Was sidelining Saudi Arabia’s traditional clerical soft power a strategic mistake?

 

Was sidelining Saudi Arabia’s traditional clerical soft power a strategic mistake?

Israel’s recognition of Somaliland on 26 December 2025, and Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar’s visit to Hargeisa on 6 January 2026, forced an awkward question back onto the table: did Saudi Arabia, by putting much of its state energy into Vision 2030 while shrinking older religious patronage networks, unintentionally weaken its strategic depth in the Red Sea–Horn theatre?

The African Union’s Peace and Security Council demanded that Israel revoke its recognition and reaffirmed Somalia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. Somalia condemned the visit as an illegal breach of its sovereignty. Reuters’ own explainer on why Somaliland matters made the underlying logic plain: Berbera’s location near major shipping lanes, the Bab el-Mandeb chokepoint, and the wider Red Sea insecurity have elevated Somaliland from a long-running diplomatic oddity into a premium strategic asset.

At roughly the same moment, Yemen’s south—another shoreline of the same maritime system—entered a new phase of crisis. Reuters reported Saudi-led coalition claims that Aidarous al-Zubaidi, the leader of the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC), fled Yemen with Emirati assistance, travelling by boat to Somaliland and then by plane (via Mogadishu) to Abu Dhabi—deepening an already serious rift between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi. The Financial Times described Saudi accusations, the STC’s push in strategic southern provinces, and Riyadh’s view of these moves as a threat to Saudi national security.

Those two storylines—Somaliland’s recognition drama and southern Yemen’s secessionist escalation—are not separate. They are part of the same Red Sea contest over ports, proxies, diplomatic recognition, and shipping security. And they illuminate the central question: did Saudi Arabia’s recalibration of religion at home and abroad (as part of Vision 2030) come with a strategic opportunity cost?

1) Vision 2030 changed the Kingdom’s instrument mix—by design

Vision 2030 is commonly treated as an economic plan, but its geopolitical implications are rooted in state identity. A Baker Institute research paper argues that Vision 2030 begins with Islam but quickly moves towards a project of strengthening Saudi nationalism while decentring the role of Islam in certain state narratives and identity initiatives. In parallel, European Council on Foreign Relations analysis has described a Saudi shift towards “Saudi First” hyper-nationalism and a reduction in the influence of the traditional religious establishment.

This shift is not cosmetic. Vision 2030’s legitimacy depends on investor confidence, tourism, global events, and a reputation for predictable governance. That creates a powerful incentive to reduce external volatility. In other words, Vision 2030 is a domestic programme that pushes foreign policy towards risk management: fewer open-ended confrontations, more diplomacy, and a premium on stability.

Nothing about this is irrational. The problem is that rivals and competitors can exploit the tempo gap created when a state prioritises stability. In the Horn and the Red Sea, facts are often made through speed: a recognition announcement, a port agreement, a security cooperation memorandum, a proxy mobilisation.

2) The “clerical retrenchment” question is really about soft power, not theology

For decades, Saudi Arabia’s influence was amplified through a diffuse ecosystem of scholars, institutes, scholarships, mosque-linked networks, publications, and relationships that created a low-cost, high-reach form of geopolitical presence. This was not simply religion exporting religion; it was narrative reach and social access.

In the Vision 2030 era, Saudi Arabia has deliberately reduced parts of that external religious footprint. Reuters reported Saudi Arabia giving up control arrangements related to Belgium’s Grand Mosque as a signal of changing posture and reputational recalibration. More analytically, Carnegie Endowment research argues that Saudi Arabia has been replacing Salafism in aspects of its soft-power outreach and scaling back certain kinds of foreign religious financing—reducing its capacity to shape Islamic discourse internationally, including in Africa.

So the core issue is not nostalgia for an older religious order. It is this strategic trade-off:

• Old model: deeper social penetration, greater narrative leverage, but higher reputational and political risk (and less control over how networks evolve).
• New model: global reputational relief and a modernising brand, but thinner influence in precisely the places where ports-and-proxies geopolitics is accelerating.

