Resource April 29, 2019
Meet the Journalists: Ismail Einashe and Matt Kennard
Project
Proxy War in the Horn of Africa
Africa has become the new locus of great power conflict in the 21st century. But this new proxy...
![Mombasa-Nairobi Standard Gauge Railway Map. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons [CC BY 4.0].](/sites/default/files/02-21-19/1000px_x_666px_template_5.png "Mombasa-Nairobi Standard Gauge Railway Map. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons [CC BY 4.0].")
The Horn of Africa is now at the center of Great Power Conflict, with the U.S. and China vying to put a military and economic stamp on the region. Matt Kennard and Ismail Einashe spent months investigating this trend, from a historical and contemporary angle. They explored the genocide in northern Somalia in the late 1980s by a dictator backed to the hilt and armed by the U.S. government. They also considered at how Chinese attempts at dominating the region differ from the traditional superpower patron, the U.S. Finally, they looked at Berbera in northern Somalia as a microcosm of the whole trend. There the U.S. ally, the UAE, is building a new port, much to the consternation of its regional enemies.
Some have compared the situation to Sarajevo in 1914, where one mistake could ignite a regional and even world war.
![Mombasa-Nairobi Standard Gauge Railway Map. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons [CC BY 4.0].](/sites/default/files/11-19-18/1000px_x_666px_template_5.png "Mombasa-Nairobi Standard Gauge Railway Map. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons [CC BY 4.0].")
