction.
To Israel, the region is changing as its regional stance is developed and normalized with a number of Gulf states, with the integration of Somaliland into these Gulf-oriented economic circles increasing its strategic worth. The relationship with Somaliland would not be in a vacuum but rather on an already thick network in the region. Such an environment makes the engagement diplomatic, costs less, and returns more strategically.
Another general tendency in recognition politics today, exemplified by the Berbera case, is the rising prominence of economic functionality in place of juridical formality. States and firms interact when the governance is good and returns are foreseeable, formal or not. The fact that Somaliland has been able to draw in and maintain such a level of interest supports its assertion of pragmatic sovereignty.
India and Multilateral Geometry
The further strategic complexity of the Israel-Somaliland equation is a growing involvement in the Horn of Africa by India. The change in India over the last twenty years is gradual and has distinctly led to a shift in focus of Indian strategic perspectives to be more maritime in nature. This change is propelled by the expansion of external trade, dependence on energy, and diaspora networks of India, which are firmly rooted in maritime routes connecting the Indian Ocean with the Red Sea and further.
The strategic relationship between India and Israel, especially in the domain of defense technology, intelligence relations, and cyber capabilities, as well as surveillance systems, is one of the strongest bilateral relationships in the Indo-Pacific security structure. This alliance overlaps with the deepening relationship India has with Ethiopia to form overlapping networks of interest that stretch as far south as South Asia and as far north as the Horn of Africa.
This Indian strategic calculus in the Red Sea, however, cannot be made out of Egypt. The management of the Suez Canal provides Egypt with undue influence on the world trade relations between Asia and Europe. This sea gateway will allow Cairo to collect economic rents and exercise geopolitical power that influences the strategic environment of every westward maritime actor. In the case of India, whose volumes of trade, energy imports, and diaspora ties continue to be so reliant on these channels, this level of control concentration is a structural weakness and not a geographic fact.
This weakness is heightened by the fact that Egypt is becoming more converged with China and Pakistan. The fact that Cairo is involved in Chinese infrastructure projects, the development of defense relations with Beijing, and increased military activity with Pakistan does not constitute a formal alliance. Nevertheless, they mirror a convergent geometry of infrastructure funding, weaponry sales, and leverage of choke points. Based on the structural-realist approach, this Egypt-China-Pakistan triangle signifies a long-lasting arrangement that would create constant antagonism with the Indian maritime desires.
In this respect, Somaliland gains a strategic meaning as a diversifier instead of a direct counter. Situated close to the Bab al-Mandab Strait but not under the sphere of influence of Egypt, Somaliland provides India with an opportunity to minimize the exposure to the concentrated control of the chokepoint without triggering confrontation. The availability of substitute logistical nodes, collaborative port facilities, and politically stable maritime allies increases the strategic flexibility of India and supports a more general preference for redundancy and resilience in access by sea.
The overlapping interests and complementary capacities are more significant in this new multilateral geometry, which is a partnership between Israel, India, Ethiopia, and Somaliland. Somaliland is an enabler, quiet, and it provides stability and access without making it a point of open competition.
9. Conclusion: Somaliland and the Evolution of Recognition Politics
The evolving relationship between Israel and Somaliland illuminates deeper transformations in the international system. Recognition is no longer determined solely by legal formalism or post-colonial solidarity. Instead, it is increasingly shaped by functional governance, historical legitimacy, and strategic relevance.
Somaliland’s endurance challenges the assumption that recognition is the primary determinant of sovereignty. Its experience demonstrates that sovereignty can be practiced, consolidated, and legitimized internally long before it is acknowledged externally. Functional sovereignty, once sustained over time, generates its own forms of legitimacy and strategic value.
For Israel, engagement with Somaliland represents neither a rupture with international norms nor an act of opportunistic revisionism. Rather, it reflects a convergence of historical precedent and contemporary strategic logic. Israel’s prior recognition of Somaliland in 1960 provides a legal anchor, while current security dynamics in the Red Sea and Horn of Africa supply compelling strategic incentives. These incentives are framed by Turkey’s entrenchment in Somalia, the Houthis’ threat emanating from Yemen, Ethiopia’s quest for maritime access, India’s need to diversify away from Egyptian-controlled chokepoints, and the UAE’s economic footprint in Berbera.
As the Horn of Africa becomes increasingly central to Red Sea and Indo-Pacific security architectures, Somaliland’s role is likely to continue expanding. Its case underscores a pragmatic shift in international practice, where engagement and cooperation increasingly precede, and may eventually compel, formal diplomatic acknowledgment. In this sense, Somaliland is not an anomaly but a harbinger—an illustration of how the international system adapts, incrementally and pragmatically, to realities that rigid doctrines of recognition can no longer fully contain.