AHC: Free Horn of Africa

Horn of Africa probably has one of the best chances of being the most developed in the whole of Africa.
In this AHC I would want you to make Somalia the leading African nation, most developed etc. also make Somalia as large as possible. Since its Horn of Africa also Eritrea and Ethiopia getting better and more developed whether its divided or not.

Bonus points for dividing up Ethiopia and still make this region the most developed. Also for making Somalia as developed as UAE.
 
France sets Djibouti free earlier and it is annexed by Somalia, shoring up the nationalist/expansionist credentials of its democratically elected leaders (thereby preventing military rule) and providing a good source of income via the port.

Somalia had a decent democracy before 1969 and if you let it continue and give the country an added source of income it could be a very stable country.
 
France sets Djibouti free earlier and it is annexed by Somalia, shoring up the nationalist/expansionist credentials of its democratically elected leaders (thereby preventing military rule) and providing a good source of income via the port.

Somalia had a decent democracy before 1969 and if you let it continue and give the country an added source of income it could be a very stable country.

it doesnt matter whether Somalia succeeds by staying democratic or not, democracy is just a mere title these days anyway.
Well they just found oil and alot of minerals in Somalia, maybe it will be discovered a lot earlier with the right direction in politics and development.
 
They had one of the largest militaries in Africa for most of the late 60s through the 70s so maybe if they stayed at least somewhat democratic and actually took advantage of there position in international trade in a normal way instead of with pirates and exploited their natural resources they would do great
 
Avoid military rule.

Get Djibouti.

Grab the Ogaden from a hard-left leaning Ethiopia.

Have Kenya fall into civil war, have Somalia grab useless frontier land. The importance isn't the land but rather seeing Somalia, at least by the west, as a stable African nation that can be leaned upon to do things that the west doesn't want to directly do.

Have Yemen turn into modern Somalia. Give the Saudis a reason to intervene, Egypt will come knocking, the USSR and USA turn it into a proxy battleground, and its already divided *North and South Yemen* anyway, so even easier. This gives less reason to use Aden and more to use Djibouti.

Discovering minerals earlier isn't a sure sign of success. Resources are just as often a curse in undeveloped countries as developed ones. Maybe if they discover something and immediately nationalize it *and with them taking out Ethiopia, its unlikely the west will groan TOO loudly*.

That should be a good blueprint. Competent leadership is required as obvious.
 
They had one of the largest militaries in Africa for most of the late 60s through the 70s so maybe if they stayed at least somewhat democratic and actually took advantage of there position in international trade in a normal way instead of with pirates and exploited their natural resources they would do great
The pirates are a response to outside forces though. It's basically an insurgent force fighting against economic invaders (Foreign fishing fleets), which is also why they see so much support among the populace. Just wanted to point out that it isn't like the Somalis just decided that piracy sounded much better than "honest" living.

Discovering minerals earlier isn't a sure sign of success. Resources are just as often a curse in undeveloped countries as developed ones. Maybe if they discover something and immediately nationalize it *and with them taking out Ethiopia, its unlikely the west will groan TOO loudly*.
Your other points sound sensible as well, so I just want to add some things to this. The best possible option might be to discover minerals slowly at first, where a state controlled exploitation* isn't seen as a huge loss by others. Combined with Somalia using the strength from that to stabilize the region** and people might figure that it was an alright trade.

If Somalia continues just slowly finding new resources, and uses them to fund education and to stabilize the region, then it should at least have a shot at becoming successful. It would help if it could somehow create an image of being America's friend in Africa, a stalwart bulwark to prevent the dark continent from becoming the Red!! continent.

*Is it really nationalization if it was never privately controlled? Seems to me that the natural state of resources is that they belong to the nation/state, and that privatization is just what the prevailing paradigm tells people is natural.

**Read: Fighting "Communists".


That should be a good blueprint. Competent leadership is required as obvious.
This is true. Avoiding corruption would be a pretty major thing, because corruption can corrode pretty much any progress the state has made/could make. That goes from the very top of the government down to the local level.
 
I always thought Djibouti had potential to become an "African Singapore" due to its location on the entrance to the Red Sea.
 
They had one of the largest militaries in Africa for most of the late 60s through the 70s so maybe if they stayed at least somewhat democratic and actually took advantage of there position in international trade in a normal way instead of with pirates and exploited their natural resources they would do great

Thats true but the pirates came after the civil war because of the exploitation and destruction of Somalia's maritime resources...
 
