Spain achieves that NATO also look towards its southern flank at the Madrid summit, despite the fact that the entire effort of the Atlantic Alliance is absolutely concentrated on the Russian invasion of Ukraine. At the height of a change in the world order, with a war in Europe, which only a few months ago seemed unthinkable, NATO has accepted, at the proposal of our country, also pay attention to this part of the world, to Africa and the Middle Eastand to security threats that are not strictly a military conflict.
The new Strategic Concept, approved this Wednesday in the Spanish capital, includes a specific mention of the “hybrid tactics”. Among them, the Government has managed to include, according to Moncloa sources, “instrumenting migration” and “manipulating the energy supply”, which were part of the “concerns” of our country. It is not only, they explain, Morocco, sub-Saharan Africa or Algeria, which, they admit, is the most natural attribution. The destabilization of another country is not carried out only by invading it, as has happened with Ukraine, they recall, but with many other formulas such as disinformation, attacks on its cybersecurity, immigration and energy.
It is something, they emphasize in the Executive, that Russia or China already does, but also a threat that other nations can use against their allies. About a year ago, a few months apart, Spain suffered a wave of immigrants on the shores of Ceuta, sponsored by the Alaouite kingdom, at the toughest moment of the diplomatic crisis, the Baltic republics suffered a similar aggression from Belarus.
South Neighborhood and Sahel
In addition, the document dedicates a whole paragraph to the South and explicitly cites the Sahel (the region of sub-Saharan Africa, which stretches from the Atlantic coast to the Red Sea and includes 11 countries), something in which “Spain has made a special commitment”. “Conflict, fragility and instability in Africa and the Middle East directly affect our security and the security of our partners.” NATO’s “southern neighbourhood”, he continues, “particularly the Middle East, North Africa and the Sahel regions, face interconnected security, demographic, economic and political challenges, which are aggravated “by the impact of climate change, fragile institutions, health emergencies and famines”. This situation, he concludes, “provides fertile ground for the proliferation of non-state organizations, armed groups, including terrorist organizations” and “allows for destabilizing and coercive interference by strategic competitors.”
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The enormous influence that Russia and China are displaying on the African continent, especially in areas of the Sahel and the Maghreb, has helped Spain to be able to convince the allies that this flank should not be neglected. What the new NATO Strategic Concept has dealt with is, according to Spanish sources, portraying a new world order. “It makes a diagnosis of the world in which the Atlantic Alliance now operates” and of “the threats and challenges it has to face.” In this sense, the text points out that there are “actors who are at the forefront of a deliberate effort to undermine multilateral norms and institutions and promote authoritarian models of government.”
The 11 pages of the document have been worked on over three months and were finally closed last night. According to Moncloa, although different drafts have been debated, there has been no controversy with the Spanish proposals. Neither with the allusion to the Sahel and the southern neighbourhood, the misuse of immigration and energy supplies, nor with the formal change introduced in the text on the defense of the “territorial integrity of the allies”, so that there is greater “precision law” on Ceuta and Melilla. Spain understands that the two autonomous cities were already fully protected but recognizes that the wording is thus clearer, with respect to some of the first proposals that aimed at “allied territorial integrity”.