By Ahmed A. Yusuf

For decades, the dominant international policy toward Somalia was built around a simple proposition: Somalia needed a functioning central government capable of governing the entire country. That proposition now appears to be under serious reconsideration. Across the Horn of Africa, a different geopolitical reality may be emerging—one in which international powers increasingly engage with Somalia not as a single effective political unit, but through its most strategically important and locally functional territories.

If that shift is indeed taking place, it could represent one of the most consequential changes in international policy toward Somalia since the collapse of the state in 1991. The emerging question is no longer simply whether Somalia can rebuild a powerful central government. It is whether the international community has begun preparing for a Somalia in which regional political entities become the principal partners for security, trade, maritime access and strategic investment.

That would fundamentally change the political equation in Mogadishu. From state-building to strategic partnerships. For more than three decades, billions of dollars have been invested in rebuilding Somali state institutions, training security forces, supporting elections and strengthening successive federal governments. Yet the results have remained deeply disappointing.

Al-Shabaab continues to pose a major security threat. Federal authority remains uneven. Constitutional disputes repeatedly paralyze politics. Relations between Mogadishu and several federal member states have deteriorated, while political competition increasingly revolves around control of institutions rather than the construction of a genuinely national political settlement. For external powers, this creates a difficult calculation. Why continue pouring enormous resources into a central government that cannot reliably exercise authority across the country when regional administrations may offer more predictable security and economic partnerships?

This does not necessarily mean that Western governments have formally abandoned the idea of a unified Somalia. There is no publicly established international doctrine declaring that Somalia should be divided into smaller republics. But geopolitics is often revealed not by official declarations but by where governments put their money, soldiers, diplomats and strategic infrastructure. And that is where the picture becomes increasingly interesting.

Three strategic Somalia’s?

Somaliland, Puntland and southern Somalia increasingly occupy three very different geopolitical spaces. Somaliland has built its own political and security institutions and controls a strategically located coastline facing the Gulf of Aden. Berbera offers a deep-water port and an expanding transportation corridor connecting the Red Sea region with the Horn of Africa.

Puntland occupies another extraordinary strategic position. Its coastline stretches along some of the most important maritime routes connecting the Gulf of Aden with the Indian Ocean. Its territory includes the approaches to the Gulf of Aden and the Guardafui Channel, while its waters are also associated with significant fisheries and potential energy resources.

Southern Somalia, meanwhile, remains the principal battleground in the fight against Al-Shabaab. It is also strategically positioned along the western Indian Ocean and the approaches to the Red Sea. These territories therefore offer international powers something that Somalia’s central political institutions have struggled to provide: strategic access combined with local partnerships.

Jubaland presents an additional complication because of its geographic proximity to Kenya and its importance to Kenya’s security calculations. The result is a country whose geography may increasingly be more important to foreign governments than the constitutional map drawn in Mogadishu.

The uncomfortable question of resources

The transformation would not be driven by security alone. Somalia possesses one of Africa’s longest coastlines, potentially valuable fisheries, offshore resources, ports and a geographic position overlooking some of the world’s most important shipping lanes.

The Red Sea crisis, the war in the Middle East, competition involving the United States, China, Turkey and Gulf states, and growing concern over maritime security have all increased the strategic value of the Horn of Africa. The question therefore becomes unavoidable: Can the international community afford to ignore Somalia’s coastline simply because Somalia’s political institutions remain dysfunctional? Increasingly, the answer appears to be no.

The strategic logic is straightforward. Whoever develops reliable partnerships along Somalia’s coastline will gain influence over one of the most important maritime environments in the world. That makes Somalia not merely a failed-state problem. It makes Somalia a geopolitical prize.

For Puntland, this changing environment could represent a remarkable strategic opportunity.Puntland spent years investing politically in the federal system, hoping that federalism would eventually produce a genuine power-sharing arrangement between Mogadishu and the federal member states. Instead, relations have deteriorated. The political confrontation with Mogadishu has pushed Puntland toward a more independent foreign-policy posture, while its geographic position has made it increasingly attractive to external security partners.

Any expansion of American security cooperation with Puntland would therefore have significance far beyond counterterrorism. It would signal that Washington sees Puntland’s coastline and geographic position as strategically important in their own right. That could give Puntland greater leverage in negotiations with Mogadishu—but it could also force Puntland to make one of the most consequential political decisions in its history. Does it continue to pursue a unified Somali state through a reformed federal system? Or does it gradually develop the institutions, international partnerships and strategic relationships necessary to function as a separate political entity?

