Somaliland and the Red Sea Corridor are at the center of a new UK recognition debate as a Henry Jackson Society report urges Britain to recognize Hargeisa
By Andrew Fox — Henry Jackson Society, June 2026
Britain’s long-standing policy toward Somaliland has rested on an uncomfortable premise: that a territory which has governed itself for more than three decades can be engaged, supported and strategically useful without being formally recognised as a state.
A new report from the Henry Jackson Society argues that this position is becoming increasingly difficult to sustain.
In “Somaliland and the Red Sea Corridor – The Case for UK Recognition,” author Andrew Fox, a former British Army officer and senior associate fellow at the Henry Jackson Society, contends that Britain should recognise Somaliland as an independent state and build a new relationship with Hargeisa around maritime security, trade, investment and regional stability. The report is based partly on fieldwork conducted in Somaliland in May 2026, including meetings with government officials, regional representatives, military leadership and Berbera Port officials.
The argument comes as the Red Sea has become a more consequential security and commercial theatre. Attacks by the Houthis, competition among China, Turkey and Gulf powers, Ethiopia’s search for alternative maritime access, and Israel’s recognition of Somaliland in December 2025 have altered the strategic environment around the Gulf of Aden.
For London, the report says, the question is no longer whether Somaliland’s status can indefinitely be left unresolved. It is whether Britain will help shape what comes next.
“The question for the UK is no longer whether recognition will ever become a live policy issue,” the report says. “It is a question of whether Britain will shape that debate or allow others to define it for narrower regional purposes.”
A strategic coastline in an increasingly contested region
The report places Somaliland’s case within the wider geography of the Red Sea corridor, where the Suez Canal, the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden form a critical maritime connection between Europe and the Indian Ocean.
The Suez-Red Sea system carries roughly one-eighth of global trade, according to the report. The Houthi attacks that intensified from late 2023 demonstrated how quickly insecurity around the southern entrance to the Red Sea could translate into higher freight costs, longer journeys and disruption to supply chains. By February 2026, Maersk was again rerouting some sailings around the Cape of Good Hope because of renewed constraints in the Red Sea.
The report argues that the strategic significance of the corridor cannot be understood simply through naval deployments.
Ports, military facilities, commercial infrastructure and political alliances have become part of a single strategic system.
China’s permanent military presence in Djibouti, Turkey’s expanding security role in Somalia and Emirati investment around Berbera illustrate what the report describes as the accumulation of influence on land as much as at sea. Somaliland occupies a particularly important position within that geography because it faces the Gulf of Aden and sits near the maritime approaches linking the Red Sea with the Indian Ocean.
That geography gives Berbera significance beyond its function as a commercial port.
“Berbera is not merely a port,” the report argues. “It is a corridor, a state-making project, and a geopolitical asset.”
Berbera’s rise changes the calculation
The transformation of Berbera is central to the report’s argument.
The current phase of development began with DP World’s concession. In 2018, the Dubai-based logistics company launched the first phase of the port’s expansion, while Ethiopia acquired a stake in the venture. The infrastructure surrounding Berbera — including roads, a free trade zone and airport improvements — has increasingly been conceived as a broader logistics ecosystem rather than simply a port expansion.
Ethiopia’s interest has added another layer of strategic importance.
Landlocked since losing its coastline through Eritrea, Ethiopia remains heavily dependent on Djibouti for maritime trade. Its 2024 memorandum with Somaliland demonstrated Addis Ababa’s interest in developing alternatives and reducing dependence on a single maritime outlet.
The result is a corridor connecting Somaliland, Ethiopia and Gulf investment interests.
But the report also cautions against treating Berbera as a politically neutral infrastructure project. Investment has altered land values, rents and expectations, while creating new competition among local networks.
Recognition, the report argues, could provide clearer legal frameworks for investment and state-to-state agreements.
The strategic importance of Berbera was underscored in early 2026 when Mogadishu moved to annul agreements with the United Arab Emirates, including arrangements involving ports, while DP World maintained that its operations in Berbera were unaffected. The episode illustrated the gap between formal diplomatic claims and the political authority exercised on the ground.
For Britain, the report says, Berbera should not be imagined as a ready-made military base or substitute for Djibouti.
Instead, it should be viewed as a potentially valuable node in a broader resilience strategy for the Red Sea — one where commercial infrastructure, customs cooperation and maritime security reinforce one another.
Three decades of self-government
The report’s recognition argument is not based solely on geography.
It also rests on Somaliland’s political development since declaring its restoration of independence in 1991.
