Beyond Western Sahara, the Sahel-Maghreb Axis Looms Large

The chapter analyses the recent transformation of regional security in the Maghreb and in the Sahel. It argues that the collapse of Gaddafi’s Libya combined with the refusal of Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s Algeria to perform as 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 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 for the future development of Libya after Gaddafi, the continued the non-resolution of the Western Sahara conflict remains a potential root cause to a regional great power rupture between Algeria and Morocco.