Russia’s Southern Strategy: Cheap, Opportunistic, and Effective

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Russia is expanding its footprint across the south because the strategy is simple, inexpensive, and tactically sound. Through the Africa Corps—the successor to the Wagner Group—Moscow has entrenched itself in Libya, Mali, Sudan, and Burkina Faso. The trade is transactional and effective: Russia provides regime protection in exchange for access to ports, airfields, and mineral resources.

The war in Ukraine has not slowed this push; it has redirected it. While Turkey’s 2022 closure of the straits to Russian warships curtailed Moscow’s ability to project naval power from the Black Sea into the Mediterranean, Russia has compensated by doubling down on influence operations in Africa. These operations often step into governance vacuums left by Western disengagement or political risk aversion.

The result is a widening arc of Russian leverage across NATO’s southern flank that increasingly complicates the Alliance’s freedom of action in the Mediterranean.

NATO’s Structural Weakness: Chronic Underinvestment

NATO’s most persistent vulnerability is its historical underinvestment in the south. For two decades, the region has been overshadowed—first by out-of-area campaigns and more recently by Russia’s assault on Ukraine. Consequently, money, attention, and political capital have flowed overwhelmingly to the eastern flank.

What remains is a scattershot collection of initiatives—including the Mediterranean Dialogue, the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative, and a handful of African partnerships—that fail to form a coherent strategy. As multiple internal Allied reviews have noted, the Alliance lacks a structured, long-term approach to the southern neighborhood, relying instead on a loose, reactive assembly of programs.

Furthermore, the "southern neighborhood" is not a monolith. It comprises diverse nations across North Africa, the Middle East, and the Sahel, each with distinct political dynamics and security demands. A one-size-fits-all model has consistently failed.

Photo from Robert Lansing Institute for Global Threats and Democracies Studies

The False Choice: East vs. South

Some Allies warn that focusing on the south risks diluting NATO’s deterrence posture in the east. This argument collapses under scrutiny because the threats are deeply interconnected.

Russian influence in Africa bolsters Moscow’s leverage in Europe; instability in the Middle East fuels political polarization within Allied capitals; and the weaponization of migration and terrorism reshapes domestic politics in ways our adversaries are eager to exploit. NATO’s security is either 360 degrees, or it is not security at all.

Türkiye’s growing influence inside the Alliance underscores this reality. Its geography, military weight, and regional reach make it indispensable to any credible southern strategy. A functional plan must center on Ankara; after all, Türkiye’s southern border accounts for over 1,300 kilometers of the Alliance’s territory.

What NATO Must Do Now

A credible southern strategy requires more than rhetorical commitment. It demands:

A Unified Framework: Replacing today’s fragmented approach with a singular political strategy for North Africa, the Middle East, and the Sahel.

Sustained Investment: Shifting from crisis-driven funding to consistent investment in maritime presence, intelligence sharing, and counterterrorism capacity-building.

Strategic Coordination: Deepening institutional ties with the EU, the African Union, and Gulf partners, recognizing that NATO cannot manage these challenges in a vacuum.

Realistic Engagement: Adopting a clear-eyed approach to Russia’s footprint, countering malign influence without drifting into open-ended, unsustainable commitments.

These are not merely aspirational goals. They are the minimum requirements to prevent the south from becoming NATO’s next strategic surprise.

Disclaimer. The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the United States Government, Department of the Army, or Department of War, or that of any organization the author has been affiliated with, including the NATO.