The U.S foreign policy in the horn of Africa

• Conclusion
  
• Introduction
  
• In addition, the coalition of the Arabic league led by Saudi Arabia, especially the United Arab Emirates sometimes simply called the Emirates, has requested Somaliland; a self-declared country located in the Horn of Africa which declared deliberately its independence from the rest of Somalia in 1991, to construct a military base in Berbera, a city near the capital Hargeysa. The members of the parliament of the self-declared republic of Somaliland agreed to allow the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to set up a military base in the port of Berbera.
  
• c) The Horn of Africa: A Playing Field for Foreign Powers
  
• The Horn of Africa has been the "battleground" for foreign superpowers and at the same time it has been the «playing field» of both regional and international powers. Most of the foreign powers have a military base in Djibouti and of course this is absolutely due to the regions' strategic location. In addition, the region is the subject of «Big powers» competition and this has its own repercussion on the region's states. But the region should pay more attention and basically it should beware the consequences of these foreign military bases stationed in the Horn.
  
• Thus, the HOA has become the «springboard» for foreign powers. Their involvement in the region have economic, political and security implications for the countries of the region particularly Djibouti, the military heart of the region. The region is a very fragile and volatile. In it; conflict and war may take the form of interstate, intrastate, ethnic, and war by proxies. Scholars and the region's political analysts subscribe to the view that the region's instability is largely due to external players. Thus, Ethiopia is a country torn between regional dynamics and external players.
  
• Hopefully, to understand Kenya's pro-Western posture it interesting to evaluate Kenya's relationship with her former colony Britain, as this had a major an impact in Kenya becoming of strategic interest to the US during the Cold War. Mainly, Kenya was under British rule for over fifty years, and by the time the country conquered its independence in 1963, strong intricate/sophisticated commercial links had been united with Britain. Kenya became among the largest beneficiaryof British aid in Africa during the Cold War era.At independence Britain gave Kenya the resources it needed to help establish the Kenyan Armed Forces, and thus became Kenya's largest supplier of arms, it trained troops and gave them substantial assistance, therefore establishing strong military ties.
  
• Somalia-Ethiopia conflicts played an important role for Moscow to determine policy over these countries. In the beginning, The USSR supported both rival states, Somalia and Ethiopia. Concerning this geopolitical contest, the socialist bloc had achieved an important outcome. However, Ogaden Battle between Somalia and Ethiopia changed the alliances in region and Somalia joined the Western camp and demonstrated the cliché that «there are no permanent friends and no permanent enemies'. While the United States was arming Somalia, the USSR and Cuba were helping Ethiopia. Ogaden Battle became one of the reasons of demise of the SALT II (Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty II, Treaty in 1979) agreement and Détente between the Cold War Superpowers. Carter's National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski went so far as to declare that «SALT lies buried in the sands of the Ogaden», signifying the death of Détente (Woodroofe 2013, p.2).
  
• During the late 1970-80s, each government in the Horn supported rebels fighting its neighbor and rival, but none of these opposition movements received significant backing from the US or USSR. Even the Soviet advisors and Cuban troops helped the Ethiopians in the Ethiopia-Eritrea war in 1978 (Griffiths 2005, p.135). Soviet support for Mengistu was not sufficient to defeat the Eritreans or the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF). After the defeat of the military regime in Ethiopia in 1991, it seemed that there might be a new peaceful order in the Horn. However, along with the end of the superpower rivalry in the region, the United States no longer had any real need for Somalia (Woodward 2002, p.150). The United States finally suspended all financial aid, and it showed the Somali regime's full weakness and sudden collapse. As a result of Soviet and American proxy war in the Horn of Africa has been one of the most conflict-prone zones in the world (Abbink 2003). Lyons and Samatar (1995) emphasized the failure of the U.S.-backed UN military intervention in 1992-94, Somalia fell off Washington's radar screen (cited in Lefebvre 2012).
  
• Conclusion
  
• However, the focus of the U.S. foreign policy during the Cold War had a clear «us vs. them» dimension, with «them» clearly as the communists and their ilk. Domination of communism became vital for every administration's foreign policy during the Cold War. At the end of the Cold War and the disintegration of «them,» a new attempt was launched to divert American foreign policy from war and give it a new objective. Last but not least, it is important to note that the end of the Cold War initiated a new world order and this new world order is called the War on Terror.