Image: Reuters Berita 24 English - At a summit in Madrid on Thursday, Spain will push other NATO partners to take into consideration a large...
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| Image: Reuters |
Berita 24 English - At a summit in Madrid on Thursday, Spain will push other NATO partners to take into consideration a larger role for the alliance in North Africa and the Sahel, and Spain's foreign minister said an intervention in Mali should not be ruled out.
According to officials, NATO has little desire for such actions, but as it builds up its defences to the east in the greatest manner since the Cold War, members like Spain and Italy are concerned that threats on the southern border may go unnoticed.
Following nearly two days of discussions dominated by Russia's conflict in Ukraine, the 30 leaders of NATO will convene a last summit session on Thursday morning that will be centred on the south.
After the NATO summit statement listed terrorism as one of the "hybrid threats" that adversarial states can employ to undermine its stability, Spain's Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares stated that he did not rule out a NATO involvement in Mali if necessary.
We would carry it out if it were required and if it threatened our security, he told the neighbourhood radio station RNE. "We don't exclude it,"
The Sahel area of Africa is home to Mali, where the country's ruling military junta is waging a war against an Islamist insurgency that has spread to nearby nations with the support of the Russian private military contractor Wagner Group.
After relations with the junta deteriorated, France, whose military strategy has historically been centred on NATO's south, announced in February that it would withdraw 2,400 troops that were initially stationed in Mali almost ten years ago.
With the justification that European military ought to contribute more to the war against Islamist militants, then-U.S. President Donald Trump attempted to enlarge the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in January 2020 to include countries in the Middle East. The plan received no support.
The "strategic concept," a new 10-year master document for NATO, was pushed by Spain and supported by Italy. It mentions terrorism and migration as factors to watch out for and the southern flank as a new source of stability danger.
SPAIN'S GOAL FOR 2029
Following Russia's invasion of Ukraine on February 24, with an eye primarily to the east, NATO, which was founded in 1949 to protect against the Soviet Union, is experiencing a newfound feeling of purpose.
At the meeting on Wednesday, the alliance named Moscow the most "direct danger" to Western security and approved plans to modernise Kyiv's struggling military forces.
It also extended an invitation to Sweden and Finland to join, and it promised to raise its military forces stationed along its eastern flank by seven times starting in 2023.
Along with these new expectations, the U.S.-led alliance must also improve its defences in space and on computer networks as well as resist Russia and China.
Spain has historically had some of the lowest defence budgets in NATO, but Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said Madrid will eventually reach the alliance's target, albeit five years later than NATO's goal. This is a sign of Spain's resolve to play a larger role in NATO.
According to him, "the administration is committed to increasing our defence spending to near to 2 percent of GDP by 2029." In 2014, all NATO members agreed to work toward spending the equivalent of 2% of GDP on defence by 2024.