Avoid military rule.

Get Djibouti.

Grab the Ogaden from a hard-left leaning Ethiopia.

Have Kenya fall into civil war, have Somalia grab useless frontier land. The importance isn't the land but rather seeing Somalia, at least by the west, as a stable African nation that can be leaned upon to do things that the west doesn't want to directly do.

Have Yemen turn into modern Somalia. Give the Saudis a reason to intervene, Egypt will come knocking, the USSR and USA turn it into a proxy battleground, and its already divided *North and South Yemen* anyway, so even easier. This gives less reason to use Aden and more to use Djibouti.

Discovering minerals earlier isn't a sure sign of success. Resources are just as often a curse in undeveloped countries as developed ones. Maybe if they discover something and immediately nationalize it *and with them taking out Ethiopia, its unlikely the west will groan TOO loudly*.

That should be a good blueprint. Competent leadership is required as obvious.

I like this idea!
However competent leadership would be very hard since most leaders actions were directly influenced or controlled by either USA or Russia. Somalia had Russia on its side and was pretty stable and thriving until they tried to capture the Ogaden from the Ethiopians who also were a Russian ally. Possibly terminating Russia's alliance with Ethiopia would lead to it?
Djibouti would be hard since it is strongly influenced by France who used it as a military base in East Africa, now USA is.
 
I always thought Djibouti had potential to become an "African Singapore" due to its location on the entrance to the Red Sea.

Rather have Djibouti incorporated into Somalia since it has a majority Somali population with a Somali president.
 
This is a bit convoluted, but could make for an interesting TL.

Italy stays neutral in WWI. It is contracted to make weapons for both sides of the war. Thus technological development shifts; potentially for infrastructure and weaponry, as less money is spent on the war and more is spent on R&D.
WWI ends in a stalemate in 1916 on the Western front, where AL gets to hold a referendum as it did in the (IIRC) Fight and Be Right TL. Though Germany is able to carve a relatively moderate chunk out of Russia to create Mitteleuropa. The great depression is largely avoided in Europe due to the lack of reparations and a stable Italy that does not fall to Fascism.
Ausrtria Hungary reforms into the USGA, though once the Italian state is organized, greater calls for the Italian areas to join Italy.

AHC 2.png (Red is unknown according to this TL)

Germany tries once more to go to war against France in 1927, though is bogged down this time far more heavily than the last, even without an Eastern front. In order to recruit Italy, AH gives up its Italian Territories to Italy. Italy successfully takes Djibouti, British, Somalia, and Ethiopia by the time a second armistice is signed.

Second map and rest to come later.

AHC 2.png
 
This is a bit convoluted, but could make for an interesting TL.

Italy stays neutral in WWI. It is contracted to make weapons for both sides of the war. Thus technological development shifts; potentially for infrastructure and weaponry, as less money is spent on the war and more is spent on R&D.
WWI ends in a stalemate in 1916 on the Western front, where AL gets to hold a referendum as it did in the (IIRC) Fight and Be Right TL. Though Germany is able to carve a relatively moderate chunk out of Russia to create Mitteleuropa. The great depression is largely avoided in Europe due to the lack of reparations and a stable Italy that does not fall to Fascism.
Ausrtria Hungary reforms into the USGA, though once the Italian state is organized, greater calls for the Italian areas to join Italy.

View attachment 177313 (Red is unknown according to this TL)

Germany tries once more to go to war against France in 1927, though is bogged down this time far more heavily than the last, even without an Eastern front. In order to recruit Italy, AH gives up its Italian Territories to Italy. Italy successfully takes Djibouti, British, Somalia, and Ethiopia by the time a second armistice is signed.

Second map and rest to come later.

Looks promising. So did you finish the second map and the rest? Want to find out how Horn of Africa turns out.
 
Richard burton called the somalis a fierce and turbulent race of republicans.

The biggest source of conflict for somalis is a strong state.
Other people are culturally adapted to being ruled so to them its a natural state of existance, but to somalis its alien.

If they were given the time with limited foriegn intervention, maybe a system like Swiss cantons could have been used to balance the clans.

Unfortunately Somalis inherited the political systems of their colonizers
in this case Italy , a system that was unsuitable for the character of somalis and would lead to chaos and a breakdown of order in the future.

