In Geopolitics This Week
Khartoum Drone Strikes Open Sudan-Ethiopia State Confrontation, Gulf States Ground US Hormuz Escort Operation, Japan Signs Defence and Supply Chain Pacts Across Four Partners, and other stories.
Taking a short break next week. No coverage until the newsletter returns later this month.
Khartoum Drone Strikes Open Sudan-Ethiopia State Confrontation
Drone strikes hit Khartoum International Airport on 4 May, forcing a three-day suspension of operations, with additional strikes on military installations in Khartoum North and Omdurman. Sudan recalled its ambassador from Addis Ababa and said it had evidence indicating four drone operations originating from Bahir Dar airport in Ethiopia, using drones Sudan links to UAE supply channels. Ethiopia’s Foreign Ministry rejected the accusations and counter-charged Sudan with financing TPLF factions along its western frontier. The RSF maintains administrative structures in Nyala and other areas under its control, while the SAF controls Khartoum and the Nile valley, a partition that defines the geographic logic of the accusations.
The UAE is assessed to be a key external backer of the RSF, including through financial support and reported involvement in the establishment of a training base in north-west Ethiopia. Egypt has expanded security cooperation around Eritrea’s Assab port and Djibouti’s Doraleh port, both identified by Ethiopia as strategic priorities for Red Sea access. Cairo has also deployed troops to Somalia’s peacekeeping mission on Ethiopia’s south-eastern flank while politically and strategically backing the SAF. Facing encirclement across Eritrea to the north, Somalia to the south-east and the SAF to the west, Ethiopia’s backing of the RSF is its counterpressure instrument through the Sudan civil war. Egyptian and Saudi arms supported the SAF’s recapture of Khartoum; Ethiopian logistics supported the RSF’s consolidation of Darfur. Ethiopia’s TPLF counter-accusation identifies the final link in a symmetrical proxy trap: each state now provides the essential logistical rear-base for the other’s primary internal insurgency.
The United States is exploring early-stage sanctions relief and normalization talks with Eritrea, with Egypt as broker. Eritrea’s coastline sits directly opposite Houthi-controlled territory across the Bab al-Mandeb, carrying Saudi Yanbu-routed crude and UAE Fujairah exports while Hormuz remains closed. The strait is currently functioning but under declared Houthi threat since late March. A simultaneous closure would compound the Hormuz disruption across European-bound trade and Gulf export routes. Washington holds existing defence partnerships with Ethiopia, while Eritrea is actively arming Ethiopian opposition groups, including the TPLF and Fano militias, placing Washington’s two potential partners on directly opposing sides of the same proxy network. Cairo initiated the normalization process from a position it had already built through the Assab upgrade, the Somalia deployment and its SAF alignment, with US access to the Bab al-Mandeb the material incentive on offer.
Gulf States Ground US Hormuz Escort Operation
On 4 May, the United States launched Project Freedom, deploying guided-missile destroyers, more than 100 aircraft and 15,000 personnel to escort approximately 850 merchant vessels through Omani territorial waters south of Iran’s declared Traffic Separation Scheme. Soon after, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait restricted American overflight. A direct call between Washington and Riyadh failed to restore access, forcing the suspension of the operation. Saudi Arabia was not consulted before the operation launched, having previously sought advance consultation, shared defensive obligations and clearer cost-sharing as conditions for continued basing access. The emerging Saudi-Egypt-Turkey-Pakistan alignment has reduced the cost to Riyadh of withholding basing access by providing an alternative security and diplomatic framework.
The Saudi lockout creates a dual failure: it dilutes the density of aircraft sorties over the transit corridor and pushes essential refuelling assets toward Iran’s shoreline. Logistical exposure is concentrated precisely where Iran’s island-based missile network retains operational strike capacity. Sustained Hormuz escort operations are physically dependent on mitigating both. This sharply degrades the operation’s tactical viability, a reality China has reinforced by assigning no responsibility for the closure of the Strait to Tehran after meeting with Iranian officials. Consequently, even if Washington attempted a high-risk unescorted transit, the strait remains commercially closed to Western-flagged carriers as underwriters refuse to price kinetic risk. With Gulf states withholding the military architecture and China blocking the legal one, Washington is left with few scalable levers outside diplomatic outreach or costly military escalation. The US has responded to Beijing’s support for Tehran with a new sanctions package targeting Chinese commercial satellite companies.
On 7 May, three US destroyers attempted a transit of the Strait of Hormuz with reduced access to regional land-based air cover. During the transit, US forces conducted an interception of an Iranian tanker near Jask as it attempted to exit the US-declared naval blockade. This enforcement action triggered a general engagement: Iranian forces launched missiles, drones, and fast-attack craft from the shoreline, while US assets conducted retaliatory strikes against launch sites and command nodes at Qeshm, Bandar Abbas, and Bandar-e-Kargan. Iran’s 14-point framework demands blockade withdrawal, asset release, reparations and a new Hormuz governance mechanism. Mediators are converging on an interim memorandum to freeze hostilities, but substantive positions on blockade withdrawal and Hormuz governance remain incompatible. Any US military escalation now runs through basing access that Riyadh controls and withholds when its interests diverge from Washington’s operational timetable.
