Somaliland offers US minerals and basing access

Somaliland, the self-declared republic that broke away from Somalia in 1991 but remains unrecognised internationally, is openly advertising what it can sell to a superpower: minerals and military access. A Somaliland minister said the United States may be granted access to the territory’s mineral resources and military bases, according to reporting by Al Jazeera, citing an AFP interview; Bangladesh’s Dhaka Tribune carried the same account.

The offer is not subtle. Somaliland’s value proposition is geography—ports and airfields near the Bab al‑Mandab chokepoint linking the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden—and whatever extractive potential can be monetised quickly enough to buy diplomatic and security insurance. For Washington, the attraction is equally straightforward: a foothold on one of the world’s most sensitive maritime corridors, plus optionality in a region where US basing has become politically expensive and increasingly contested.

This is the transactional logic of de facto states in a world that treats recognition as a cartel good. Because Somaliland lacks formal access to multilateral finance and the diplomatic protections that recognised states take for granted, it must pay a premium for security guarantees. That premium is typically denominated in hard assets: basing rights, port concessions, intelligence cooperation, and resource access.

From an incentives perspective, Somaliland’s leadership is playing a repeated game with asymmetric power. It cannot credibly threaten a great power, but it can offer exclusivity and speed—two things that bureaucratic recognition processes rarely provide. The implicit bargain is: deliver a logistical node and resource pipeline now, and receive a form of political capital later, whether that means de facto security protection, upgraded diplomatic ties, or eventual recognition.

The risk is that the “later” part is unenforceable. Great powers can enjoy the use of bases without paying the full price of recognition, especially if they can frame the arrangement as temporary, technical, or purely defensive. The local side, meanwhile, has already spent its most valuable chips: sovereignty-like privileges over territory and resources.

There is also a domestic political cost. A government that sells basing access may gain short‑term deterrence against regional threats, but it can lose legitimacy at home if the population concludes the state is becoming a client—trading future autonomy for present protection. In fragile polities, that legitimacy is not an abstraction; it is the difference between a state that governs and a state that merely rents out infrastructure.

Western capitals often wrap such deals in moral language—stability, counterterrorism, humanitarian access. The underlying mechanism is more prosaic: a cash‑and‑concessions market where recognition is scarce, security is priced, and geography is collateral. Somaliland is simply stating the quiet part out loud.