Unlike many externally driven state-building projects, Somaliland’s institutions emerged through locally negotiated settlements involving clan elders, political actors and communities. The resulting political system incorporated traditional authority through the Guurti alongside elected institutions, ministries and a written constitutional framework.
The report presents this hybrid system as imperfect but durable.
Somaliland has held presidential and parliamentary elections and, in 2021, opposition parties won a majority in parliamentary elections. In the November 2024 presidential election, opposition leader Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi, commonly known as Cirro, defeated incumbent Muse Bihi Abdi and assumed office.
Yet Fox does not portray Somaliland as a democratic success story without qualification.
The report acknowledges electoral delays, political manipulation and institutional weaknesses. The 2022 postponement of presidential elections triggered deadly protests, while the 2023 fighting around Las Anod exposed serious territorial and political disputes in the east.
The distinction, according to the report, is not between a perfect Somaliland and an imperfect Somalia. Rather, it is between an established governing system and an unresolved legal status.
“Somaliland has crossed the threshold at which continued non-recognition is no longer prudent,” the report argues.
The limits of Somaliland’s security institutions
Recognition would not, however, eliminate Somaliland’s security vulnerabilities.
The report describes Somaliland’s security architecture as “hybrid and uneven.” Formal state institutions coexist with clan authority, local mediation and informal arrangements. Governance is strongest in the centre and west and more contested in peripheral areas.
The maritime picture is similarly complicated.
Somaliland has a strategically positioned coastline, but its coastguard remains under-resourced, with limitations in vessels, fuel, communications and investigative capacity. The report attributes Somaliland’s relative success in avoiding maritime predation less to a highly capable coastguard than to stronger onshore order, social opposition to piracy and an incentive to distinguish Somaliland from the insecurity associated with southern Somalia.
That makes recognition, in the report’s formulation, an instrument rather than an end.
A recognised Somaliland government could become a more conventional partner for British assistance in coastal surveillance, port security, customs enforcement, maritime policing, legal training and counter-smuggling.
But the report stresses that recognition would not automatically professionalise Somaliland’s security institutions or resolve the political disputes in the east.
The legal argument: an exceptional case
Perhaps the most contentious element of the report is its legal and normative case for recognition.
The principal objection is familiar: international law places considerable weight on territorial integrity and generally resists unilateral secession.
The report counters that Somaliland is not simply another separatist movement seeking to redraw an African border.
Its claim is rooted in the territory of the former British Somaliland protectorate, which became independent in June 1960 before entering into union with the former Italian Somalia.
The report cites the African Union’s 2005 fact-finding mission, which described Somaliland’s search for recognition as “historically unique and self-justified in African political history.”
That distinction is crucial to the report’s argument. Recognition, it says, could be framed as an exceptional response to Somaliland’s historical circumstances rather than an endorsement of a general right to partition African states.
The report further argues that decades of separate governance have made continued non-recognition increasingly costly.
An unrecognised Somaliland can trade, receive visitors and cooperate informally with foreign governments, but it remains constrained in its ability to conclude sovereign agreements, access international finance, develop direct diplomatic relations and establish fully conventional air-service and passport arrangements.
The report therefore reframes non-recognition as an active policy choice rather than simple neutrality.
“Continued refusal to recognise Somaliland is no longer a neutral defence of order,” it says. “It is a choice to deny legal form to an existing political reality.”
Somalia’s weakness and Britain’s policy dilemma
The report’s sharpest criticism is directed at Britain’s Somalia-first approach.
It describes Somalia as a political system characterised by fragmented sovereignty, with Al-Shabaab retaining the ability to govern, tax and adjudicate in areas where the federal government is absent or distrusted. Mogadishu, it argues, lacks the coercive capacity to protect Somaliland or guarantee security along the Gulf of Aden and Red Sea approaches.
That does not mean Britain should abandon Somalia.
The report explicitly argues that humanitarian, counterterrorism and stabilisation support may remain necessary.
But it says London should stop treating support for Somalia’s federal government as synonymous with a strategy for the wider Red Sea corridor.
According to the report, nearly £60 million in British investment routed through Somalia’s existing state-building architecture since 2021 has produced only modest strategic returns. It argues that this spending has neither displaced Al-Shabaab, built a durable national security apparatus nor generated meaningful British influence over Somaliland.
The implication is a significant shift in British policy: maintain engagement with Mogadishu while developing a separate relationship with Hargeisa.
“Rather than replacing British engagement with Somalia, recognition of Somaliland would diversify it and make it more realistic,” the report says.
China, Turkey and the competition for influence
The report also places Somaliland within an increasingly competitive geopolitical landscape.
