Introduction

The rivalry between Algeria and Morocco does not simply pit two neighboring states against each other. It opposes two forms of strategic centrality. This rivalry can only be fully understood if it is placed back within a broader recomposition of Euro-Mediterranean, African, and transatlantic balances. Since the war in Ukraine, European energy security, the securing of straits, competition over critical minerals, and the reconfiguration of American alliances have given greater importance to interface powers. In this context, Algeria and Morocco are not merely two competing Maghreb states; they have become two opposing ways of occupying a strategic position.

Morocco has become a pivot of Western alignment: Gibraltar, the Atlantic, phosphates, critical minerals, battery chains, and military cooperation with Washington. The new Morocco–United States defense roadmap for 2026–2036 confirms this accelerated integration into the American strategic architecture.¹ This Moroccan centrality is based on a logic of insertion: insertion into maritime flows, into critical industrial chains, into American military architectures, and into Western diversification policies vis-à-vis China.

Algeria, for its part, represents something else: a reserve power, less integrated but more autonomous, central to European energy, the Sahel, the Mediterranean, and Saharan depth. It is less a “partner” than a “strategic variable”: an actor that Washington, Brussels, Moscow, and Beijing must all take into account, but that none truly controls. Its centrality lies less in its integration into global networks than in its capacity to weigh on several balances simultaneously: European gas supply, Sahelian security, Mediterranean stability, relations with Russia and China, and the autonomy of the Maghreb vis-à-vis Western architectures.

This opposition can be summed up in one formula: Morocco projects, Algeria absorbs. Morocco seeks to become a node of circulation; Algeria remains a strategic depth. Morocco gains in centrality through connection; Algeria through retention, distance, and the capacity to stabilize.

1. Algeria: Energy Centrality, Saharan Depth, and Autonomy

Algeria has an advantage that Morocco does not: it is an energy power. Since the war in Ukraine, its strategic value for Europe has increased, because the European Union is seeking to reduce its dependence on Russian gas. Algeria has direct infrastructure to Europe — gas pipelines and LNG terminals — and remains one of the geographically closest alternative suppliers. Alongside Libya, it belongs to a North African ensemble endowed with significant oil and natural gas reserves; according to the CIDOB study published in January 2026, Algeria is believed to hold around 4.5 trillion cubic meters of gas reserves, compared with about 1.05 trillion for Libya.²

This centrality rests on an old yet still strategic physical architecture. Algeria is linked to Europe through several submarine or trans-Mediterranean infrastructures, notably TransMed to Italy via Tunisia and Medgaz to Spain. To this must be added its export capacities in the form of liquefied natural gas from Arzew and Skikda. This geographical proximity gives it a structural advantage over transatlantic LNG: gas delivered by pipeline generally has a lower carbon footprint than liquefied gas, which requires liquefaction, maritime transport, and then regasification.³

But this centrality is paradoxical. Algeria has the reserves, the infrastructure, and the history of a reliable supplier, yet Sonatrach faces several constraints: rapidly rising domestic consumption, industrial aging, governance difficulties, underuse of some export capacities, and growing pressure from European standards on methane emissions. In 2023, Algeria was the world’s tenth-largest gas producer, with production of around 102 billion cubic meters, and the seventeenth-largest producer of oil and condensates. Gas then accounted for more than half of its exports, ahead of oil, refined products, LPG, and condensates.⁴

Its strategic problem is therefore the following: Algeria is indispensable, but not yet fully available. This formula sums up the gap between its potential and its effective export capacity. Sonatrach’s gas exports declined from 55 billion cubic meters in 2010 to 39 billion in 2020, before rising again to around 49 billion in 2025, including 14 billion in LNG form.⁵ This recovery should not obscure the system’s limits. In 2024, only 21 billion cubic meters are believed to have transited through the TransMed pipeline, despite its capacity of 33.5 billion. Spain remained Sonatrach’s second-largest customer in 2025, with around 9.4 billion cubic meters, mainly via Medgaz.⁶

It can strengthen European energy security, but only on condition that it resolves three blockages: produce more, consume less at home, and modernize Sonatrach. Otherwise, it will remain a reliable but complementary supplier, while the United States, Qatar, or Norway occupy a growing share of the European market. This is already partly what happened after 2021: the United States increased its role in European gas imports, replacing part of Russian volumes and relegating Algeria to a function that was more complementary than structuring.⁷ However, this relative marginalization is not irreversible. If European buyers were to conclude that American gas is politically or commercially less reliable, Sonatrach’s historical reputation as a stable supplier could once again become a major advantage.