Somalis in British Somaliland were a protectorate from 1884 till 1960.
The British never exercised any rule or noticeable levels of control till after 1941, in the North you have only 19 years of state rule prior to 1960.

In the south the Italians attempted to rule this as a colony and so went to war but failed miserably till modern technology like aircraft, and armoured cars helped them achieve a semblance of control.
The Italians arrived in 1890 but there was zero Italian government outside of Moqadishu till the 1920's and it took till 1925 to defeat the northern sultanates.

So you have 15 years of control between by the Italians and another 10 years between 1950 to 1960 when the UN gave it back to them as a temporary trusteeship.

So you can see this is nowhere near the time you need to setup working structures.
 
The simplest way for a stronger Somalia would have been a different government between 1977 and 1988.

The Siad Barre dictatorship made the stupid mistake of picking a fight with the soviets without first gaurenteeing US support.

The Saudis assured Siad Barre of US support and Provided $200 million as an inducement to drop the Soviets.

Not that the Somalis required much encouragement since relations cooled considerably after the Soviets started funding the Ethiopians after their revolution.


A stable somalia in 1988 would have been poised to strike at the mortally wounded Ethiopia in 1988.
In 1985 Gorbachov told the Ethiopians that all aid would be cut off eventually, and it was cut off by 1988.

The Ethiopians also suffered the extermination of their best division the Nadew division in the battle of afabet, by the Eritreans.

This year was also when the cubans started leaving.

A stable somalis would have simply stepped in and decided Ethiopia's fate
after negotiating with the Eritreans on how to divide the spoils.

The Likely outcome would have been the disintegration of the Ethiopians Empire into at least 6 states. and the annexation of the Ogaden and maybe parts of Harar and the city of Diredawa by the somalis, along with Independence of Eritrea.

In the 1970s and 80's all of Ethiopia separatists armed groups the
Eritreans, the Tigrayans, the Oromo and many more had their headquarters in Moqadishu.
Their leadership were issued Somali passports so they could travell and gather international support.

Both the current presidents of Eritrea Afewerki and Melez zenawi of Ethiopia today
were based in Moqadishu and both used to travell on Somali passports well into the mid 80's.
 
The simplest way for a stronger Somalia would have been a different government between 1977 and 1988.

The Siad Barre dictatorship made the stupid mistake of picking a fight with the soviets without first gaurenteeing US support.

The Saudis assured Siad Barre of US support and Provided $200 million as an inducement to drop the Soviets.

Not that the Somalis required much encouragement since relations cooled considerably after the Soviets started funding the Ethiopians after their revolution.


A stable somalia in 1988 would have been poised to strike at the mortally wounded Ethiopia in 1988.
In 1985 Gorbachov told the Ethiopians that all aid would be cut off eventually, and it was cut off by 1988.

The Ethiopians also suffered the extermination of their best division the Nadew division in the battle of afabet, by the Eritreans.

This year was also when the cubans started leaving.

A stable somalis would have simply stepped in and decided Ethiopia's fate
after negotiating with the Eritreans on how to divide the spoils.

The Likely outcome would have been the disintegration of the Ethiopians Empire into at least 6 states. and the annexation of the Ogaden and maybe parts of Harar and the city of Diredawa by the somalis, along with Independence of Eritrea.

In the 1970s and 80's all of Ethiopia separatists armed groups the
Eritreans, the Tigrayans, the Oromo and many more had their headquarters in Moqadishu.
Their leadership were issued Somali passports so they could travell and gather international support.

Both the current presidents of Eritrea Afewerki and Melez zenawi of Ethiopia today
were based in Moqadishu and both used to travell on Somali passports well into the mid 80's.

Sounds good but there is still a problem with the Kenyans holding on to Somali and even Oromo territory.
True about the separatists, so yeah Somalia would probably take the Ogaden, Dire Dawa and Harar and let the rest fight or set up borders for the rest of the rebelgroups wanting to separate from Ethiopia.
 
Interesting. I'd've argued that a German colonization of Somalia would have helped.

Probably, since their state system would work good with Somalis, but how would Germany get interested in Somalia and they would need to annex all of it, not just Italian Somaliland but also the British, Ogaden, Djibouti and possibly even all of Kenya.
 
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