NATO has a Mediterranean blind spot—and it places the Alliance’s safety in danger

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New Atlanticist

June 30, 2025 • 1:54 pm ET

NATO has a Mediterranean blind spot—and it places the Alliance’s safety in danger

By
Gabriele Natalizia and Alissa Pavia

When NATO leaders and companions of the Alliance met in The Hague final week, international locations from two essential areas have been notably absent: Neither North African nor Middle Eastern nations have been on 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 main target of the summit is on the allies, it’s an more and more widespread observe for NATO to ask essential non-NATO companions as nicely. This displays the “cooperative security” operate of the Alliance, reaffirmed within the 2022 Strategic Concept adopted on the Madrid summit.

The energy of companions

Inviting companions has not all the time 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 in recent times: Ukraine, for instance, has been persistently invited since Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion. Australia, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea are additionally common contributors.

Meanwhile, the members of NATO’s Mediterranean Dialogue—Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Mauritania, Morocco, and Tunisia—have hardly ever been invited to NATO summits, except for 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 contains Qatar, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, and Kuwait. In half, that is due to issues over some international locations’ 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 choice to exclude Mediterranean Dialogue and ICI international locations this 12 months stays shocking for a number of causes. To start with, on the 2024 NATO Summit in Washington, allies tasked the secretary common 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 reinforce NATO’s visibility within the Middle East, North Africa, and the Sahel.

Also on the 2024 summit, allies adopted an motion plan for the southern neighborhood, drawing on a NATO-commissioned report ready by an unbiased professional group in May of that 12 months. The report known as for a renewed strategic strategy centered on “a strengthening of NATO’s political dialogue about and with the region.” It additionally known 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 international locations.

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 as a result of its restricted mandate and disconnect from NATO headquarters. Meanwhile, NATO cooperation with international locations of the Mediterranean Dialogue stays negligible (with the potential exception of Tunisia, which grew to become a serious non-NATO ally of the United States in 2015).

The Russia issue

The determination to not invite Mediterranean companions can also be putting given Russia’s increasing presence within 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 robust presence since 2021—has elevated. These international locations’ regimes (excluding the CAR) have progressively dismantled present safety partnerships with France, the European Union, and the United States, which has allowed Russia to consolidate its safety ties with these junta-led regimes and additional broaden its affect. Moscow’s attain into the Sahel can also be strengthened by its rising navy presence by means of the Africa Corps, which now operates underneath the express command of the Russian Ministry of Defense. This marks a major institutional deepening of direct Kremlin management over its paramilitary involvement within the area.

Under former chief Bashar al-Assad, Syria maintained shut ties with Russia, even internet hosting a Russian naval facility at Tartus. But for the reason that Assad regime’s fall in December 2024, Russia has pivoted towards Libya, a rustic nonetheless fractured by inside battle. Moscow has sought to broaden its navy 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 within the nation and it’s engaged in ongoing negotiations for a brand new naval base within the port metropolis of Derna. The strategic rationale is obvious: Unlike the port of Tartus—which lacks dry-dock services for main overhauls—Derna would supply Moscow with a much-needed web site for important naval upkeep, lowering its reliance on distant ports within the Baltic. 

Russia’s rising affect in North Africa and the Sahel poses each oblique and direct challenges to NATO’s safety. On the oblique entrance, authoritarian, unaccountable, and externally managed regimes gasoline grievances, that are in flip typically exploited by jihadist teams. Moreover, these governments’ reliance on Russia-backed militias for survival leaves them weak to turning into devices of leverage towards 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 within the Mediterranean raises issues about freedom of navigation within the area, in addition to the danger of direct incidents between NATO and Russia. The chief of workers of the Italian Navy, Admiral Enrico Credendino, just lately acknowledged that “Italian ships operating off the coast of Libya are almost always followed by a Russian spy ship.” Permanent navy bases in Libya would grant Moscow new strategic footholds with which to threaten Europe, together with with missile methods, whereas Russia is already recruiting African mercenaries—nicknamed “Black Wagners”—who’re at present lively in Ukraine and may be deployed in future crises.

The Mediterranean issues

NATO’s presence within the Mediterranean stays primarily naval, and there’s rising concern that this presence is inadequate to supply efficient deterrence towards Russian expansionism and the threats posed by its proxies. More and extra European officers are drawing consideration to the truth that Russia’s menace isn’t restricted to NATO’s jap flank alone. Just a couple of days earlier than the newest summit, Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto stated that NATO “as it is, no longer has a reason to exist,” partially expressing his frustration on the Alliance’s lack of engagement with the Global South. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, too, criticized the Alliance’s priorities through the summit, calling the elevated protection spending benchmark of 5 % of gross home product “unreasonable.”

Given these developments, the choice to not invite any of the Mediterranean Dialogue international locations to the NATO Summit at The Hague was a missed alternative. Including not less than these companions would have marked an essential step in demonstrating to southern European member states that the Alliance’s dedication to a “360 degree vision of security” isn’t merely rhetorical. 

NATO has a strategic alternative to deepen its engagement with the broader Mediterranean area—particularly in gentle of subsequent 12 months’s summit in Turkey. The Defense and Related Security Capacity Building packages, initially designed to bolster the protection and safety capabilities of companion international locations, stay underutilized. Expanding cooperation with key states reminiscent of Algeria and Egypt by means of these packages wouldn’t solely assist reinforce NATO’s southern flank but in addition counter the rising affect of Russia within the area.

Another avenue for influence lies in strengthening cooperative safety efforts with Mediterranean companions by reinvigorating present frameworks, most notably the Mediterranean Dialogue and the ICI. These platforms supply beneficial, 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 aim of a 360-degree strategy to safety, 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 on 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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