Beyond Western Sahara, the Sahel-Maghreb Axis Looms Large

Abstract : This chapter analyses the recent transformation of regional security in the Maghreb and Sahel. It argues that the collapse of Muammar Qadhafi’s Libya combined with the refusal of Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s Algeria to act as a regional hegemon in the Sahel has produced a new conjuncture of intensified security interdependence between the Sahel and the Maghreb. It furthermore suggests that this new interdependence has eclipsed the Western Sahara conflict as the most important regional security issue capable of shaping present-day domestic and regional security politics in the two regions. The rise of the Sahel-Maghreb security issue, does not, however, signal an end to the importance of the Western Sahara conflict in regional security. While Algeria and Morocco may have developed an overlapping vision and shared interest in the future development of Libya after Qadhafi, the continued non-resolution of the Western Sahara conflict remains a potential root cause for a great regional power rupture between Algeria and Morocco.