BY TIM MAK

Forces from America, Japan, France, Germany, Italy—and soon, even China—are crammed into the dirt-poor Djibouti. Good luck asking the locals if they like all the attention.

There’s a smell of sewage out on the beaches outside, juxtaposed with tangerine, sunset views glimmering atop the murky waves. Looking southward across the warm waters of the Gulf of Aden, whale sharks congregate en masse to feed in the fall and winter.

I’m watching through massive glass windows in the lobby of the Sheraton hotel, an oasis for foreign soldiers and military contractors of every stripe. That’s when I notice I’m being eyed by a couple of thugs.

Their casual, ratty street clothes—tattered pants, T-shirts—and a generally unkempt look put them at odds with the military uniforms and business wear that dominates the Sheraton lobby. And they made little effort to hide their purpose: their twisted faces staring intently at me as I sat there writing. I’ve made the mistake of interviewing some human-rights activists. And the thugs are clearly not pleased. They’ll follow me for the last night of my trip.

It’s par for the course in this minuscule police state, where the most prominent industry is catering to the world’s competing militaries—and the biggest mistake is pointing out how the government treats its people.

A Joint Terminal Attack Controller controls an HC-130J Combat King II from the 81st Expeditionary Rescue Squadron at Grand Bara, Djibouti, Oct. 20, 2015.1st Lt. Allie Delury/U.S. Air Force

Djibouti is a kind of earthly Tatooine. Not only because of the two-sun environment, which features a scorching dry heat that sucks the body dry, but because of rough company the neighborhood keeps. Right on its doorstep are two high-profile al Qaeda affiliates: al-Shabaab, based in Somalia, and al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, based in Yemen. And the threat of hijacking by pirates based in Somalia, best remembered in the American mind by the Maersk Alabama hostage-taking in 2009, continues to present a risk for shipping in the region.

So Djibouti has become a safari grounds for high-paying sovereign clients. An American hub for its secret wars in East Africa and the Arabian peninsula is here—complete with a fleet of drones and a rotating gang of special operations forces.

The Japanese use their base here as an African logistical hub and to protect regional shipping. The French, who colonized Djibouti in the mid-19th century and controlled the country well into the 20th century, also maintains a military force here. The German, Italian, and Spanish militaries also have a presence in Djibouti, focusing on countering piracy in the Gulf of Aden and off the coast of Ethiopia.

And soon, the Chinese will be operating there too, having negotiated their first overseas military outpost, making it capable of projecting power thousands of miles from their homeland. That makes seven militaries crammed into this one tiny police state.

Djibouti is a country of less than 900,000 people that would not register significantly in the global consciousness except for its strategic location in East Africa, at the mouth of the Red Sea and the rest of the Persian Gulf.

All shipping passing northward through the Suez Canal to Europe or southward to the Indian Ocean would need to sail through the Bab al-Mandab, or Gate of Tears in Arabic. On one side of the strait lies the small but stable state of Djibouti. On the other side, the treacherous and war-torn country of Yemen.

Djibouti’s primary strategic resource is its oil fields. The arid desert state has hardly any agriculture to speak of, and locals complain of a lack of skilled labor, but it does have a deepwater port at a critical chokepoint for global commerce. In other words, it’s a military jackpot.

If you don’t ask too many questions.

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