NATO and the Greater Maghreb offers a distinctive focus and study of NATO's future policy in North Africa and the Sahel after the new 2022 Strategic Concept, expected to be published during the next NATO Summit in Madrid. The book will use three main axes to frame the contributors' analysis, which are not usually used together for analyzing NATO policy: Geopolitics, Great Power Competition, and Threats. These lenses create a distinctive approach to reviewing a Greater Mahgreb Regional Security Complex confronted with the necessities of a distinctive approach by NATO. The idea of MENA (Middle East and North Africa), still used by the EU and NATO is already obsolete for several reasons: first, it is no more possible to split West Africa geopolitically from North Africa and Sahel. Second, the action of terrorist groups such as Al Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, ISIS, and Boko Haram are not related to Middle East problems, nor strategies and policies necessaries to tackle them. Second, the difficulties in cooperation between these countries, the corruption fed by organized crime (above all cocaine trafficking) and the impact of desertization, makes it very difficult to establish sound strategies and policies for the area. Third, there is an increasing presence of Great Powers in the area, including Russia and China, Turkey, and some Gulf states with different goals and policies.

This book represents a different approach in the study of the Sahel region in North Africa. Due to the hybrid security threats sweeping across the area, the whole region becomes a new security complex different from Middle East and more related to Western and Central Africa developments, including the impact of drug-trafficking coming from Latin America. This book discusses how the Transnational Organized Crime-Terrorism Nexus has created a very different dynamics from Middle East’s, hitting hard to people, societies and states there. The contributors argue that the countries in the area and the European Union should recognize this new complex and respond properly and differently to this situation.