Description
Book SynopsisNATO and the Greater Maghreb offers a distinctive focus and study of NATO’s future policy in North Africa and the Sahel after the new 2022 Strategic Concept, expected to be published during the next NATO Summit in Madrid.
The book will use three main axes to frame the contributors’ analysis, which are not usually used together for analyzing NATO policy: Geopolitics, Great Power Competition, and Threats. These lenses create a distinctive approach to reviewing a Greater Mahgreb Regional Security Complex confronted with the necessities of a distinctive approach by NATO.
The idea of MENA (Middle East and North Africa), still used by the EU and NATO is already obsolete for several reasons: first, it is no more possible to split West Africa geopolitically from North Africa and Sahel. Second, the action of terrorist groups such as Al Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, ISIS, and Boko Haram are not related to Middle East problems, nor strategies and policies necessaries to tackle them. Second, the difficulties in cooperation between these countries, the corruption fed by organized crime (above all cocaine trafficking) and the impact of desertization, makes it very difficult to establish sound strategies and policies for the area. Third, there is an increasing presence of Great Powers in the area, including Russia and China, Turkey, and some Gulf states with different goals and policies.
Trade ReviewThe Greater Maghreb, connected with the Western Sahel, emerges as an increasing concern for western security. Even if the eastern front of NATO is increasingly problematic, the challenges, risks and threats studied in this book demonstrate the need to balance the efforts to be made in security and defense terms by the West in the years to come.
-- Carlos Echeverría Jesús, University Institute General Gutiérrez Mellado-UNED
David Garcia Cantalapiedra and the contributors to this important volume describe a stark issue facing NATO and the EU. Drug trafficking, terrorism, criminal insurgency, hybrid warfare, refugees, and climate change trouble the Greater Maghreb, the area stretching across North Africa and the Sahel. Officials must devise a coherent policy for Europe’s southern flank, or the area stretching across North Africa and the Sahel might become another battleground in the Russian assault on the West. NATO and the Greater Maghreb is a call to consider seriously Europe’s southern security.
-- James J. Wirtz, U.S. Naval Postgraduate School
Cantalapiedra, in his latest edited book, NATO and the Greater Maghreb: Geopolitics, Threats and Great Powers, brings together the disparate frameworks of Geopolitics, Great Power Competition, and emerging Threats and Challenges to analyze NATO policy toward the Mahgreb. Long overlooked and sadly neglected by European security experts, this book forces those who follow NATO to take seriously security on the southern flank. For those following the debate over the next NATO Strategic Concept, this book is a must read.
-- David Hamon, University of Mary Washington
Table of ContentsPart I: Geopolitics and Great Powers Competition
Chapter 1: NATO and the Mediterranean: From the Southern Flank to the Other Front? by Raquel Barras Tejudo
Chapter 2: The Decline of MENA and the Rise of the Greater Maghreb Regional Security Complex: His Impact in the 2022 NATO Strategic Concept by David García Cantalapiedra and Raquel Barras Tejudo
Chapter 3: NATO-EU Relations in the Greater Maghreb: Turn Words into Facts by Maribel Lopez Nieto
Chapter 4: Russian Foreign Policy in the Greater Maghreb: Implications for Transatlantic Policy by Natividad Fernández Sola
Part II: Threats and Challenges
Chapter 5: NATO and Peacekeeping between Deterrence and Peace Enforcement: Lessons for the Greater Maghreb by Gustavo Díaz Matey
Chapter 6: NATO and the Threat of International Terrorism: Capabilities and Synergies, An Essay by Ruben Herrero de Castro
Chapter 7: NATO, “Hybridization”, Hybrid Threats and the Greater Maghreb: Impact and Strategy by David García Cantalapiedra
Chapter 8: NATO’s Drive towards Climate Change and Its Implications in the Greater Maghreb by Xira Ruiz-Campillo and Kattya Cascante
