Kenya

On the east coast of Kenya, near the Somali border, lies Camp Simba at Manda Bay. It has been a US military facility for decades, a critical hub for counterterrorism operations against Al-Shabaab in Somalia. In 2024, the US announced a $70 million upgrade to the airfield, deepening the strategic partnership.

In the same year, Kenya became the first sub-Saharan African nation designated as a Major Non-NATO Ally (MNNA). The status grants access to US defense equipment, training, and financing. It also signals a deepening military alignment with Washington.

The base is a source of tension. It provides security against Al-Shabaab, but it also ties Kenya to US strategic interests. In any conflict involving Iran, the base could become a target or a point of leverage. Kenya must balance its security needs with its foreign policy independence.

Joseph, the *matatu* driver, had heard rumors about the base. He knew it was there, somewhere on the coast, full of American soldiers and drones. He did not think about it much. It seemed far away, irrelevant to his life.

He would soon learn otherwise.

On February 28, 2026, "Operation Epic Fury" began. US and Israeli forces struck Iranian nuclear facilities. Iran retaliated by mining the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world's oil passes. Tankers burned. Shipping stopped. The price of oil jumped over 25 percent, to more than $90 a barrel.

For Kenya, the effect was immediate and devastating. The country imports virtually all its refined petroleum from the Gulf. The Government-to-Government oil deal with Saudi Aramco, ADNOC, and ENOC, designed to provide stability, now faced its most severe test. QatarEnergy declared *force majeure* on LNG supplies. If the Strait remained closed, Kenya would face fuel shortages within weeks.

The disruption cascaded through the economy. The Kenya Shilling weakened. Transport costs rose. Food prices soared. Inflation, already high, accelerated. The poor, who spend most of their income on food and transport, were hit hardest.

Joseph first heard the news on his radio, between songs. He did not understand geopolitics. He did not know where the Strait of Hormuz was. But he understood that fuel prices were going up, that his costs were rising, that his passengers would have less money to pay.

He did not yet know that queues would soon form, that the pumps would run dry, that his *matatu* would sit idle.

The crisis was not limited to oil. Iran is a top-ten buyer of Kenyan tea. With trade disrupted, Kenya began losing an estimated Sh300 million per week. Tea farmers, already struggling with low prices, watched their income disappear.

The tea industry is a lifeline for millions of Kenyans. It employs hundreds of thousands of workers, supports millions of dependents, and generates significant export revenue. The loss of the Iranian market was a body blow.

Exporters scrambled to find alternative buyers, but markets cannot be switched overnight. The tea piled up in warehouses. Farmers went unpaid. The economy hemorrhaged.

In Kericho, where the rolling hills are carpeted with tea bushes, workers watched the news with growing despair. The factories were still running, but for how long? The buyers had disappeared. The future was uncertain.

Wambui's neighbor was a tea worker. She had worked on the plantations for forty years, her hands stained green from the leaves. Now she faced the prospect of unemployment, of hunger, of watching her grandchildren go without.

She did not understand why a war on the other side of the world should destroy her livelihood. No one explained it to her.

Joseph finally reached the pump at noon.

He had been waiting for eight hours. The sun had risen, climbed, and now hung high above the petrol station roof. Around him, drivers argued with attendants, shouted into phones, leaned against their vehicles in exhausted silence. Some had already given up and left.

When his turn came, the attendant filled only half the tank.

"Next truck is tomorrow," the man said. "Maybe."

Joseph nodded. Half a tank meant one day of work. Maybe two if he drove carefully.

He pulled the *matatu* back onto the road and joined the slow traffic heading toward Nairobi. As he drove, he thought about the strange chain of events that had brought him to the queue.

A war in the Gulf.

A strait thousands of kilometers away.

Tankers burning in waters he had never seen.

And here he was, unable to work because ships could not pass through a narrow channel between two distant shores.

He did not understand geopolitics. He did not know about the US base at Manda Bay, or the Government-to-Government oil deal, or the IMF loans, or the Chinese railway. He knew only that he could not work, that his children were hungry, that the world had gone wrong for reasons he could not fathom.

