A new war? New violations of territorial integrity and Moscovia's donkey ears again?

*Moscovia is the historically correct name for the Moscow Empire and the Russian Federation.

The New York Times writes that Ethiopia may soon invade and annex part of Somalia. More specifically, the situation is as follows. 

Due to civil war, Somalia is now divided into Somalia and Somaliland. Until the beginning of 2024, Somaliland was not recognised as a state by any country. But in January 2024, Ethiopia unexpectedly recognised Somaliland in exchange for a 20km strip of sea in the Gulf of Aden, giving Ethiopia access to the sea and eventually the ocean. Before that, Ethiopia was landlocked and all its trade was conducted through a Chinese port in the tiny country of Djibouti.

Of course, the transfer of internationally recognised Somali territory to Ethiopia through a treaty with an unrecognised breakaway state was not supported by the world. Neither the United States, the EU nor the African Union have recognised the legality of Ethiopia's treaty with Somaliland, let alone the possible deployment of troops to control the coast.

But as the NYT noted, Ethiopia's prime minister is obsessed with gaining access to the sea and expects that during the US election period there will be a window of opportunity to 'enforce the treaty' and establish control over the coast, or the prime minister expects that if Trump wins and isolationism in US policy is promoted, they will not care about Somalia.

Regarding Moscow's potential involvement in a new conflict.

It has long been no secret that Moscovia is active in Africa, and most often this activity is related to the organisation of local coups (Mali, Burkina Faso, CAR, Niger) with the help of Moscow's so-called ‘Wagner’ terrorist group, or provoking new zones of tension, as it happened in Sudan or will happen in Somalia.

Putting aside the fact that Moscow and Ethiopia have had too many contacts in the past 12 months, we can focus on the following details:

In 2020, Moscow was the first to consider recognising Somaliland in exchange for the right to restore the old Soviet naval base in Berbera. Such a base would give Moscow access to the Indian Ocean and strategic control of the main trade artery from Asia to Europe. In addition to prestige, this would complete the concept of exporting resources from the Wagner Belt (read about the Wagner Belt here) from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean: Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Chad, CAR, Sudan.

At one time, this concept was expressed by the Russian Geographical Society, whose president is the former Minister of Defence of Moscovia Shoigu, the chairman of the board of trustees was Putin, and the ideologist of the concept was Dugin. Dugin is the closest ideologue of the Moscow World to Putin. By the way, the belt lacks a military coup in Senegal or Ghana, where the process of undermining local governments continues with increased force since the last coup in Niger.

But at that time, there was too much of the international contingent in Somalia, and the international risks for Moscow from separate agreements with unrecognised Somaliland were significant.

Therefore, at the end of 2020—21, Moscow switched to the idea of building a port in Sudan. Moreover, in Sudan, the government came to power through a military coup with support from Moscow and the involvement of Putin's private army Wagner.

But eventually, processes occurred leading to a situation where, although agreements were signed between the Sudanese and Moscovia governments, and construction of the port was supposed to begin, it did not happen in practice. Under strange circumstances, the failure of the construction of the Moscow naval base coincided with a new attempted military coup in Sudan, where Wagner again sided with the rebels from the Sudanese Rapid Reaction Force. In other words, the Kremlin aims to replace the government in Sudan with a more convenient and dependent one. The current situation is such that the rebels from the Sudanese SDF, with the support of the Moscow-based Wagner Group, have not yet achieved their goal of overthrowing the government in Sudan. Therefore, Moscow's plans to build a naval base in Sudan with access to the strategic waters of the Red Sea and further to the Gulf of Aden remain unrealised for an indefinite period.

But Putin's desire to restore the former Soviet naval presence in the Gulf has not gone away. And again, it is a bit of a coincidence that more than a dozen meetings between high-ranking officials of Moscovia and Ethiopia took place in 2023. The number of meetings is abnormally higher than in 2022.

At the beginning of 2024, Ethiopia quite unexpectedly actually recognises Somaliland and implements the actual ‘Moscow concept of 2020’: recognition in exchange for territory for a port. This is despite the fact that Ethiopia's recognition of Somaliland is a risky step, given the problems with border tribes living in Ethiopia and seeking to join Somaliland.

But more than that, in 2024, publications associated with Putin's strategist Dugin began publishing essays on the possibility of Moscovia reopening the old military port in Berbera. Moscow figures link the potential restoration of the port to the possibility of recognising Somaliland's independence. Obviously, if the reaction of Western countries, and not only Western countries, to Ethiopia's actions is moderate, the Kremlin intends to implement a similar activity — recognition in exchange for the port. Ethiopia, which is close to Moscovia, will obviously act as an intermediary in these processes.

The conclusion is simple: the longer Putin feels impunity for his deliberate policy of spreading ‘uncontrolled chaos’, the more often new escalation points will appear and be confirmed, whether it is an attack by Hamas, which was not publicly supported in the Kremlin, or terrorist attacks by Yemeni Houthis, to whom Moscow supplies arms and where, among other things, it plans to supply anti-ship missiles to attack the merchant fleet of other countries. 

The only way to protect ourselves from even greater chaos in the world is if Moscovia is completely defeated in Ukraine and the Kremlin concentrates on internal problems, such as the collapse of the economy, public dissatisfaction with Putin's policies after the failed invasion of Ukraine, and the growth of national movements of peoples who were part of Moscovia since the Soviet Union.

Local journalists are now reporting that Somali government forces have begun intercepting arms shipments from Ethiopia to local jihadist groups and other local clans. It is noted that the intercepted weapons are of Soviet and Moscow design. Such actions on the part of Ethiopia are aimed at the internal destabilisation of Somalia and are very similar to the Wagner tactics that have been developed in other African countries — to play on the contradictions of local clans by arming one of the groups and then either bringing it to power through a military coup or through an agreement with the current government to ‘provide services’ to destroy the group that was previously provided with limited weapons.

Potential clan war and regional destabilisation will further undermine the stability of international trade through a key international route, as additional instability factors will emerge besides the Yemeni Houthis.

The longer the ‘free world’ pretends that there is no established ‘axis of evil’ that needs to be countered rather than negotiated with, the more the situation will get worse.