The question of domestic consumption is central. The main risk weighing on the growth of Algerian exports lies in annual domestic consumption growth of around 6%, which now absorbs more than half of production. Very low gas prices, fueled by subsidies estimated at several billion dollars per year, encourage internal demand that is difficult to sustain.⁸ The contradiction is therefore profound: gas is both an instrument of internal social cohesion and a lever of external power. The more the state maintains low prices to preserve social peace, the more it reduces its export capacity and thus its geopolitical influence.

The governance of Sonatrach constitutes another decisive factor. The company has gone through a long period of managerial crisis, marked by corruption scandals, decision-making slowdowns, and difficulty in developing long-term planning. Chakib Khelil’s resignation in 2009 symbolized this sequence, even though more recent leadership teams have sought to restore a degree of operational credibility.⁹ The 2019 hydrocarbons law made the investment framework more attractive for foreign companies, which contributed to the signing, in 2025, of exploration agreements with Sinopec, ENI, TotalEnergies, Chevron, and ExxonMobil.¹⁰ These agreements, however, often concentrate around already known basins, underscoring the caution of Algeria’s energy redeployment.

To this is added significant mining depth. The Gara Djebilet iron deposit, estimated at around 3.5 billion tons, could become a major industrial lever if it is technically mastered. Algeria also possesses shale gas potential, but its exploitation remains politically and environmentally sensitive, particularly because of concerns related to Saharan aquifers.¹¹ The success of shale gas in the United States rested on specific conditions — highly efficient supply chains, mineral rights favorable to landowners, dense industrial infrastructure, deep financial markets — that are not present in the same way in North Africa.¹² In the Algerian case, fear of pollution of Saharan water tables, which are vital for the southern oases, constitutes a major political constraint.

European pressure on methane emissions adds another layer of constraint. European Regulation 2024/1787 imposes reporting and performance obligations that could affect imports of hydrocarbons with high emissions intensity.¹³ For Algeria, this represents both a risk and an opportunity. The risk is that of losing access to markets, or facing higher export costs, if Sonatrach does not sufficiently reduce flaring and fugitive emissions. The opportunity is that of technical cooperation with the European Union: flaring reduction, modernization of installations, technology transfer, and the development of renewables. Such cooperation could enable Algiers to consolidate its status as a relatively low-carbon gas supplier compared with distant LNG.

Algerian centrality therefore rests on three layers: energy, territorial depth, and strategic autonomy. But these three layers only generate power if they are activated coherently. Yet Algeria remains caught in a tension between conservation and valorization: preserving hydrocarbons for future generations may seem prudent, but it carries the risk of turning part of these resources into stranded assets in a world undergoing energy transition.

2. Algeria as a Stabilizer of the Sahel: Containing Rather than Projecting

Algerian centrality is not limited to energy. It is also expressed in its relationship with the Sahel, which constitutes less an external space than an extension of its own national security. Through its Saharan depth and its borders with Mali, Niger, Mauritania, and Libya, Algeria is directly exposed to the political and security fragmentation of the Sahelian belt. It therefore cannot afford to ignore this space, even when it refuses to intervene there militarily in a direct manner.

Algeria has historically favored a model of stabilization without massive military projection. This posture is rooted in its doctrine of sovereignty, non-interference, and rejection of foreign bases. Rather than sending forces beyond its borders, Algiers seeks to contain crises, negotiate compromises, and lock down its own southern space. The Algiers Accords on Mali illustrated this approach: Algeria played the role of mediator, seeking to produce a political balance rather than a solution imposed by force.¹⁴

This stabilizing function rests on a logic of depth. Algeria does not necessarily seek to control the Sahel; it seeks to prevent the Sahel from destabilizing it. In this respect, its strategy can be interpreted as an implicit form of denial strategy: preventing armed groups, trafficking, external rivalries, or insurgent dynamics from reaching its territory or from altering the regional strategic balance to its detriment. This is not a power projection comparable to French or American interventions; it is a strategy of absorption and filtering.

However, this model is now under pressure. The French withdrawal from Mali, Burkina Faso, and then Niger, the installation of Russian actors, the multiplication of military juntas, and the fragmentation of regional security mechanisms have profoundly transformed Algeria’s strategic environment. Algeria faces a dilemma: maintain its refusal of direct intervention, at the risk of seeing instability move closer to its borders, or adapt its doctrine to exercise a more robust influence in the south. In both cases, its Sahelian centrality becomes more costly.

