By Aden Ismail

In March, Kenya recognized Kosovo, a region that unilaterally broke away from Serbia. in doing so, Nairobi inserted itself in a complex geopolitical tug-of-war pitting the West against Russia and its close allies. Outside Russia and Western camps, Kosovo sovereignty is contested by China and many Global South countries who endorse Serbia’s position mindful of domestic precedents.

Kenya’s decision adds to a series of recent foreign policy moves that show wholehearted Western embrace. Nairobi vigorously engages with the United States as a Major Non-NATO Ally. Kenya’s support for Israel amid the ongoing genocide in Gaza and the president’s denunciation of Russian military actions in Ukraine amount to declared solidarity with the West and Israel.

Moreover, Nairobi is partnering with France, the United States and the United Arab Emirates in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Haiti, and Sudan crisis, confirming an unmasked pro-Western and allies stance. Kosovo recognition may also be a prelude to recognize Somalia’s breakaway Somaliland.

Despite the Somaliland case posing profound security implications, including a fresh Somali civil war and terrorism explosion that engulfs the region, it’s yet another Western project steered by the UAE and Israel. Until now, Kenya has been pursuing non-offensive but balanced foreign policy. While Nairobi historically enjoyed warm relations with the West, that has never been at the expense of nose-tweaking great powers and alienating other nations.

Kenya has also been cultivating strong ties with peer and non-aligned countries while simultaneously avoiding entanglement in geopolitical flashpoints. Such a measured orientation has long been a source of stability for Kenya, in contrast to neighbors with a history of erratic foreign policy shifts that have led them to interstate wars, chaotic regime falls, and civil wars.

Motivations: By Choice or External Pressures?

Countries are reconfiguring their geopolitical chessboards so as to mirror shifting dynamics and, as an outstanding country in a strategic region, Kenya reshuffling decks is no exception to this rule. However, the nature, pace, and rationale call for scrutiny as subterranean forces seem to be pulling strings in Nairobi’s diplomatic quarters.

To begin with, the Western-led world order is making a concerted effort to retain supremacy in denial of multipolar reality. In the congested Horn of Africa, Western geopolitical maneuverability is withering. This makes Western powers disapprove of equivocation from Kenya and instead, push for an explicit alignment befitting a strategic ally. 

Besides, it is worth noting the role and the growing influence on Kenya by the United Arab Emirates, both a trusted Western protégé and a Quisling Israeli associate. The UAE has lately been dazzling Kenyan leaders with a charm offensive to mould Kenya into a surrogate state. Nairobi is just a heartbeat away from formally falling into the dense global networks of Emirati mercenaries.

In a May 2024 trip to Washington, Abu Dhabi chartered a luxurious private jet for the Kenyan president, an act which seemed a smokescreen for patronage. Kenya has, in February, taken an unusual partisan approach to Sudan’s civil war, hosting the Rapid Support Forces leader in Nairobi to form a parallel government. Abu Dhabi, is the staunchest supporter of the RSF which served as its mercenaries in Yemen’s civil war.

This event was a desperate UAE initiative to bolster crumbling mercenary ranks after military setbacks and global backlash over gross human rights violations. Days after the ceremony, UAE announced a $1.5 billion loan to Kenya, to be repaid in $500 million installments in 10 years with 8.5% interest rate. This is on top of other said deals including agricultural investments.

For a country grappling with economic challenges complicated by underemployment of educated youth, the UAE, like Western loaners, is exploiting Kenya’s financial precarity. Yet, there could be a more serious card.

In recent years, Kenya has been rocked by high-profile Emirati gold scandals. In 2019, reports emerged that KES 400 million was swindled from an individual claiming to be a UAE citizen. It reportedly implicated the country’s political elite, including some in the government.

It is conceivable that the UAE capitalizes on reputational leverage to assert influence within Nairobi’s diplomatic channels to sail agendas for itself and associates. In any case, both the departure from traditions and moles bedevilling decision-making autonomy are already taking a toll on Kenya’s diplomatic credibility.

Bitter Fruits of Gambles

Kenya stands at a critical juncture courtesy of its choices, facing domestic, regional, continental and even global complications. In mid-2024, public furor erupted over an IMF-pushed financial bill. Then, protests that threatened government survival erupted and discontent still lingers.

For a long time, Nairobi has been a champion of ‘African solutions for African problems’ philosophy. In 2002, Machakos Declaration disengaged Sudan and South Sudan to end Africa’s longest civil war, while the first functioning government in post-civil war Somalia was formed in Nairobi in 2004, and most recently, Kenya was a crucial pillar in the Pretoria Agreement which ended the devastating Tigray Civil War in Ethiopia.

The latest pro-France and partisan approaches in DRC and Sudan, respectively, have stripped Kenya off its esteemed status as a promoter of African diplomacy through inclusive dialogue. Kenya is reaping, albeit unknowingly or in denial, the bitter fruits of its course deviation.

The African dissatisfaction of Kenya preferring coordination with distant Paris, which has the darkest colonial legacy, over African mechanisms were expressed in the February 15, 2025 African Union Commission (AUC) Chairperson elections in Addis Ababa.

