With the end of the 2026 US-Iran conflict, the strategic alignments of the greater Middle East will begin to reshape themselves to adjust to the new post-conflict reality. Already, there are indications of the potential formation of a Saudi-Egypt-Pakistan-Turkey entente and potentially a United Arab Emirates (UAE)-Israel alignment. While these may not be the final shape of the post-conflict one thing is clear: for both the US and Israel, there will be new geopolitical challenges emerging in the region. At the same time, the last year has demonstrated the potential for new opportunities, including those stemming from Israel’s recognition and increasing diplomatic relationships with Somaliland.

A potential gateway to central Africa and located across the critical Bab al-Mandab Strait from Yemen, Somaliland is stable, unrecognized, and full of strategic potential. That potential has been largely unrealized, at least by the US, since Somaliland won its war for independence against the Government in Mogadishu 35 years ago. In December 2025, Israel recognized Somaliland as an independent state for the second time in sixty-five years. Israeli recognition may have caused a firestorm of international concern and condemnation, but it provides an opportunity to end the strategic stagnation of the region and deliver significant advantages to US global strategy, even it the US does not follow suit by recognizing the breakaway republic. The US and Israel will only be able to enjoy the full range of these benefits if they look beyond a narrow vision of the immediate military benefits Somaliland’s geographic position provides. To do this, they will have to work quickly through Israel to cement a new future for Somaliland, and perhaps the region.

Background and a Brief History:

In 2013, I went to Somaliland to interview its Second World War veterans. During World War II, Somaliland was a British colony in the Horn of Africa that was overlooked by the British, who thought about defending it and its important strategic position too late in the day. Only as it was falling did Britain truly understand the importance of its position, sitting across the Gulf of Aden from Yemen, and by then it was too late. Racial stereotypes made this worse as they assumed Somalis would perform poorly in the defense. Instead, the Somalilanders fought a stubborn rear guard action that gave the British time to retreat from the territory to Yemen. After liberation from the Italians, Somalilanders would go on to fight elsewhere in the war, including in Burma, and I was there to find out more about this forgotten history. However, what most of the people I interviewed wanted to discuss were far more recent events: the Somali Civil War, Somaliland’s struggle to maintain its independence and relative stability, and its largely successful war against piracy.

In 1960, Somaliland gained independence from the British Empire, and Israel and the United States were among the first countries to recognize it. Five days later, Somaliland joined the Somali Republic, and relations came to a screeching halt. The strategic position of Somalia meant that it was able to switch sides in the Cold War to such an extent that I was able to interview naval officers who had trained in the UK, the US, and Leningrad. Its relative strategic importance was not enough to save it from instability caused in no small part by the oppressive policies and human rights violations of its dictator, Siad Barre. As a result, the Isaaq clan and its allies, who make up the majority population of Somaliland, began to fight back. By the late 1980s, the Somalilander Forces of the Somali National Movement had begun to make battlefield gains, taking control of parts of what is now Somaliland. The response by the Somali government was brutal. It included mass executions of civilians and other atrocities – something to which Yohanan........

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