Djibouti is a country of fewer than a million people with no significant natural resources.It also hosts the densest cluster of foreign military bases in the world, with bases from the United States, China, France, Japan and Italy operating within miles of each other along its coastline.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of listThese countries, seeking bases for both commercial and security purposes, have been warmly welcomed by President Ismail Omar Guelleh, who has ruled for at least two decades and leveraged the country’s strategic location to advance his own aims.As Djiboutians go to the polls on Friday with Guelleh safely expected to win his sixth term, it is a strategy that has never looked more consequential.The reason is the maritime chokepoint just beyond Djibouti’s shore.Bab-el-Mandeb — the Gate of Tears — is a narrow corridor barely 30 kilometres wide at its tightest point, through which roughly 12 percent of global maritime trade passes every day, while at least 90 percent of Europe-Asia internet capacity runs through cables laid along the same route.“This region sits at the centre of many things from global trade, shipping, to fibre optic connectivity, energy, and is related to the Suez Canal, the Indo-Pacific,” Federico Donelli, author of the book, Power Competition in the Red Sea, told Al Jazeera.With the US and Israel at war with Iran since February 28, and the Strait of Hormuz …
