NATO has a Mediterranean blind spot—and it puts the Alliance’s security at risk

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New Atlanticist

June 30, 2025 • 1:54 pm ET

NATO has a Mediterranean blind spot—and it puts the Alliance’s security at risk

By
Gabriele Natalizia and Alissa Pavia

When NATO leaders and companions of the Alliance met in The Hague final week, nations from two necessary areas have been notably absent: Neither North African nor Middle Eastern nations have been at the desk when the NATO Summit convened. While that is nothing new, overlooking these areas—particularly at a time when Russian threats in North Africa and the Sahel more and more endanger NATO’s southern neighborhood—is a missed alternative at finest and a important strategic oversight at worst.

NATO summits are milestone occasions for the Alliance. Each summit’s communiqué outlines the Alliance’s priorities and indicators the insurance policies it expects its member states to undertake. While the focus of the summit is on the allies, it is an more and more frequent observe for NATO to ask necessary non-NATO companions as properly. This displays the “cooperative security” perform of the Alliance, reaffirmed in the 2022 Strategic Concept adopted at the Madrid summit.

The energy of companions

Inviting companions has not at all times been the norm. NATO’s declaration at its 1997 Madrid summit marked a turning level by formally recognizing the shared strategic pursuits of NATO and the European Union, resulting in the bloc’s common participation in NATO Summits. Building on this precedent, the Alliance has expanded its engagement to different strategic companions lately: Ukraine, for instance, has been persistently invited since Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion. Australia, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea are additionally common individuals.

Meanwhile, the members of NATO’s Mediterranean Dialogue—Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Mauritania, Morocco, and Tunisia—have hardly ever been invited to NATO summits, apart from occasional exceptions. The identical holds true for the members of the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative (ICI) that was established in 2004 to enrich the Mediterranean Dialogue. The ICI consists of Qatar, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, and Kuwait. In half, that is due to issues over some nations’ participation. Algeria and Egypt, for instance, have been accused of sustaining shut ties with Russia, whereas various levels of friction persist between Morocco and Spain, Algeria and France, and Egypt and Turkey.

Still, the resolution to exclude Mediterranean Dialogue and ICI nations this yr stays shocking for a number of causes. To start with, at the 2024 NATO Summit in Washington, allies tasked the secretary normal with appointing a particular consultant for the southern neighborhood. In July 2024, Spanish diplomat Javier Colomina was tapped for this position, with a mandate to boost NATO’s visibility in the Middle East, North Africa, and the Sahel.

Also at the 2024 summit, allies adopted an motion plan for the southern neighborhood, drawing on a NATO-commissioned report ready by an impartial knowledgeable group in May of that yr. The report referred to as for a renewed strategic strategy centered on “a strengthening of NATO’s political dialogue about and with the region.” It additionally referred to as for higher integration of the NATO Strategic Direction-South Hub (NSD-S HUB) into the NATO construction. The NSD-S HUB had been created in 2017 to assist bridge NATO’s hole with Middle East and North African nations.

These suggestions, nevertheless, stay largely unfulfilled. The position of the particular consultant for the south, which was initially supposed to preside over a division, stays a marginal participant with little leverage over the remainder of the Alliance. The NSD-S HUB stays on the sidelines, missing energy on account of its restricted mandate and disconnect from NATO headquarters. Meanwhile, NATO cooperation with nations of the Mediterranean Dialogue stays negligible (with the doable exception of Tunisia, which turned a main non-NATO ally of the United States in 2015).

The Russia issue

The resolution to not invite Mediterranean companions can also be putting given Russia’s increasing presence in the so-called wider Mediterranean and its rising position in fueling instability alongside NATO’s southern flank. Moscow is exploiting the fragility of a number of states on this space. Russia’s footprint in Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, and the Central African Republic (CAR)—the place it has maintained a sturdy presence since 2021—has elevated. These nations’ regimes (with the exception of the CAR) have progressively dismantled present security partnerships with France, the European Union, and the United States, which has allowed Russia to consolidate its security ties with these junta-led regimes and additional broaden its affect. Moscow’s attain into the Sahel can also be strengthened by its rising army presence by means of the Africa Corps, which now operates underneath the express command of the Russian Ministry of Defense. This marks a important institutional deepening of direct Kremlin management over its paramilitary involvement in the area.

