Foreign Relations of North Africa

The North African states—Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya—occupy an island and are therefore preoccupied above all by relations among themselves. Torn between pressures to work together—community—and to distinguish themselves from each other—differentiation—they are caught up with the need to develop a sense of rank and relation among themselves and to carry their competition into the power vacuum of the poorer states that surround them. Although Tunisia and Libya may seek to achieve relations on the model of integration and Algeria may prefer a pattern of central-state dominance, the result is a checkerboard pattern of competition of limited rivalries, preferred by Morocco but played by all. Relations with the Arab and African worlds are determined by the North African states' bids for leadership, their need for support on security issues, and their extension of intra-Maghribi relations onto the two wider fields. The same intra-Maghribi purposes guide North African states' relations with Europe, especially France, and also with the two superpowers.