His question, unspoken but real, was the same question the girl in Minab had asked, the same question the Caracas woman held in her photograph:

Why?

1. The Strategy of Balance

Kenya's foreign policy has long been described as "East African balancing"—a deliberate effort to maintain working relationships with multiple major powers without becoming a client state of any single one. By 2026, the military dimension of this strategy had become more visible than ever.

The portfolio of partnerships was impressive on paper:

• United States: A Major Non-NATO Ally since 2024, hosting Camp Simba at Manda Bay, with a $70 million base expansion underway and deep counterterrorism cooperation.
• China: The largest bilateral creditor for a decade, now in decline but still deeply embedded in infrastructure and political networks.
• European powers: France, the Czech Republic, and the United Kingdom—all with active Defence Cooperation Agreements signed between 2024 and 2026.
• Regional neighbors: Ethiopia, with renewed defence ties in September 2025.
• India: Deepening military training and industry cooperation.

On paper, this was a masterclass in diplomatic hedging. Kenya had friends everywhere and masters nowhere. No single power could dictate terms.

But paper is not reality.

2. The Problem of Over-Balancing

The risk was not that Kenya would be invaded. The risk was that Kenya would become the arena where other powers' conflicts were fought—by proxy, by pressure, or by the simple fact of having multiple foreign militaries and intelligence services operating on its soil.

Consider the scenario that unfolded in early 2026:

• The United States was at war with Iran.
• Kenya hosted a US military base at Manda Bay.
• Iran was a top-ten buyer of Kenyan tea.
• Kenya imported virtually all its fuel from the Persian Gulf.

Kenya was not the aggressor. Kenya was the fulcrum—the point where opposing forces meet. And fulcrums, when the forces grow too great, fracture.

3. The Specter of Proxy Conflict

Proxy wars do not require that foreign troops fight each other directly on Kenyan soil. They require only that local actors, aligned with foreign powers, fight each other—and that the foreign powers supply weapons, money, and political cover.

Kenya was already deeply divided. Ethnicity, land, economic inequality, and political competition had fueled violence before: 1992, 1997, 2007-08. Those wounds had not fully healed.

Now imagine those divisions mapped onto international alliances:

• Pro-US factions: The security establishment, parts of the political elite, communities near Camp Simba.
• Pro-China factions: Business elites with Chinese contracts, workers employed by Chinese firms.
• Pro-Gulf factions: Muslim communities on the coast, traders dependent on Gulf oil.
• Regional factions: Ethiopia-aligned groups in the north, Uganda-aligned groups in the west.

These divisions already exist. They are not primarily about foreign policy—they are about land, jobs, power, survival. But in a crisis, foreign policy can become the banner under which old grievances are fought.

4. The Weakest Link: Domestic Fragmentation

The greatest vulnerability was not foreign pressure but domestic fragmentation. Kenya's political system was intensely competitive, and competition often turned violent. The 2022 election had been relatively peaceful, but the margin was narrow and the loser had contested the result. The next election could be different.

If a future election was disputed, and if the competing candidates were perceived to have different foreign patrons, the risk of escalation multiplied. A contested result could lead to protests, protests to clashes, clashes to militia mobilization. Foreign powers would not need to send troops. They would only need to send money and weapons to their preferred side.

A Kenyan political scientist, speaking anonymously in early 2026, put it bluntly:

"We have created a system where every faction has a foreign backer. The security elite has Washington. The infrastructure contractors have Beijing. The coast has the Gulf. The north has Ethiopia. If those foreign powers ever decide that Kenya is where they want to fight their battles, we will not be able to stop them. We will have already invited them in."