3) Somaliland–Israel: recognition as a lever, not a headline

Israel’s recognition of Somaliland was framed by Somaliland’s leaders as a breakthrough after decades without international recognition. Reuters’ explainer emphasised why outside powers care: Berbera’s strategic location, maritime insecurity linked to Yemen’s war, and the UAE’s already significant influence through DP World’s footprint.

The AU’s communique is important because it shows the continental red line: inviolable borders inherited at independence and the protection of Somalia’s territorial integrity. But the strategic significance for Riyadh is not only legal principle; it is geometry. Somaliland sits on a maritime hinge. Recognition can unlock cooperation—commercial, security, intelligence—even without permanent bases. In a world where shipping confidence is fragile, even modest security partnerships in the Horn can alter regional assumptions.

That is why the Somaliland–Israel development is also a test of Saudi soft power. It asks whether the Kingdom still has the social and narrative reach to shape how such a move is received across Muslim publics and elites in a sensitive theatre.

4) The uncomfortable counterfactuals: would a stronger Saudi clerical footprint have deterred this?

This is where the article’s central question sharpens into testable thought experiments.

Counterfactual A: Had Saudi Arabia maintained a robust external clerical ecosystem—across Salafi currents in their many local forms—would Israel have pursued Somaliland recognition as openly?
A plausible argument says yes: dense Saudi-linked religious influence might have raised the reputational and domestic political cost of formal normalisation with Israel in a Muslim society, complicating the move.

Counterfactual B: Or would that same ecosystem have created a different vulnerability—Saudi-funded actors endorsing an alignment that Saudi Arabia dislikes?
Here, the logic turns. Soft power is influence, not ownership. Local movements can become autonomous, prioritising local nationalist projects over external patrons.

This counterfactual is not abstract. In the Somaliland debate, there have been circulating claims (especially on social media) that certain clerics or religious voices—sometimes described as linked to currents such as Al-Iʿtisam—have taken unexpectedly permissive stances towards Somaliland’s diplomatic choices. That claim is contested and difficult to verify comprehensively from open sources; it should be treated as an indicator of debate rather than a settled fact. Still, the very possibility illustrates the trap: even if Saudi support continued, it could not guarantee alignment.

So the most unsettling question becomes:

If Saudi patronage had continued, would some beneficiaries have supported Somaliland’s new external alignment anyway—thereby colliding head-on with Saudi preferences in the Red Sea corridor?

If the answer is “yes”, then the old model could have backfired: Riyadh would be funding actors that legitimise outcomes Riyadh considers strategically harmful. If the answer is “no”, then the retrenchment may indeed look like a mistake: Riyadh would have unnecessarily vacated a field where moral authority still has political weight.

5) Southern Yemen: the proxy theatre that exposes Gulf divergence

To understand whether clerical retrenchment was a “strategic mistake”, it helps to look at Yemen—because Yemen shows what happens when one actor plays a fast proxy game while another is constrained by a stability agenda.

The STC is widely described as UAE-backed. In early January 2026, Reuters and other outlets reported a crisis in which al-Zubaidi missed scheduled talks in Riyadh, amid military escalation and fractures within the coalition nominally aligned against the Houthis. Al Jazeera reported Saudi-led air strikes and Saudi-backed forces moving on Aden, the STC stronghold. The Financial Times described Saudi accusations against the UAE, the STC’s moves in strategic provinces bordering Saudi Arabia, and Riyadh’s fears about threats to national security.

Two details matter profoundly for the Somaliland question:

1. The Yemen crisis directly links to Somaliland logistically. Reuters reported the Saudi-led coalition’s claim that al-Zubaidi travelled via Somaliland and Mogadishu to Abu Dhabi. This underlines the Horn’s role as a permissive transit and influence space within wider Gulf rivalries.
2. The UAE’s approach demonstrates the power of fast networks. Whether through allied forces, logistics channels, or port-adjacent relationships, the ability to move assets and people quickly shapes outcomes. In such an environment, Saudi Arabia’s slower, stability-focused posture can be outpaced.

