Somaliland Recognition Isn’t the Problem. Somalia’s State Failure Is

[Deeq A.]

Mogadishu’s Attempt to Portray Somaliland as a Separatist Project Ignores Operational Realities and Misrepresents the Historical Record

A view of Hargeisa, the capital of Somaliland.

 

Israel’s December 26, 2025, recognition of Somaliland triggered sharp condemnation from Mogadishu. Somali officials framed the decision as a violation of sovereignty and a threat to regional stability. Yet this reaction obscures a deeper reality: The controversy is less about borders and diplomatic protocol and more about Somalia’s unresolved state failure and the strategic recalibration unfolding along the Red Sea corridor. Recognition did not create Somalia’s crisis; it exposed it.

For more than three decades, Somaliland has operated as a functioning entity. It controls territory, conducts elections, maintains internal order, and administers civilian institutions with a level of continuity absent across much of southern Somalia. Mogadishu’s attempt to portray Somaliland as merely another separatist project ignores these operational realities and misrepresents the historical record.

The Horn of Africa has become an extension of Middle Eastern security competition.

Somaliland entered a rushed union with Italian Somaliland five days after independence, but the legal foundation of the union was flawed from the outset. Somaliland passed its Union Act on June 27, 1960, while no corresponding ratification occurred in the South, leaving no jointly ratified Act of Union in force on July 1, 1960. The retroactive union law adopted in 1961 was an attempt to repair this defect. In legal terms, the union was politically proclaimed but never constituted at inception, rendering it—by juristic standards—defective ab initio.

The political trajectory that followed deepened this structural weakness. The 1969 coup dismantled constitutional governance in Mogadishu and entrenched centralized rule that eroded the original political bargain. When the Somali state collapsed in 1991, the union lost its institutional foundation entirely. Somaliland’s withdrawal was therefore not ideological fragmentation, but institutional self-preservation following systemic collapse.

From Israel’s perspective, the recognition was strategic rather than symbolic. The Horn of Africa has become an extension of Middle Eastern security competition. Red Sea chokepoints and commercial shipping routes now sit at the center of regional power calculations. Somaliland’s proximity to the Bab el-Mandeb Strait places it along one of the world’s most consequential trade arteries. Facilities such as Berbera provide logistical depth and leverage that carry strategic value beyond domestic Somali politics. In this environment, states do not select partners based on constitutional theory but, rather, upon on territorial control, reliability, and institutional continuity. Somaliland offers predictability in a region defined by fragmented authority and political volatility.

By contrast, Somalia’s federal government continues to struggle with structural incoherence. National authority remains divided across parallel political and security frameworks. Electoral processes are routinely delayed or contested. Constitutional harmonization remains incomplete. Economic governance varies sharply across regions.
This governance deficit weakens Mogadishu’s ability to project itself as the uncontested center of authority. International actors increasingly distinguish between formal sovereignty and functional capacity. Investment flows, security cooperation, and diplomatic engagement reflect this distinction.

No other Somali region possesses Somaliland’s historical independence status or international legal continuity from decolonization.

Somalia’s warning that Somaliland’s recognition will trigger regional fragmentation is overstated. No other Somali region possesses Somaliland’s historical independence status or international legal continuity from decolonization. Federal member states formed after 1991 through negotiated political settlements. They do not carry comparable sovereign lineage. The feared cascade effect does not exist.

What does exist is a gap between political claims and operational realities. For Israel and other security-focused actors, engagement will prioritize maritime stability, regional access, and dependable partners. That calculus is unlikely to change in response to diplomatic protests.

If Somalia seeks to alter this trajectory, the solution is not external pressure campaigns but internal reconstruction: consolidating national authority, restoring institutional coherence, and rebuilding political legitimacy. The hard truth is Somaliland recognition will reoccur wherever functionality outperforms fiction. States that govern territory effectively become partners. States that rely on symbolic sovereignty without institutional capacity will lose diplomatic ground. Recognition is not the destabilizing force. State failure is.

 

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