Morocco's New Geopolitics

Recent events underscore the reality that stability in Morocco’s neighborhood cannot be taken for granted. The implications of protracted instability in Morocco’s near abroad — the Maghreb and West Africa — would be substantial, adding to the opportunity costs of poor integration in the region, and strengthening the logic of an Atlantic vision. While continuing to pursue Maghreb integration, Morocco will also explore larger geometries in its international policy and economic development.

Some of these new geometries will emerge within the neighborhood, above all in West Africa, where new infrastructure could open opportunities for economic development, with Morocco as a hub for integration and commerce in the region. Looking beyond the immediate neighborhood, the area with the greatest future potential for Morocco as an international actor will be the wider Atlantic, including the southern Atlantic per se. For various historical reasons, the southern basin of the Atlantic has featured less prominently in modern transatlantic relations and international affairs.

This may be changing. From the rise of Brazil, South Africa, Nigeria, and even Angola as emerging economies, to developments in offshore energy production and trade, the notion of southern, or more properly, wider Atlanticism may finally come to the fore. Many of the key trends affecting global economics and security are being played out to the south of the prevailing Washington-Brussels axis. At a minimum, this prospect will give greater weight to north-south and south-south relations, and Morocco is well placed to serve as a hub in this wider Atlantic world — in logistical terms, but also in terms of the evolving mental maps of policymakers. This study argues that while it is in the interest of Morocco to consolidate relations with the EU and capture the potential gains from a reshaped European approach to its southern neighborhood, Rabat should also encourage policymakers in the United States and Europe to think more imaginatively about Morocco’s role in the Atlantic and elsewhere.