September 01, 2026

Indo-Pacific Stability Depends on Eastern Africa’s Prosperity

By: Derek Grossman

This article was originally published in Nikkei Asia.

Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi's recent six-day visit to the Middle East centered on talks with Saudi Arabia and Oman. Freedom of navigation topped the agenda in both Riyadh and Muscat. The Japanese government, dependent on crude oil flowing freely from the Persian Gulf, understands that national security rests in large part on the Strait of Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb. The U.S., Japan's closest ally, has helped to gum up the former, while the latter, which separates the Arabian Peninsula and the Horn of Africa, is increasingly threatened by pro-Iran Houthi rebels.

The Strait of Malacca, Taiwan, and the South China Sea dominate the Asian debate. However, chokepoints further from home could prove similarly devastating.

Japan's vision of a Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP) explicitly links the Indian and Pacific oceans. FOIP's founding father, the late Shinzo Abe, saw that East Asian prosperity depended on the free flow of goods, particularly energy, into and across the Indian Ocean. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has thrown global supply chains into chaos, but this thoroughfare is just one of a number of regional choke points.

Read the full article in Nikkei Asia.

More from CNAS

View All Reports View All Articles & Multimedia