This Sahelian dimension strongly distinguishes Algeria from Morocco. Rabat seeks to project itself toward West Africa and the Atlantic; Algiers seeks to preserve a Saharo-Sahelian depth. Morocco sees the Sahel as a space of potential connectivity; Algeria sees it first and foremost as a zone of strategic vulnerability. This divergence fuels indirect competition. The more Morocco develops an active African policy, the more Algeria may see in it an attempt to bypass its own sphere of influence.

3. Morocco: Logistical, Mineral, and Military Centrality

Morocco does not have Algerian gas. Its centrality comes from elsewhere: from the Strait of Gibraltar, Tanger Med, phosphates, critical minerals, and its growing alignment with Washington.

Gibraltar is a global chokepoint. In an American logic of “denial strategy,” controlling or securing this type of node amounts to preventing a rival — China, Russia, Iran, or hybrid networks — from threatening strategic flows. Morocco thus becomes the southern shore of a Western lock: to the north, Spain, the United Kingdom, NATO; to the south, Rabat. The strait, roughly 14 kilometers wide at its narrowest point, remains the only maritime passage between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean for Western routes. Its centrality increases as other chokepoints — Hormuz, Bab el-Mandeb, Suez, or the Bosporus — become more exposed to regional tensions, Chinese strategies, or challenges from revisionist actors.¹⁵

From this perspective, Morocco takes on particular value for Washington. The doctrinal logic associated with Elbridge Colby, centered on prioritizing competition with China, burden-sharing with allies, and securing strategic nodes, favors targeted partnerships rather than heavy global commitments.¹⁶ Morocco corresponds to this model. It offers a useful geographic position, relative stability, long-standing military cooperation, and technological integration capacity. The 2026–2036 defense roadmap is part of this dynamic by deepening interoperability and industrial cooperation.¹⁷

This geographic value is coupled with material value. Morocco holds about 70% of the world’s known phosphate reserves, a resource essential for fertilizers but also for LFP batteries, which are increasingly used in electric vehicles.¹⁸ In a world where China dominates large segments of critical materials refining and processing, this resource takes on increased strategic value. Lithium iron phosphate batteries depend on purified phosphates; their rapid expansion in the global electric vehicle market makes Moroccan phosphate an asset that is not only agricultural but also technological.

It also possesses cobalt at Bou Azzer, a particular deposit because cobalt is mined there as the primary ore, and not merely as a byproduct of copper or nickel.¹⁹ This singularity distinguishes Morocco from other producers, notably the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where the cobalt sector is often associated with Chinese operators and with social, political, and reputational risks. Sustainable supply contracts concluded by European industrial groups with Managem show that Moroccan cobalt is already integrated into strategies to secure Western supply chains.²⁰

This combination — Gibraltar + phosphates + cobalt + battery chains — explains why Morocco interests Washington, Beijing, and European industrial actors simultaneously. The country is no longer limited to the role of a logistics platform. It is becoming a potential link in the energy transition, global food security, and technological competition. Added to this are resources in copper, manganese, nickel, chromium, graphite, silver, and rare earths, some recent explorations of which suggest significant potential.²¹

But this is also where its vulnerability arises. Rabat wants to attract Chinese capital into batteries while deepening its military partnership with the United States. This dual logic may become difficult to sustain if Washington demands “Western” security over critical supply chains. The presence of Chinese actors in LFP cathode materials, anodes, or lithium-ion components creates a potential tension with the American logic of friend-shoring. Morocco seeks to preserve its room for maneuver by playing on several boards; but the more Sino-American competition hardens, the more fragile this ambiguity becomes.

Morocco is therefore a power of integration. It gains in centrality because it inserts itself into American, European, and Chinese networks. But this insertion also exposes it to contradictory pressures. Its power comes from connectivity. Its vulnerability comes from that same connectivity.

4. Western Sahara, Opening Up, and Morocco’s African Projection

Morocco’s strategic centrality cannot be understood without Western Sahara. For Rabat, this territory is not merely an issue of sovereignty or national identity; it is also a structuring element of its geopolitics. It gives the kingdom southern depth, an extended Atlantic façade, and a foothold toward sub-Saharan Africa. Without this space, Morocco would be more tightly confined to its northern axis, dependent on Gibraltar, Tangier, Casablanca, and its relations with Europe.

The closure of the land border with Algeria since 1994 has produced a form of relative landlockedness. To be sure, Morocco is largely open to the Atlantic and the Mediterranean; but it is blocked in the east and cannot build continental Maghreb integration. This constraint has helped orient its foreign policy toward the south and west. Western Sahara thus becomes the pivot of an opening-up through the Atlantic and through Africa.