Djibouti’s candidate, whose country seemed more prudent in its approach to African crises trounced Kenya’s. Despite fielding an enigmatic and capable candidate, the loss was a subtle sign of Kenya’s growing diplomatic estrangement in Africa to be confirmed by South Sudan’s beef with the same candidate as a Kenyan envoy for mediation efforts.

Moreover, Kenya’s colossal moral failure in relation to Gaza is yet another factor reinforcing its isolation. It is intelligible that Gaza genocide had a significant contribution to the victory of the pro-Palestinan Djibouti candidate particularly owing to the overwhelming moral weight carried by the attendance of the Palestinian President in the election hall. 

The Djibouti victory, along with Algeria triumphing over Morocco’s deputy contender, reflects a skyhigh anti-West sentiment in Africa linked to their callous enabling of Zionist cannibalism in Gaza.

Fairly said, it was an uphill task for Kenya and Morocco, close to the West and Israel, to dodge the haunting echoes of African colonial victims as reparations were key agenda and Gaza added new emotional stirrings.

Kenya headed for uncertain Waters.

In restive Sub-Saharan Africa, Kenya is hailed as an island of peace and stability. But more than ever, geo-economic and geo-political threats looming over Nairobi are unprecedented.

Sudan’s economic retaliations are set to cost Kenyan exporters tens of millions of dollars. As chances of RSF power grab in Khartoum fade away, Sudan is expected to take more drastic measures, including reported closure of its airspace to Kenya. Such a move undermines Nairobi’s role as a key commercial node, just as it hampers the African socio-economic integration that Kenya hypes.

Alarmingly, Kenya poking separatist scars abroad risks reopening similar wounds at home as nationalist and religious sentiments surge worldwide. Like the Serbian-Kosovo question, Kenya has both ethnic and religious fault lines.

In the early 1960s, northern Kenya populated by ethnic Somali almost joined Somalia through a near-unanimous referendum, only preempted by timely British intervention that overturned the results. The most visible fault line was religious as the results indicated a stark Muslim-Christian divide, which still inspires secessionism in Kenya.

Until the past decade, the Mombasa Republican Council (MRC) from the coastal province dominated by the Muslim Swahili people was active. With the slogan Pwani Si Kenya (Coast is not Kenya), MRC remains a lurking danger and, although silent, it may operate underground given the grievances of the coastal people largely remain unresolved.

On March 16, the local Nation reported over a hundred gunmen who addressed and distributed dates to locals in a coastal village. While some attributed this security incident to Al-Shabaab, it is known that their dotted presence in northeastern and coastal Kenya seldom exceeds a dozen fighters in any prior reported sighting.

Given that Al-Shabaab is militarily hard-pressed in Somalia at the moment, their ability to assemble such a large force at a single moment in Kenya, which is not an active front, remains questionable. But since terrorist groups are guns for hire, this incident could be a third party using an Al Shabaab offshoot in Kenya to settle scores with the Americans who have military bases in coastal Kenya. If not these, it is almost certain a nascent coastal secessionist armed rebellion is picking pace in the area.

If the legitimate government in Khartoum falls, as Kenya conspires with the UAE, Sudan is set to become another terror-infested failed state. Kenya as an anchor to regional stability will then have to contend with a new terrorism front in addition to Somalia, where the menace doubled.

Mogadishu now fights a second front with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), deadlier than Al Shabaab. ISIS, which recently appointed a Somali national as its leader, moved the bulk of its manpower to Somalia’s eastern Calmiskaad mountain ranges.

If Kenya is to become complicit in complicating Somalia’s political landscape, it would not only erode the debt of gratitude owed for Somalia’s budding stability, but also create ideal conditions for ISIS to launch the unstable 2014 Iraq-style Somali blitz — a harbinger of total collapse in the region’s already fragile security order.

Yet, everything above pales in comparison to the high-stake threats stemming from Kenya’s romanticism with the United States and Israel that inadvertently make Nairobi a marked enemy of the Axis of Resistance. Amid heating West-Israeli vs Axis war fever, Kenya can be drawn to potential confrontations. Otherwise, Yemeni Houthis can trumpet issues with Kenya for publicity stunts. By then, missiles pounding Tel Aviv may batter less fortified Kenyan urban and military installations.

Even if Kenya navigates these cataclysmic scenarios, its current trajectory locks it out of the tight race to shape the next world order as Nairobi is self-trapping in a camp whose occupants are out of relevance for complete moral degeneracy.

Everything considered, even as Kenyan leaders dutifully work to solidify internal cohesion, Kenya is not immune to any heterogeneous state’s fate of destabilization through social cleavage exploitation — external policy choices should align with internal vulnerabilities.

Above all, Kenya’s foreign policy orientation should remain anchored in preserving the country’s rich diplomatic legacies, while also ensuring active participation in exploring an alternative better world.

Kenya is too valuable to Africa to be reduced to either a battered pawn in a cruel geopolitical battle or an amoral surrogate state.

Aden Ismail
Email: aden.mohedi@gmail.com

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Adan is independent Columnist | Horn of Africa Affairs Commentator.  

Security Studies; University of Nairobi; Department of Diplomacy and International Studies.