Under former chief Bashar al-Assad, Syria maintained shut ties with Russia, even internet hosting a Russian naval facility at Tartus. But since the Assad regime’s fall in December 2024, Russia has pivoted towards Libya, a nation nonetheless fractured by inner battle. Moscow has sought to broaden its army presence by deepening its ties with the Haftar household in Libya. With the al-Khadim, al-Jufra, and Maaten al-Sarra airbases, Russia has established a number of footholds in the nation and it is engaged in ongoing negotiations for a new naval base in the port metropolis of Derna. The strategic rationale is evident: Unlike the port of Tartus—which lacks dry-dock amenities for main overhauls—Derna would supply Moscow with a much-needed web site for important naval upkeep, lowering its reliance on distant ports in the Baltic. 

Russia’s rising affect in North Africa and the Sahel poses each oblique and direct challenges to NATO’s security. On the oblique entrance, authoritarian, unaccountable, and externally managed regimes gasoline grievances, that are in flip usually exploited by jihadist teams. Moreover, these governments’ reliance on Russia-backed militias for survival leaves them weak to changing into devices of leverage in opposition to NATO members—whether or not by means of the manipulation of migration flows towards Europe or by tightening management over important uncooked materials provide chains.

In phrases of direct threats, Russia’s increasing naval presence in the Mediterranean raises issues about freedom of navigation in the area, in addition to the risk of direct incidents between NATO and Russia. The chief of employees of the Italian Navy, Admiral Enrico Credendino, lately acknowledged that “Italian ships operating off the coast of Libya are almost always followed by a Russian spy ship.” Permanent army bases in Libya would grant Moscow new strategic footholds with which to threaten Europe, together with with missile techniques, whereas Russia is already recruiting African mercenaries—nicknamed “Black Wagners”—who’re presently lively in Ukraine and may be deployed in future crises.

The Mediterranean issues

NATO’s presence in the Mediterranean stays primarily naval, and there’s rising concern that this presence is inadequate to supply efficient deterrence in opposition to Russian expansionism and the threats posed by its proxies. More and extra European officers are drawing consideration to the incontrovertible fact that Russia’s menace shouldn’t be restricted to NATO’s japanese flank alone. Just a few days earlier than the most up-to-date summit, Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto mentioned that NATO “as it is, no longer has a reason to exist,” partly expressing his frustration at the Alliance’s lack of engagement with the Global South. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, too, criticized the Alliance’s priorities throughout the summit, calling the elevated protection spending benchmark of 5 p.c of gross home product “unreasonable.”

Given these developments, the resolution to not invite any of the Mediterranean Dialogue nations to the NATO Summit at The Hague was a missed alternative. Including at least these companions would have marked an necessary step in demonstrating to southern European member states that the Alliance’s dedication to a “360 degree vision of security” shouldn’t be merely rhetorical. 

NATO has a strategic alternative to deepen its engagement with the broader Mediterranean area—particularly in gentle of subsequent yr’s summit in Turkey. The Defense and Related Security Capacity Building packages, initially designed to bolster the protection and security capabilities of companion nations, stay underutilized. Expanding cooperation with key states akin to Algeria and Egypt by means of these packages wouldn’t solely assist reinforce NATO’s southern flank but additionally counter the rising affect of Russia in the area.

Another avenue for impression lies in strengthening cooperative security efforts with Mediterranean companions by reinvigorating present frameworks, most notably the Mediterranean Dialogue and the ICI. These platforms provide invaluable, present instruments for trust-building and joint motion.

Finally, NATO ought to improve its understanding of the evolving dynamics on its southern flank by increasing the position of the NSD-S HUB in Naples to serve its preliminary objective of figuring out tangible alternatives for cooperation. All these efforts would meaningfully advance NATO’s objective of a 360-degree strategy to security, whereas additionally reassuring southern European members that their issues are being heard and addressed.

Alissa Pavia is the affiliate director of the Atlantic Council’s North Africa program.

Further studying

Image: Logo is seen at the venue of the NATO Summit in The Hague, Netherlands on June 24, 2025. (Photo by Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto)NO USE FRANCE

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