Managing Red Sea Power Rivalry: Preventive Mediation at Bab al-Mandab

The Bab al-Mandab Strait is fast becoming the world’s most consequential test case for managing great-power rivalry on a narrow, fragile stage. As consensus-based multilateralism stalls and selective enforcement of international law undercuts confidence in global rules, the Red Sea corridor has turned into a live experiment in how to handle competition in an increasingly multipolar world—without breaking the arteries of trade that connect Europe, Asia and Africa.

This is not an abstract debate. An estimated 10–15 percent of global trade and a substantial share of energy shipments transit the Bab al-Mandab, a chokepoint where a mishap, miscalculation or escalation could ripple outward into higher shipping costs, supply-chain disruptions and new security crises. The question is not whether competition can be avoided—it cannot—but whether it can be made predictable, bounded and transparent enough to prevent crisis.

That requires a reset in how states approach the Red Sea. Multilateral institutions remain normatively relevant, but their effectiveness is increasingly constrained by geopolitical polarization and veto-powered paralysis. Maritime security norms exist, yet their application depends more on political will than on enforceable mechanisms. In that vacuum, governments have turned to pragmatic, interest-first strategies: financing ports and logistics, signing security pacts, and positioning forces to protect trade and project influence. The tools are rational; the uncoordinated way they are used is the risk.

Bab al-Mandab is more than a maritime pinch point; it is a systems node. It links the Suez-Red Sea route to the Indian Ocean and underwrites the movement of energy, manufactured goods and food. That strategic centrality has drawn heavy, overlapping engagement in port development, maritime domain awareness, logistics corridors and naval deployments. None of this is inherently destabilizing. But absent guardrails, parallel initiatives create ambiguity: a pier looks like a potential pier-plus; an information-sharing pact resembles a coalition; a patrol appears as a probe. Security dilemmas thrive in such gray zones.

Layered onto this geography is a map of loose, cross-cutting alignments. In practice, two broad constellations often operate in parallel—one centered around the United States, Israel, India, the United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia and Kenya, and another involving China, Pakistan, Turkey, Qatar, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Egypt, Sudan, Eritrea, Djibouti and Somalia. These are not rigid blocs or permanent camps; most regional states hedge, maintain ties across lines and make decisions case by case. Still, the sheer number of actors and initiatives—within a narrow waterway and amid volatile politics—raises the odds of misperception and strategic missteps.

Current mitigation tends to be reactive. Ad hoc naval tasking can deter immediate threats, and bilateral deconfliction can defuse specific incidents, but those instruments tackle symptoms, not sources. They do not align expectations, clarify intentions or create standing pathways for dispute prevention. In a corridor as compressed and consequential as Bab al-Mandab, that is a structural shortfall.

A preventive-mediation approach offers a practical complement. The aim is not to end competition but to channel it—by institutionalizing early dialogue, transparency and confidence-building measures that reduce room for error before positions harden. Such an approach accepts that states will pursue access, protection of sea lanes and commercial advantage. It asks them to do so with predictable rules of the road, shared situational awareness and agreed-on crisis off-ramps.

What would that look like in the Red Sea? A region-led Bab al-Mandab Dialogue Platform or Council could provide the scaffolding. It would sit alongside, not replace, existing security arrangements and bilateral ties. Crucially, it would be owned by Red Sea littoral and Horn of Africa states—those with the most at stake—while remaining open to external actors with clear economic and security interests.

To be credible and useful, such a platform should start narrowly, deliver concrete public goods and build outward. Initial priorities could include:

• Transparency registry: voluntary notification of major port, logistics and maritime-security projects, including basic specifications and stated purposes, to reduce dual-use suspicions.
• Maritime incident prevention: shared protocols and a 24/7 hotline among naval and coast guard commands for rapid communication, incident avoidance and de-escalation.
• Port-call and exercise notifications: advance, standardized notices of large naval exercises or unusual deployments in the Bab al-Mandab approaches.
• Information-sharing on non-state threats: joint assessments of piracy, terrorism and illicit trafficking to ensure competition does not hobble cooperation against common dangers.
• Confidence-building at sea: agreed distances, signaling procedures and encounter rules for military and paramilitary vessels operating in congested lanes.

Form should follow function. A small, professional secretariat—potentially rotating among littoral capitals—could manage the registry, convene working groups and publish quarterly transparency bulletins. Participation would be tiered: core members (Red Sea and Horn states) and observers (external partners and institutions) to preserve regional primacy while widening buy-in. Meetings would be regular, agendas public and outcomes documented to hardwire accountability.

Regional organizations with mediation experience can anchor the process, but leadership has to come from the shores of the Red Sea. The states of the Horn of Africa and the Arabian littoral are not passive arenas for external rivalry. They have agency—and a growing cadre of diplomats and technocrats skilled enough to steward it. Exercising that agency preemptively is less costly than scrambling during a crisis.

There is, however, a prerequisite too often overlooked: domestic political cohesion. Many Horn states are navigating transitions, institutional fragility and unresolved conflicts. External alignments can magnify internal divides, empower rival factions and internationalize local grievances. Rather than bolstering national security, premature or lopsided partnerships risk entrenching polarization and inviting escalation. Inclusive dialogue, strengthened institutions and conflict resolution at home are thus conditions for credible, constructive engagement abroad.

None of this negates the value of hard security. Freedom of navigation still requires capacity at sea, from patrol craft to maritime domain awareness. But capability without clarity invites friction. A preventive-mediation platform would not dilute deterrence; it would make it legible—by signaling intentions, codifying practices and offering diplomatic exits before brinkmanship becomes the only option.

The alternative is drift: more unilateral moves, denser military footprints and a steady expansion of gray-zone activity—each step explainable in isolation, collectively unstable in a waterway too narrow for prolonged ambiguity. In a world where global governance often struggles to keep pace with rivalry, the Red Sea can model a pragmatic, region-first way to manage it.

Bab al-Mandab is a small geographic space with outsized systemic consequences. Preserving it as a corridor of connectivity and cooperation requires more than ships and sensors. It requires rules, routines and relationships built before—not after—the next crisis. A modest, inclusive dialogue mechanism, grounded in preventive mediation and led by the region, is a realistic place to start.

Competition will persist. The task is to make it safer—predictable, bounded and transparent—so that the world’s trade can flow and the region’s states can exercise their agency without sleepwalking into confrontation. For the Bab al-Mandab, and for the international system it sustains, that is not a luxury. It is a necessity.

By Ali Musa
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.

By Mohamed Ahmed Adan, PhDSunday February 22, 2026

Conflict Mediation Expert and Horn of Africa Researcher