Since Mohammed VI came to the throne, Morocco’s African policy has undergone a profound transformation. It rests on a combination of banking, telecom, agricultural, religious, port, and energy investments. Morocco’s return to the African Union in 2017 marked an important stage in this strategy.²² The objective was not only diplomatic; it was also about consolidating African support for Morocco’s position on Western Sahara while building a continental economic depth.

The Nigeria–Morocco gas pipeline project illustrates this ambition. Whether completed fully or only partially, it expresses a vision: to make Morocco a corridor between West Africa, Europe, and the Atlantic. Likewise, the development of Dakhla as a port and logistics platform aims to transform the Sahara into an interface rather than a periphery. Morocco’s strategy therefore consists in converting a contested territory into a geo-economic asset.

This African projection can be read as Morocco’s response to a geopolitical constraint. Faced with the Maghreb deadlock and Algerian hostility, Rabat seeks to build its own sphere of depth in the south. Where Algeria possesses a territorial depth inherited from colonial geography, Morocco attempts to produce depth through infrastructure, alliances, investments, and diplomacy. It is here that the opposition between Moroccan projection and Algerian depth becomes most clear.

5. Two Opposing Models

The fundamental difference is simple:

Morocco is a connected power. It maximizes its value through ports, industrial chains, military agreements, critical minerals, and interoperability with the United States. Its centrality is nodal: it depends on its ability to organize, capture, and redistribute flows. Tanger Med, Gibraltar, Dakhla, LFP chains, military agreements, and African partnerships all belong to the same logic: making Morocco an indispensable transit point.

Algeria is a restrained power. It maximizes its value through its reserves, its autonomy, its rejection of foreign bases, its energy role, and its Saharo-Sahelian depth. Its centrality is territorial: it depends on its ability to control a vast space, preserve its resources, stabilize its margins, and maintain distance from alignment architectures. Algeria does not seek first and foremost to become a hub; it seeks to remain sovereign in a fragmented environment.

Morocco accepts integration in order to gain power. Algeria preserves distance in order to retain sovereignty. This distinction is not only diplomatic; it is almost geopolitical in the classical sense. Morocco compensates for its weak continental depth through maritime, African, and industrial projection. Algeria compensates for its lesser international integration through its territorial, energy, and security depth.

This is why Washington can “use” Morocco within a strategic architecture, but cannot do the same with Algeria. Algiers is too autonomous, too connected to several poles, and too attached to its doctrine of non-alignment. For the United States, Morocco is a functional partner. Algeria is an actor to be handled with care. The former can be integrated into a strategy for locking down flows. The latter can only be mobilized through a transactional, cautious, and sectoral logic.

6. Morocco’s Challenges

Morocco faces four major challenges.

First, the challenge of alignment. The more central Rabat becomes in American strategy, the more it will have to clarify its relations with China, especially in batteries, ports, logistics data, and critical minerals. Chinese presence in African ports, in the Mediterranean, and in battery chains raises a major strategic question for Washington: can a military ally host critical economic infrastructures strongly linked to Chinese actors?²³ This question will become more sensitive if port, logistics, or industrial systems generate strategic data on flows, customers, routes, and supply chains.

Next, the challenge of external dependence. Part of Morocco’s rise rests on foreign capital, technologies, and markets. This brings speed, but limits autonomy. Morocco can become a hub, but a hub always depends on the flows it captures. If value chains fragment, if Washington hardens its demands, or if Beijing reduces its investments, Morocco’s position may become more delicate.

Third, the Saharan challenge. Western Sahara remains the core of the rivalry with Algiers. Any American consolidation of the partnership with Rabat is read by Algeria as a strategic imbalance. The more Morocco transforms the Sahara into an Atlantic and African platform, the more it strengthens its position; but the more it also increases the sensitivity of the issue for Algiers and for the Polisario Front.

Finally, the social and territorial challenge: a very ambitious port, mining, and military strategy can create gaps between zones integrated into globalization — Tangier, Casablanca, Dakhla tomorrow — and more fragile peripheries. Morocco’s geostrategic success will therefore also depend on its ability to convert external centrality into internal development.

7. Algeria’s Challenges

Algeria, for its part, faces another type of pressure.

Its first challenge is energy. If domestic consumption continues to rise sharply, it risks reducing its export capacity, and therefore its influence in Europe. The issue of energy subsidies is central here. Reducing them would be economically rational, but politically sensitive. The Algerian social contract rests in part on rent redistribution; any abrupt reform could generate internal tensions.

Its second challenge is industrial. Sonatrach must modernize its infrastructure, reduce flaring, comply with European methane standards, and attract investment without losing strategic control. Algeria has reduced some flaring volumes, but emissions remain a major problem. In 2023, the volume of gas flared is believed to have reached around 8 billion cubic meters, equivalent to a significant share of national production.²⁴ In a context of tighter European regulation, this issue is no longer merely environmental; it becomes commercial and geopolitical.