Those are two very different futures. The Somaliland precedent. Somaliland provides perhaps the clearest example of what can happen when a territory develops functioning institutions while the internationally recognized central state remains weak. For decades, Somaliland has operated with its own government, security forces, currency and political institutions despite lacking broad international recognition as an independent state. Its strategic location has nevertheless attracted growing international interest. The lesson for Puntland is not necessarily that independence is inevitable. The lesson is more fundamental:

In international politics, effective control of territory, institutional capacity and strategic geography can eventually become as important as constitutional claims. Recognition may come later—or not at all. But strategic relevance can arrive much earlier. Southern Somalia: the security problem that refuses to disappear. Southern Somalia presents the opposite challenge.

Despite enormous international military assistance, Al-Shabaab remains capable of attacking government positions, infiltrating communities and exploiting political grievances. The fundamental problem is not simply a shortage of weapons. It is the absence of sustainable political authority. A government can capture a town with military assistance. The harder task is keeping it. If local communities do not trust the authorities who arrive after the army, territory can quickly become contested again.

This is why Somalia’s repeated cycles of military offensives followed by territorial reversals should concern international policymakers. The country cannot be stabilized by capturing towns alone. It requires legitimate local administration, justice, security, economic opportunity and political inclusion. Without those foundations, military victories remain temporary.

Turkey’s expanding role

Turkey adds another layer to this increasingly complicated geopolitical landscape. Ankara has developed exceptionally close relations with the Federal Government in Mogadishu, including military, economic and security cooperation. Turkey’s involvement demonstrates that Somalia has become a competitive geopolitical arena rather than merely an international aid project.

For Ankara, Somalia offers strategic access to the Indian Ocean and the broader Horn of Africa. For Washington, the priority is counterterrorism, maritime security and limiting the expansion of hostile strategic influence. For Gulf states, ports and maritime trade routes are central.

For China, the wider Red Sea and Indian Ocean environment forms part of a much larger strategic network. For Ethiopia, access to the sea is an existential economic and strategic concern. And for Kenya, developments in southern Somalia have direct national-security implications.

The result is an extraordinary convergence of interests. Everybody wants something from Somalia. The tragedy is that Somalia itself remains politically divided over what it wants from the outside world.

The danger of a geopolitical fragmentation

This emerging environment presents both opportunities and enormous dangers. If international powers increasingly deal separately with Somaliland, Puntland, Jubaland and southern administrations, they may unintentionally accelerate Somalia’s political fragmentation. A country that was once struggling to rebuild a central state could gradually become a collection of strategically important territories, each cultivating its own international relationships. That would not necessarily produce immediate formal partition. Instead, something more subtle could emerge: de facto fragmentation without formal recognition.

Different territories could have different security partners, different economic agreements and different foreign-policy priorities while continuing to exist nominally within one Somali state. That may be the direction in which events are moving. The Federal Government should therefore pay close attention to this geopolitical transformation. Its greatest danger may not be the formal declaration of independence by another Somali territory.

It may be something quieter: the gradual loss of international dependence on Mogadishu. If foreign governments discover that they can protect their interests by dealing directly with regional authorities, the strategic importance of the federal capital could diminish. That would be a devastating political development for any central government.

The answer cannot be coercion. Nor can it be attempts to impose political outcomes through military force. The only sustainable alternative is to make the Somali federal government genuinely attractive to its constituent territories. That means constitutional compromise, predictable revenue-sharing, credible elections, respect for federal authority and regional autonomy, accountable security institutions and a foreign policy negotiated with the states rather than imposed upon them.

Somalia may therefore be approaching another historic crossroads. One path leads toward the reconstruction of a genuinely negotiated Somali federation—one in which Mogadishu remains important but does not dominate the political system. The second leads toward a looser association of increasingly autonomous territories, each pursuing its own strategic relationships with foreign powers. The third, and most dangerous, is continued confrontation: Mogadishu attempting to impose central authority while regional governments resist, creating a permanent cycle of political crises, armed confrontation and foreign intervention.

The Horn of Africa is changing rapidly.

The Red Sea crisis, competition among global powers, Ethiopia’s search for maritime access, the expansion of Turkish influence, American strategic repositioning and the growing importance of maritime security have dramatically increased Somalia’s geopolitical value.

Somalia may be politically fragmented, but its geography is anything but insignificant. Indeed, geography may ultimately prove stronger than politics. The paradox is striking: the weaker Somalia’s central institutions become, the more valuable its territory may become to competing external powers. That is precisely why the country faces a historic choice.

Somalia can either rebuild a political settlement strong enough to make its geography serve one nation—or allow competing powers to negotiate separately with its fragments. The future of the Somali Republic may depend less on who wins the next election in Mogadishu than on whether Somalis can agree on what kind of country they want to build. And that is the geopolitical question the world is increasingly waiting to see answered.

Ahmed A. Yusuf
Email: aayuusuf44@gmail.com