5. The Machinery of Influence

The foreign presence was not limited to formal bases and cooperation agreements. It operated through dozens of channels:

• Intelligence sharing: Kenyan security agencies received training, equipment, and funding from multiple foreign partners.
• Military training: Kenyan officers trained in the United States, Britain, China, India, and elsewhere.
• Private military contractors: US and British firms operated in Kenya, providing security for multinational corporations.
• Cyber capabilities: Foreign intelligence agencies had penetrated Kenyan networks.
• Economic leverage: Chinese loans, US aid, Gulf investment—all came with strings attached.

The machinery of influence was vast, invisible, and relentless. Kenya was not a colony—not formally. But it was saturated with foreign power.

6. The View from the Ground

Wambui did not know about Defence Cooperation Agreements or Major Non-NATO Ally status. She did not know about China's loan exposure or France's intelligence-sharing protocols. She knew only that her grandson could not find fuel, that food prices were rising, that politicians seemed more interested in fighting each other than in helping her.

If the crisis deepened, if the factions mobilized, if the violence returned, she would not ask whether it started with US-Iran tensions or Chinese loan terms. She would ask only why her country was burning.

Joseph had begun to hear rumors. In the *matatu* stages, in the markets, in the churches, people were talking. Some said the Americans were to blame. Some said the Chinese. Some said the government. Some said all of them together. The rumors were confused, contradictory, impossible to verify. But they were spreading. And where rumors spread, violence could follow.

Joseph did not want violence. He wanted to work, to feed his children, to live. But he was tired, hungry, desperate. Desperate people are easily recruited. Desperate people are easily armed. Desperate people, given a target and a weapon, will use it.

1. The Lesson of the Queue

The lesson was simple and brutal:

Kenya depended on systems it did not control.

Oil came from the Gulf. Fertilizer came from abroad. Loans came from Washington, Beijing, and the bond markets of London. Tea prices were set in auctions far from the farms where the leaves were picked.

The machine that had begun with the railway and the land grants had not disappeared. It had only changed form.

The question was whether it could be changed again.

2. The Energy Beneath the Ground

Kenya sits on a fault line.

Beneath the Rift Valley, the Earth's crust is thin. Magma rises closer to the surface than in most parts of the world. Water seeps downward, heats, and returns as steam powerful enough to drive turbines.

This is geothermal energy—heat from the planet itself.

At the heart of this system lies the Olkaria Geothermal Field, where plumes of steam rise from the earth and pipelines snake across the volcanic landscape. The power plants there already produce nearly half of Kenya's electricity.

Unlike oil, geothermal energy does not arrive on tankers. It cannot be blockaded in distant straits. It does not depend on the politics of the Gulf or the price of a barrel on global markets.

It comes from the ground beneath Kenyan feet.

The potential is enormous. Engineers estimate that the Rift Valley could produce several times the electricity Kenya currently consumes. Wind farms in the north and solar fields across the savanna could add even more.

3. The Green Hydrogen Possibility

Beyond geothermal lies something even more transformative: green hydrogen.

Kenya's renewable energy potential—geothermal, wind, solar—is vast enough to produce electricity far beyond domestic needs. That surplus can be used to split water into hydrogen and oxygen, creating a fuel that burns cleanly and can power vehicles, industry, and even ships.

A green hydrogen plant near Mombasa could:

• Produce zero-carbon fuel for domestic transport.
• Generate hydrogen for industrial use.
• Create green ammonia for fertilizer, breaking Kenya's dependence on imported nitrogen.
• Supply export markets, generating revenue that stays in the country.
• Power a major data center economy, attracting global investment.

The technology exists. The resources exist. The barrier is not technical but political: the will to invest, to build, to break from the patterns of the past.

4. Breaking the Export Trap

For more than a century, Kenya's economy has been structured around exports—tea, coffee, flowers. Raw products leave the country. Processing, branding, and most of the profit happen elsewhere.

Companies like Unilever and Finlays built vast fortunes from plantation agriculture first established during the colonial era. They still operate, still profit, still send wealth outward.

Breaking this pattern requires moving up the value chain: processing, manufacturing, and branding at home rather than abroad. It means building factories, training workers, and competing in markets that have been dominated by others for generations.