Southern Yemen therefore becomes a warning: if Saudi Arabia’s risk-managed approach is paired with a shrinking soft-power footprint, competitors can build facts in adjoining theatres—Somaliland included—before Saudi diplomacy can reset the board.

6) So, was neglecting traditional clerics a strategic mistake?

The honest answer is: it was a strategic gamble with real costs—and it is only a “mistake” if it remains unfinished.

Why it was not obviously a mistake:

• The old model carried real reputational risk and political blowback, especially in Europe and in counter-extremism discourse. The Brussels Grand Mosque episode illustrates how foreign governments increasingly treated Saudi-linked religious influence as a security issue.
• Vision 2030 requires a modern, investable brand. A foreign policy built on polarising religious export is structurally incompatible with the Kingdom’s investment narrative.
• Networks built on ideology can become autonomous. Continuing funding does not equal control, and control is often what policymakers silently assume.

Why it may have been a mistake in the Red Sea–Horn context:

• The Horn is a theatre where legitimacy, narrative and identity are still politically decisive. Reducing religious soft power reduces Saudi leverage where other states are competing through recognition, ports, and security partnerships.
• The Yemen crisis demonstrates that rivals and partners can act at speed through networks—while Riyadh is constrained by its transformation agenda.
• Somaliland’s recognition drama shows how quickly a new status quo can be seeded, even against AU objections.

In short: Saudi Arabia’s clerical retrenchment reduced a form of strategic depth at a moment when strategic depth matters. That does not mean the old model should return. It means the replacement model must be built quickly and intelligently.

7) A practical solution: Soft Power 2.0, not a return to the old cheque-book clerics

If the Kingdom wants to avoid the conclusion that it made a strategic mistake, the fix is not reversal—it is completion: replace the old clerical outreach system with a redesigned statecraft system that preserves influence without recreating liabilities.

Pillar 1: Redeploy scholars into accountable, state-linked roles
Rather than funding sprawling informal networks, build a cadre of accredited scholars and educators deployed through embassies, cultural missions, and vetted partner institutions. The purpose is public ethics, social cohesion, education quality, family counselling, and counter-extremism—explicitly non-partisan and non-incendiary.

Pillar 2: Conditional support with explicit Red Sea red lines
Funding should be audited, transparent, and contract-based, with clear clauses that prohibit institutions from legitimising strategic arrangements that directly undermine Saudi Red Sea security interests. This does not guarantee loyalty, but it removes the “funded allies legitimising unwanted outcomes” trap.

Pillar 3: Shift from “mosque finance” to “capability finance”
Invest in teacher training, imam professional standards, youth safeguarding, vocational pathways, and community mediation—services that build legitimacy and goodwill without importing foreign political agendas. This answers the reputational problem that made the old model costly in the first place.

Pillar 4: Build rapid-response narrative capability for Africa and the diaspora
In crises like Somaliland recognition, the first wave of interpretation matters. A multilingual digital platform (including Somali) backed by credible scholarship and disciplined messaging can prevent rivals from monopolising narratives during the initial 72 hours.

Pillar 5: Pair soft power with a Red Sea economic-security compact
Saudi Arabia’s comparative advantage is patient capital and convening authority. A compact focused on logistics, water, fisheries, education, and anti-smuggling cooperation in the Greater Horn—framed around stabilising trade routes—would give Riyadh a non-military anchor that matches Vision 2030’s outward logic while countering the UAE’s fast “ports-first” influence.

Conclusion: the question remains open—but the theatre is moving fast

The Somaliland–Israel move and the AU backlash show how quickly geopolitical thresholds are shifting in the Horn. The southern Yemen crisis shows how Gulf divergence can spill across the same maritime system—sometimes literally via Somaliland.

So, was sidelining traditional clerics a strategic mistake?
It was a calculated choice that reduced reputational risk and aligned with domestic transformation. But in the Red Sea–Horn arena, it has likely reduced Saudi strategic depth at the very moment rivals are weaponising speed, recognition, and networks. The final verdict depends on whether Saudi Arabia builds Soft Power 2.0 fast enough—turning clerical capital into disciplined, accountable diplomacy rather than abandoning it entirely.