On December 13, 2018, National Security Advisor John Bolton announced the Trump administration’s new Africa strategy. “Great power competitors, namely China and Russia, are rapidly expanding their financial and political influence across Africa,” he said, adding, “China uses bribes, opaque agreements, and the strategic use of debt to hold states in Africa captive to Beijing’s wishes and demands.” He cited Djibouti, whose debt to China was nearly half the country’s gross domestic product, and noted that after China inaugurated its first overseas naval base in Djibouti, it began blinding U.S. pilots landing nearby with lasers.

While President Joe Biden sought to define his administration in opposition to Donald Trump, he accepted the Trump team’s concern about China in Africa. “The People’s Republic of China…sees the region as an important arena to challenge the rules-based international order, advance its own narrow commercial and geopolitical interests, undermine transparency and openness, and weaken U.S. relations with African peoples and governments,” Biden’s own Africa strategy declared, even as the Biden team chose to emphasize global problems like climate change and global health.

It is easy to voice an agenda and policy priorities; it is harder to implement them. Absent continuous effort from the National Security Council, institutional inertia triumphs, and individual biases overshadow the national interest. This has been the case with the Horn of Africa, where shortsighted agendas and ham-handed implementation have empowered China at the expense of U.S. national interests, counterterrorism, and democracy.

At issue is the State Department’s ossified “One Somalia” policy that diminishes Somaliland, the once-independent country that united with the rest of Somalia in 1960. In 1991, Somaliland re-asserted its independence as the rest of Somalia collapsed into state failure and anarchy. Somaliland rebuilt itself as a functioning country, even if not formally recognized internationally as such. Today, Somaliland has been effectively independent longer than it has been part of Somalia proper. It elects its own government, subsists on tax revenue and customs duties rather than international aid, issues its own passports, and maintains its own currency. It has denied its territory to jihadists and weapons smugglers, and its coastguard has prevented piracy in its waters. Security prevails. I walked around the capital, Hargeisa, and the largest port, Berbera, with my nine-year-old daughter without any need for security. Whereas many countries invite anti-Western agendas, Somaliland orients itself to Europe and established ties with Taiwan over China’s objection and bribery attempts.

While the recognized Somali government in Mogadishu has collected billions of dollars in aid despite not holding one-person, one-vote elections, Somaliland has not only held eight parliamentary and presidential elections but also was the first country to use biometric iris scans to secure voter identification. All this for less than $20 million in external assistance, according to interviews with Somaliland National Election Committee officials. On November 13, 2024, Somalilanders will go to the polls once more to elect a new president, their fifth or sixth, depending on whether incumbent Muse Bihi wins reelection. International businesses like Coca-Cola and Dubai World have flocked to Somaliland because of its rule of law and stability, and many European and pro-Western African states have opened consulates or offices in the country.

Logic would dictate that the State Department should consider Somaliland a natural friend and ally and rush to embrace it. For the last decade, at least, logic would be wrong. The State Department embraces “one Somalia” rhetoric to justify ostracizing the region’s only democracy.

There are two ironies to this position. The first is there has never been “One Somalia.” The white star on Somalia’s pale blue flag symbolizes the five Somali regions: Somaliland, Somalia, Djibouti, Ogaden, and Kenya’s North Eastern Province. Somali irredentists dream of uniting all five. In 1977, Somalia dictator Siad Barre tried to do so by military force, waging genocide in Somaliland and invading Ethiopia’s Ogaden. No dynasty or government has ever ruled all Somalis as a single entity. It is a fantasy akin to the Turkish nationalist desire to create a greater Turkey from Greece to the Gobi.

The second is that just two decades ago, the State Department interpreted its own “One Somalia” as akin to its “One China” policy, differentiating theoretical sovereignty with the reality that Taiwan was a democracy and an American ally. Rather than view Somaliland as a problem to isolate, ignore, or even eliminate, American diplomats embraced Somaliland as a model and recognized its unique history. They remembered Somaliland’s rise from the ashes of the anti-Isaaq genocide and its juxtaposition with Somalia’s descent into anarchy. 