5. The Strength of Numbers

Kenya alone is a medium-sized country. Together with its neighbors, it is something far larger.

The East African Community—linking Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, South Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo—represents hundreds of millions of people and one of the fastest-growing regions in the world.

A unified regional market changes everything. It means manufacturers can sell not just to Kenya's population but to a much larger economic space. It means infrastructure projects serve regional trade rather than isolated national economies. It means foreign powers negotiating with East Africa face a bloc rather than a collection of small states.

6. The Resilience of Place

Beyond the grand strategies of energy and trade lies something simpler: local resilience.

During the fuel crisis, some communities coped better than others. Villages with small solar installations kept lights on when the grid faltered. Farmers who saved seeds from previous harvests planted despite fertilizer shortages. Neighborhoods with strong mutual aid networks shared food and resources.

These were not solutions to the national crisis. But they were survival strategies, and they revealed a truth that the machine prefers to obscure:

People are not helpless.

7. The Old Wound

But none of these strategies address the oldest problem: land.

The wound runs through every chapter of this story—from the Crown Lands Ordinance to the White Highlands, from the Mau Mau uprising to the election violence of the modern era.

Land is not only an economic resource. It is identity, inheritance, dignity. When people believe the land beneath them was stolen and never returned, the grievance does not fade with time. It deepens.

Without meaningful reform—transparent registries, fair redistribution, community ownership models—the grievance will remain. And as long as the grievance remains, the machine has something to exploit. Division is its most reliable fuel.

8. Neutral Ground

Kenya sits at a crossroads. Its ports connect inland Africa to the sea. Its airports link the continent to Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Its capital is home to international organizations, aid agencies, and diplomatic missions.

This position can be dangerous. It can also be powerful.

Some small countries have turned geography into neutrality rather than vulnerability. During the Cold War, Finland navigated between East and West without becoming a battlefield. Singapore built prosperity by trading with everyone while aligning with no single patron.

Kenya could pursue a similar path. Cooperate widely. Host diplomacy. Avoid becoming a staging ground for other nations' wars.

9. The Real Barrier

These ideas—energy independence, industrialization, regional integration, land reform, strategic neutrality—are not new. Kenyan economists, activists, and policymakers have proposed them for decades.

The difficulty is not imagination. The difficulty is power.

The machine persists because it benefits those who operate it. The Briefcase Men profit from contracts and commissions. The Money Changers collect interest regardless of the outcome. The BOBs gain authority, prestige, and access to resources.

Changing the system threatens those advantages. And so reform moves slowly, if it moves at all.

10. The Ground

But the Ground is not powerless.

Every election, every protest, every strike, every demand for transparency is a reminder that the system rests on the consent—or at least the endurance—of the people who live under it.

Joseph does not think of himself as part of a historical process. He thinks about fuel prices and school fees and the cost of maize flour. But when millions of people share the same frustrations, those frustrations become political.

History changes when the Ground refuses to carry the machine any longer.

11. The Long View

Evening fell over Nairobi as Joseph finished his shift. Traffic thinned, the air cooled, and the city lights began to glow against the darkening sky. His *matatu* rattled along familiar streets, carrying passengers home after another difficult day.

The fuel crisis might pass in weeks or months. Tankers would eventually return to the Gulf. Oil would flow again.

But the deeper lesson would remain.

For more than a century, Kenya had been shaped by forces that arrived from elsewhere: imperial railways, colonial land laws, global commodity markets, foreign loans, distant wars.

The machine was powerful. It had survived empires and revolutions and independence itself.

Yet machines are built by human hands. And what human hands build, other human hands can change.

Joseph parked the *matatu* and stepped out into the warm night air.

Tomorrow he would wake early again. He would check the fuel gauge, count the coins in his pocket, and return to the road.

The future of Kenya would not be decided in a single crisis, or a single election, or a single generation. It would be decided slowly—by millions of small choices, by the quiet determination of people who refused to accept that the machine was permanent.

The long theft had lasted more than a century. Its ending, if it came, would take just as long to build.