Abstract
Projecting stability is not a novel mission for NATO. Indeed, two waves of stability-projection can be identified: one, directed eastwards and launched after the end of the Cold War, and another targeting the Alliance’s south, ongoing since the 2016 Warsaw Summit. The chapter argues that although NATO stability-projection eastwards was successful, the Alliance may currently be unfit for the purpose of projecting stability across the Mediterranean. Wider cultural differences, a deeply ingrained wariness of organisations perceived as aligned to US national interests, and the impossibility of rewarding recipient countries’ reforms with NATO membership inevitably make projecting stability to Europe’s South more problematic than previous stability-projection initiatives to the East. Keeping these caveats in mind, the chapter concludes by offering some policy recommendations on how to increase the effectiveness of current NATO initiatives in the Middle East and Maghreb.
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Notes
- 1.
MC 0655/3 is an unclassified draft document. The fourth version, MC 0655/4, which has been adopted by the MC remains classified. The definitions quoted here might have changed in the final document.
- 2.
MC 0655/3, para. 5a.
- 3.
MC 0655/3, para. 5b.
- 4.
MC 0655/3, para. 4.
- 5.
Based on the authors’ regular interaction with officers and officials from MENA countries at the NATO Defense College in Rome, 2013–2018.
- 6.
NATO’s 41 Partners still include Russia, which is currently not a Partner in good standing. NATO has had no practical cooperation with Russia since April 2014.
- 7.
Operation Sophia was originally called European Union Naval Force Mediterranean (EU NAVFOR Med). It is a military operation of the European Union established in April 2015 to neutralise refugee smuggling routes in the Mediterranean.
- 8.
Or perhaps even earlier, such as Putin’s speech to the Munich Security Conference, 10 February 2007, or the Russian incursions into Abkhazia and South Ossetia, both in Georgia, in 2008.
- 9.
MC 6055/3, para. 20b.
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Larsen, J.A., Koehler, K. (2020). Projecting Stability to the South: NATO’s “New” Mission?. In: Cusumano, E., Hofmaier, S. (eds) Projecting Resilience Across the Mediterranean. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-23641-0_3
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