Its third challenge is geopolitical. Algeria wants to remain non-aligned, but the world is realigning. The more United States–China competition intensifies, the more costly non-alignment becomes. Military relations with Russia, economic relations with China, energy exports to Europe, and the need to maintain dialogue with Washington place Algiers in a position of permanent balancing.

Its fourth challenge is Sahelian. Algiers wants to stabilize without intervening massively. But the weakening of Western mechanisms in the Sahel, the Russian presence, and the fragmentation of neighboring states complicate this posture. If the Sahel becomes durably a space of competition among external powers, armed groups, and fragile states, Algeria may have to revise its doctrine of restraint.

Finally, Algeria faces a challenge of economic transformation. Unlike certain rentier states that have established powerful sovereign wealth funds to invest in European or Asian economies, Algiers has long refused to put in place a comparable instrument of financial projection. This absence limits its capacity to convert energy rent into international industrial influence. Here again, Algeria appears as a reserve power. It possesses resources, but still transforms them insufficiently into diversified geopolitical assets.

8. Risks of Conflict Between Morocco and Algeria?

The main risk is not necessarily a total war. The most probable scenario is a lasting conflictuality below the threshold of open war. This conflictuality can take several forms: border incidents, rhetorical escalations, information warfare, diplomatic competition in Africa, indirect support for non-state actors, an arms race, or economic blockages.

The points of friction are clear:

Western Sahara: this is the hard core. Any diplomatic or military advance by Morocco there is perceived in Algiers as a strategic threat. For Rabat, Western Sahara is the condition of its African and Atlantic projection; for Algiers, it is the place where the regional balance and the limitation of Moroccan power are at stake.

Arms race: Moroccan military integration with the United States and Algerian purchases from Russia fuel a spiral of mistrust. The acquisition of sophisticated systems, naval cooperation, and intelligence capabilities increase the risk of misinterpretation in the event of crisis.

Maghreb-Europe gas pipeline: its closure since 2021 symbolizes the rupture. Its reopening would be economically rational, but politically unlikely in the short term. The infrastructure could theoretically contribute to de-escalation, but it remains hostage to political conflict.

Sahel and Atlantic: Rabat wants to become an African Atlantic hub; Algiers wants to preserve its Sahelian depth. These two ambitions can overlap. Morocco’s African policy is perceived by Algiers as a bypassing of the Maghreb space; Algeria’s Sahel policy is perceived by Rabat as an attempt to preserve an exclusive sphere of influence.

Critical minerals and external influence: the United States sees Morocco as a partner for securing strategic chains; Algeria may see this as a Western extension to its borders. Conversely, Morocco may perceive Algerian-Russian military relations as a direct threat, especially in a context of tensions around the Sahara.

The most serious risk would be a poorly managed crisis around Western Sahara, involving a military incident, drones, limited strikes, or indirect escalation via local actors. Open war would remain costly for both states, but the danger lies precisely in the in-between: a succession of incidents below the threshold of war that could gradually make escalation more likely.

Conclusion

Algeria and Morocco are both central, but not for the same reasons.

Morocco is central because it is a lock: Gibraltar, the Atlantic, phosphates, batteries, American partnership. It embodies a centrality of projection, founded on ports, flows, critical minerals, alliances, and the ability to insert itself into global chains.

Algeria is central because it is a depth: gas, Sahara, Sahel, autonomy, energy and mineral reserves. It embodies a centrality of restraint, founded on territory, resources, sovereignty, and stabilization.

The paradox is that these two centralities are complementary on paper: one logistical and industrial, the other energetic and territorial. But in the current context, they become competitors, because each is built against the other’s strategic perception. Morocco sees in its African and Atlantic projection a way of overcoming the Maghreb deadlock. Algeria sees in it an attempt at encirclement or marginalization. Algeria sees in its autonomy a condition of sovereignty. Morocco may see in it a rigidity that blocks regional integration.

The real question is therefore not merely: who is more powerful? It is rather: which centrality will become the more indispensable to the great powers — that of connected Morocco, or that of autonomous Algeria?

In a fragmented world, the answer is not obvious. Morocco’s connected power can give it speed, but also expose it to external dependencies and pressures. Algeria’s deep power can give it resilience, but also confine it within a form of strategic under-activation. Between projection and depth, the Maghreb therefore does not merely oppose two states; it opposes two models of power.

The PNT team, May 4, 2026.