If historical amnesia blights the American consciousness, then the State Department suffers from Alzheimer’s. With rotations every two years—and rotations even quicker for diplomats serving in Mogadishu—there is no institutional memory of past policy. Compounding this dynamic is the “Coalition Provision Authority effect.” For over a year after Saddam’s fall, the Coalition Provisional Authority ran Iraq. It imagined it understood the country, but, in reality, it stood isolated within its own Green Zone, as the real Iraq existed outside. In Somalia, the same dynamic is at play. The U.S. Embassy exists inside the international airport, a secure bubble into which most Somalis cannot penetrate, and American diplomats seldom exit. As a result, a few interlocutors shape American reality, often to support personal or clan agendas.

The roots of the current State Department’s hostility to Somaliland date to the 2012 Benghazi disaster. In its aftermath, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sought to change the narrative that her tenure lacked any success stories. She turned to Somalia, recognizing the formation of the Federal Government of Somalia after eight years of an interim transitional government. “We have seen a new foundation for that better future being laid,” Clinton declared from the State Department podium with President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud at her side. 

Her successor, John Kerry, became the first secretary of State to visit Somalia just three years later, though he never left the airport’s green zone. “The next time I come, we have to be able to just walk downtown,” Kerry told Mohamud. Mohamud assured him Mogadishu had changed, but progress was illusionary. Almost a decade later, Mogadishu remains as dangerous as ever. Corruption hobbles Somalia; under Mohamud’s rule, it remains the world’s most corrupt country, making Venezuela, North Korea, and Yemen appear clean by comparison.

In order to reinforce the illusion of political progress, Clinton and Kerry’s team—most of whom now occupy the top levels of the Biden administration—exaggerated Somalia’s success. Perhaps they believed their own spin, or perhaps it was just inertia. The result is the same: Treating Hargeisa as an impediment to Mogadishu’s success. This is backward. If unity is the goal, the State Department should pressure Mogadishu to replicate the rule of law and democracy Hargeisa achieved.

Today, Somalia teeters on the brink of failure. Al-Shabaab effectively runs much of the country, operating parallel courts, issuing permits, and collecting taxes. Tens of billions of dollars contributed by the international community have gone to waste. While Somalis hoped offshore gas fields would rescue their country, corruption and insecurity stymie development.

Enter China, which exploits the situation by overfishing waters and leveraging Mohamud’s personal greed for Beijing’s broader interests. As the Horn—from Djibouti to Mogadishu—have become Chinese satrapies, the State Department pursues policies that align more with Beijing’s national security goals than those outlined by either Trump or Biden’s national security strategies.

Even if the United States remains unprepared to recognize Somaliland, it should revert to the policy of the past and treat it in a way that is parallel to its approach to Taiwan. Taiwan is an important economic, diplomatic, and increasingly military partner. The United States maintains a formal presence in the country and hosts a shadow Taiwanese embassy in Washington.

It should allow the U.S. intelligence community to establish a permanent facility to monitor weapons smuggling, ship movements in the Gulf of Aden, and Chinese activity in the region. U.S. naval and naval aviation based in Berbera could better counter the Houthis and secure freedom of navigation than expensive carrier strike group deployments. American companies should join their Taiwanese, South Korean, and Turkish counterparts in the development of Somaliland’s rare earths sector.

U.S. elections highlight divisions. Whoever takes office on January 20, 2025, however, will face a common China challenge. The United States can no longer afford to stand aloof and assume the liberal order will strengthen by itself. Faced with a challenge from China, the United States should consolidate those countries and territories inclined to democracy and clean government. The clock is ticking, however. While the Somaliland government has rebuffed Chinese bribery attempts, Beijing might tempt future politicians if incumbents cannot first cement the U.S. partnership.