China’s military and commercial presence in Djibouti provides Beijing with a permanent foothold on the African side of the Red Sea. Somaliland’s relationship with Taiwan makes the territory particularly sensitive within the broader contest between Beijing and Taipei.
One Somaliland government official interviewed for the report offered a blunt assessment: “China is our enemy.”
Turkey represents a different challenge.
Ankara has developed extensive political, economic and security ties with Somalia, centred on Mogadishu. Its engagement encompasses infrastructure, business, humanitarian diplomacy, military training and maritime security.
The report argues that the result is a strategic imbalance: China, Turkey, the UAE and Taiwan are already shaping the regional environment while Britain continues to operate within a framework that leaves Somaliland formally outside its diplomatic architecture.
“Recognition would give London a clearer basis to protect its own interests,” the report says.
Why Britain has a distinctive stake
The report argues that Britain’s interest in Somaliland is not purely strategic.
Somaliland was formerly a British protectorate, and Britain has one of the largest Somaliland diaspora communities in Europe, including established communities in London, Cardiff, Liverpool and Manchester.
Those historic and social links, the report says, give Britain a relationship with Somaliland that is deeper than conventional foreign policy.
Recognition would formalise a relationship that has largely remained implicit.
It could also reduce the legal uncertainty surrounding investment in Berbera and the wider corridor. International capital already flows into Somaliland, but the absence of recognised statehood complicates access to state-backed finance, insurance and development instruments.
The Israeli precedent — and the British alternative
Israel’s recognition of Somaliland in December 2025 changed the diplomatic environment.
The report argues that Britain should not simply replicate Israel’s approach.
Instead, London should establish its own rationale based on statehood, historical borders, regional stability and British interests.
The distinction matters because recognition associated primarily with Middle Eastern rivalries or military-access calculations could intensify Somaliland’s exposure to regional backlash.
A British policy, the report suggests, could instead seek to reposition recognition as a measured diplomatic decision.
That would allow London to reclaim initiative without presenting Somaliland primarily as a military asset.
A five-part recognition strategy
The report proposes a phased approach.
First, Britain should recognise Somaliland within the borders of the former British protectorate while supporting dialogue over disputed eastern territories and minority protections.
Second, London should establish full diplomatic relations, including an embassy in Hargeisa and an accredited ambassador. Recognition should be followed by agreements covering military cooperation, customs, trade facilitation, maritime policing, port security and anti-corruption measures.
Third, Britain should reassure Mogadishu.
Recognition, the report argues, need not mean abandoning Somalia or endorsing further fragmentation. London could instead pursue structured negotiations over airspace, trade, movement, shared infrastructure, debt and consular matters.
Fourth, Britain should consult African and regional governments before announcing recognition.
The report specifically identifies the African Union, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Kenya and the UAE as important interlocutors. Building support around Somaliland’s former colonial borders, prolonged self-government and distinctive history could help address concerns over precedent.
Finally, recognition should be connected to practical development.
The report recommends support for customs capacity, transparent revenue management, land governance and the legal framework required for private investment around Berbera and the wider corridor.
The objective would be to turn recognition from a diplomatic declaration into an operating framework.
A decision Britain can no longer indefinitely postpone
The report’s conclusion is ultimately less about Somaliland alone than about the limits of British strategy in the Horn of Africa.
For more than three decades, Somaliland has remained outside the formal international state system while building institutions that have allowed it to govern much of the territory it claims.
At the same time, Berbera has become more significant, the Red Sea has become more vulnerable to disruption, Ethiopia is seeking maritime alternatives, and regional powers are competing for influence.
The report argues that these developments have converged to make Britain’s old policy increasingly untenable.
“The case for British recognition of Somaliland is now stronger than the case against it,” it concludes.
Recognition, the report acknowledges, would not resolve Somaliland’s territorial disputes, eliminate its institutional weaknesses or transform the Horn of Africa.
But the alternative — continuing to treat Somaliland as a political reality without granting it the diplomatic status that would accompany that reality — is also a choice.
For London, the strategic question is therefore becoming more difficult to avoid: whether to continue defending an established diplomatic formula centered on Somalia’s territorial integrity, or to recognise that the political and economic geography of the Red Sea has moved faster than Britain’s policy.
The Henry Jackson Society’s recommendation is unequivocal.
Britain should recognise Somaliland — not as a military proxy, not as a reward, and not as an instrument against Somalia, but as a calculated recognition of an established political order whose location and strategic importance now place it directly within Britain’s interests in the Red Sea corridor.
