Recognition Isn’t Charity
Recognition is not a moral reward. It is power, and in today’s fractured world, power often matters more than permission. When international institutions stall, paralyzed by vetoes, inertia, and performative consensus, recognition becomes a strategic lever: a way to redistribute legitimacy where multilateral mechanisms fail. Few recent decisions illustrate this better than Israel’s December 2025 recognition of Somaliland.
At first glance, the move seems surprising. Somaliland is a self-declared republic, unrecognized for over three decades, in a region better known for fragmentation than stability. But seen alongside Israel’s long-standing engagement with Taiwan, the logic becomes clear. In a fractured global order, functionality increasingly trumps formality.
Israel, Taiwan, and Somaliland may differ in history, culture, and scale but they share a structural truth: de facto sovereignty constrained by de jure exclusion. Each has built institutions, exercised territorial control, and proven strategic relevance outside formal endorsement. Israel’s recognition of Somaliland is not a radical departure; it is a continuation of a doctrine forged in the crucible of contested legitimacy. The insight is simple: states that wait for permission often forfeit agency. States that build capacity and alliances despite exclusion reshape the system.
Israel’s recognition also extends the spirit of the Abraham Accords. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar framed it as part of a broader normalization arc, not limited to Arab monarchies, but open to stable, democratic, secular-leaning Muslim societies. Somaliland represents the “normalization of the unconventional.” Outside formal international consensus, it meets the criteria that underpin stability: order, reliability, and institutional continuity. Israel signals that legitimacy can emerge from performance, not dynasties or inherited borders. Recognition, in this sense, is not symbolic. It is strategic alignment.
Recognition as Strategy
Israel’s decision does not create a state. It acknowledges a reality, and turns it into an opportunity.
Since declaring independence in 1991, Somaliland has governed effectively. It has maintained internal security, held competitive elections, integrated customary authority into civic institutions, and avoided foreign military intervention. What it lacked was not governance, but international permission.
Critics, among them the African Union and the U.S. State Department, invoke Somalia’s “territorial integrity.” But this argument rests on a legal fiction. Mogadishu has struggled for decades to project authority beyond its capital, while al-Shabaab continues to operate across much of the country. Somaliland, by contrast, has maintained operational sovereignty and territorial control for over thirty years.
Recognition does not fracture Somalia. It acknowledges an existing fracture, and rewards the side that chooses order over collapse.
This mirrors Israel’s approach to Taiwan. Despite Beijing’s diplomatic pressure, Taiwan has been treated as what it is: a technologically advanced, politically stable, security-conscious partner. Scale is different, structure is not. In both cases, operational alignment matters more than symbolic consensus.
The Horn of Africa Is No Longer Peripheral
The Horn of Africa is no longer a backwater. Overlooking the Bab el-Mandeb strait and the Red Sea, it sits atop one of the world’s most critical maritime corridors, and a zone where great powers compete indirectly, minimizing visibility while maximizing leverage.
China and Russia have expanded in Africa not by exporting ideology, but by exploiting fragility. Where governance is weak, legitimacy contested, and borders porous, external actors gain room to maneuver. Political Islam often becomes a strategic environment: Islamist movements don’t need sponsorship to weaken cohesion, delegitimize secular authority, and fragment sovereignty- conditions external powers can exploit without firing a shot.
Russia demonstrates this in Libya, Sudan, and the Sahel: arms flows, mercenaries, and diplomatic cover coexist with ungoverned spaces where Islamist militias operate freely. China is quieter but just as consequential, tolerating Islamist influence where it secures access, regime stability, and insulation from Western pressure. The result: a belt of ambiguity where instability is an asset, not a liability.
Somaliland as a Counter-Model
Against this backdrop, Somaliland is disruptive. A Muslim-majority society that has resisted Islamist capture, maintained internal security, and built civic institutions without foreign occupation.
It challenges the assumption that instability in Muslim African states is inevitable. Order can emerge organically, through local legitimacy rather than imported ideology.
Israel’s recognition elevates this counter-model. It signals that alignment with secular governance, institutional continuity, and regional responsibility will be rewardedeven when international organizations hesitate. In doing so, Israel indirectly constrains the space in which radical Islamist movements thrive, and limits the indirect leverage of China and Russia.
Strategic Ripples
Israel’s move unsettles Chinese and Russian strategies in three ways:
- It disrupts monopolies over legitimacy. Recognition now depends on governance performance, not diplomatic pressure.
- It reshapes Red Sea security. Somaliland’s location offers intelligence, maritime monitoring, and counter-proxy depth near Iranian-aligned Houthis and emerging Russian naval ambitions.
- It denies permissive environments. A stable political entity reduces the spaces where Islamist movements act as intermediaries, spaces often exploited by outside powers.
Why Washington Should Pay Attention
For the U.S., the implications are immediate. Policymakers remain divided. Some fear recognition would complicate counterterrorism coordination with Mogadishu. Others see Somaliland as a hedge against Djibouti’s Chinese-dominated ports.
Berbera offers a Western-aligned alternative along the Red Sea corridor, reducing reliance on Beijing-leveraged infrastructure. Israel’s move strengthens the case for a diversified U.S. posture - balancing fragile Mogadishu partnerships with reliable hubs elsewhere.
This is not Cold War containment. It is environmental shaping, altering the conditions that allow malign influence to flourish.
Performance Over Permission
Taiwan offers a revealing parallel. Excluded from recognition, it embedded itself in global supply chains and security networks through competence and reliability. Somaliland is on an earlier stage of the same path, operating in a harsher environment, driven by the same logic.
Israel’s engagement reflects experience: legitimacy is earned, not granted. Recognition is a tool of strategy, not charity. At its core, Israel’s doctrine emphasizes three principles: functionality over formal status; peripheral engagement to gain strategic depth; prevention over reaction - reinforcing stable, non-Islamist actors before threats metastasize.
If the United States follows Israel, legitimacy shifts from symbolic sovereignty to performance-based authority. Red Sea security realigns. Islamist networks face more coherent resistance. And Chinese and Russian strategies, reliant on ambiguity and institutional weakness, face new constraints.
Together, Israeli and potential U.S. recognition of Somaliland would not destabilize the Horn of Africa. They would clarify it, aligning legitimacy with order, and recognition with responsibility.
Raghu Kondori
Iranian-French Author | Founder of Shahvand Think Tank