Japan Signs Defence and Supply Chain Pacts Across Four Partners
Japan has concluded defence and supply chain agreements with Australia, Vietnam, Indonesia and Turkey, each transfer dependent on the recent removal of restrictions on lethal arms exports. The A$1.67 billion Australia critical minerals framework targets the processing gap Lynas Corporation faces as the world’s largest rare-earth producer outside China. The Vietnam component of the POWERR Initiative routes Hormuz-bypass crude to Nghi Son refinery, while also securing cooperation on Vietnamese rare earth extraction rights. The Indonesia Defence Cooperation Agreement opens Japanese naval systems into a state controlling the Malacca, Sunda, and Lombok straits. Australia refines, Vietnam extracts and Indonesia sits astride the Malacca choke point the finished chain must transit.
Japan is retiring its attack helicopter fleet and replacing it with wide-area UAVs, allocating approximately $70 million for its first five under the Defence Buildup Program. Washington informed Tokyo’s order for 400 Tomahawk missiles by March 2028 from the US will be disrupted, exposing Japan’s broader dependency on a single weapons supplier under active strain. The US MQ-9B remains subject to US export approval processes and carries acquisition costs difficult to scale to the volume Japan’s evolving UAV doctrine requires. Baykar’s TB3 is among the most mature armed UAV designed for that configuration, the specific setup Japan is building toward on its Izumo and Hyuga-class ships. The Turkey letter of intent signed at SAHA 2026 targets that UAV gap directly, pairing Baykar’s existing multi-programme production capacity with Japan’s precision manufacturing and electronics, each acquiring from the partnership what its existing alliances cannot provide.
The pace of execution across all four partners strongly suggests these agreements were substantially negotiated before the legislative change. The four agreements address two production dependencies: rare earth processing concentrated in Chinese facilities, running through the Indo-Pacific transit corridor from Australia through Southeast Asia, and Japan’s weapons dependency concentrated in US production. The TB3 addresses the armed UAV requirement for Japan’s carrier conversion programme. The Australian and Vietnamese agreements target the Chinese processing choke point directly. China currently controls the processing stage between Australian ore and finished Japanese industrial inputs, and Tokyo is committing capital to infrastructure that does not yet exist while signing extraction rights it cannot yet use.
Monday, May 4th
Japan’s Regional Tour Yields Energy, Minerals, and Defence Agreements — CNA
Pakistan Commissions First Hangor-Class Submarine — Asia Times
Hamas and Israel Submit Incompatible Disarmament Demands — MEE
US Mineral Claims in DRC Remain Unexecuted — Responsible Statecraft
Turkmenistan Funds Phase Four Galkynysh Expansion — Eurasianet
US Launches Hormuz Escort Operation — TWZ
Tuesday, May 5th
Singapore and New Zealand Lock In First Binding Supply Pact — The Diplomat
Egypt Brokers US-Eritrea Talks as Bab al-Mandeb Exposure Grows — Responsible Statecraft
Lebanon’s Displacement Converges Into Ungoverned Security Space — War on the Rocks
Khartoum Airport Strikes Open Sudan-Ethiopia Confrontation — Al Jazeera
Beijing Activates Blocking Rules Against US Refinery Sanctions — Indian Punchline
G7 Middle Powers Build Parallel Critical Minerals Architecture — ORF
Wednesday, May 6th
India and Vietnam Sign Defence and Minerals Deals — Nikkei
Gulf Capital Flows Into Maghreb Along Structural Fault Lines — ME Council
Laos Mekong Position Constrained by Infrastructure Geometry — ISEAS
Italy-Azerbaijan TAP Expansion Targets European Gas Architecture — Bloomberg
US Utilizing Morocco as Primary African Security Hub — Eurasia Review
US Backs Haftar-Dbeibeh Power-Sharing in Libya — MEE
Thursday, May 7th
US Sanctions Reach Into Cuba’s Economy — Al Jazeera
Hormuz Crisis Exposes Asia’s Arctic Energy Divide — Asia Times
Norway Sustains Russia Fisheries Pact Despite EU Security Pressure — FT
Four-State Bloc Forms to Fill Gulf Security Vacuum — IISS
Gulf Basing Rights Collapse Halts US Hormuz Operation — MEE
Thailand Voids Gulf of Thailand Energy Zone Framework — The Diplomat
Friday, May 8th
India and Turkey Resume Bilateral Consultations — MEE
Central Asian States Reduce Russian Economic Dependencies — FPRI
Turkey and Japan Launch Defence Industry Partnership — Al-Monitor
US and Iran Exchange Fire in Strait of Hormuz — TWZ
China Prioritizes Economic Resilience Over Mediation in Iran War — IISS
Brazil and US Reset Bilateral Relations on Rare Earth Supply Chain — Merco Press
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