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Making Sense of Europe’s Southern Neighbourhood: Main Geopolitical and Security Parameters

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Europe’s southern neighbourhood is a diverse but interlinked geopolitical ensemble, whose specificities need to be carefully assessed before Europeans devise dedicated security strategies, divide responsibilities and make policy decisions.

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This exercise in geopolitical scoping seeks to make sense of the main security challenges present in Europe’s broader European neighbourhood, a space encompassing areas as diverse as the Gulf of Guinea, the Sahel, North Africa, the Levant and the Persian Gulf. It identifies (some of) the main sub-regions that make up the ‘South’, offers an overview of the threat environment in each of them and identifies relevant differences as well as common themes. In doing so we aim to provide a conceptual referent for further policy research on the security of Europe’s ‘South’, and to help inform future strategic and policy discussions within the EU, NATO and their Member States.

Published in partnership with the Elcano Royal Institute.

 

 

 

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Making Sense of Europe’s Southern Neighbourhood: Main Geopolitical and Security Parameters

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Vivien PERTUSOT

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 A soldier watching a sunset on an armored infantry fighting vehicle
Security Studies Center
Accroche centre

Heir to a tradition dating back to the founding of Ifri, the Security Studies Center provides public and private decision-makers as well as the general public with the keys to understanding power relations and contemporary modes of conflict as well as those to come. Through its positioning at the juncture of politics and operations, the credibility of its civil-military team and the wide distribution of its publications in French and English, the Center for Security Studies constitutes in the French landscape of think tanks a unique center of research and influence on the national and international defense debate.

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The Future of Air Superiority. Command of the Air in High Intensity Warfare

Date de publication
24 January 2025
Accroche

Air superiority, understood as control of the air, is a cornerstone of the Western art of warfare. It is a decisive condition, albeit not sufficient by itself, to achieve military victory, as it enables the concentration of air power toward the achievement of wider strategic objectives and protects other components from unbearable attrition levels. It is best achieved through the offensive use of air power in a joint effort to neutralize the enemy’s air power.

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Europe Uncovered?

Date de publication
09 September 2025
Accroche

As Russia continues to threaten Europe, the Trump administration is making no secret of its desire to withdraw—at least partially—from the defense of the Old
Continent in order to focus on strategic competition with China. It is thus putting pressure on its European allies to increase their investment in the military sector. The NATO Summit in The Hague in June 2025 resulted in ambitious commitments by member states to increase their defense spending.

Élie TENENBAUM Guillaume GARNIER
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How should Britain and France cooperate to realise the Northwood Declaration?

Date de publication
18 July 2025
Accroche

During his state visit to the United Kingdom (UK) last week, Emmanuel Macron, President of France, signed a joint declaration with Sir Keir Starmer, Prime Minister, on nuclear cooperation between Britain and France. The Northwood Declaration highlights that while both countries’ nuclear arsenals remain sovereign, cooperation on nuclear deterrence can ‘contribute significantly’ to the security of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and the Euro-Atlantic region.

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The Evolving Role of Nuclear Rhetoric in Iran’s Strategic Calculus

Date de publication
03 July 2025
Accroche

How has the Iranian strategic discourse about nuclear weapons and deterrence evolved? 

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Making Sense of Europe’s Southern Neighbourhood: Main Geopolitical and Security Parameters