Is Algeria ready to jump on the NATO bandwagon?

Algeria is undergoing a radical change in its political conception, ideology and international alliance strategy. The postponement of President Abdelmadjid Tebboune's state visit to Moscow without a fixed date, and the visit of Chief of Army Staff General Said Chengriha to France, conceal a profound transformation in Algeria's agenda.

Heir to a revolutionary anti-colonial past, a tenacious anti-imperialism and a nationalism that sheltered "national liberation" movements and other more revolutionary and Marxist movements in Asia, Africa and Latin America, today it is turning towards a pragmatic state, open to alliances and agreements with the tenors of world capitalism (mainly the United States and Europe), in defence of its interests as a country and those of the political-military caste in power. 

The roots of this historical change can be summed up in two: its absolute dependence on the export of hydrocarbons as a source of its financial assets; and its wealth-buying market of more than 80% in the OECD countries (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development), headed by the United States, France, Italy, Germany and Japan. Spain was in the leading pack, but lost it after the cooling of a year ago.

For more than half a century, since independence in 1962, Algeria has presented an ambiguity between its economic and financial ties with Europe and the US, and its political and military relations with first the USSR, then Russia, and China. The military leadership, which controls the armed forces and the intelligence and security services, seems to have come to the conclusion that Russia is not a winning horse, as its mired war in Ukraine proves. This has led the Algerian General Staff to reorient its relations with France and the US away from Russia and China. However, this will be a process that will take years. Changing the structure of weapons, their composition, logistics and deployment cannot be done in a day. But the conclusion is firm.

Algeria's Chief of Staff, General Chengriha, has travelled to Paris, where he is holding meetings at the highest level, including with President Enmanuel Macron, to engage Algeria with its former coloniser. Will France sell offensive weapons to Algeria? Fighter planes like the Rafale? AMX armoured vehicles? "Crotale" and "Aster" rockets? Franco-Italian-made SAMP-T anti-aircraft defence? Algiers' "privileged relations" with Rome suggest so.

This is a historic change, but one that has its precedents. The closest precedent is the hospitalisation of the late President Abdelaziz Bouteflika in Paris at the Val de Grâce military clinic, and his meetings with the then Chief of Staff General Ahmed Gaid Salah in a room in the military compound, plagued by microphones and video cameras, according to specialists. What Bouteflika and Gaid Salah discussed could only be favourable to the state interests of the former colonial power. 

The question of the cancellation or postponement of President Tebboune's visit to Moscow and his meeting with President Vladimir Putin raises many questions. Algiers does not want to give a "friendly embrace" to a president considered to be the West's "number one enemy" at the moment. Tebboune would not benefit from it. Russia is not only Algeria's rival in oil and gas supplies, but it does not provide any political benefits. The Algerian president does not want to go to the Kremlin, not because the US demands it - Algeria has never and will never accept directives from any foreign head of state, neither France nor the US - but because it undermines his aspirations for regional leadership. Algeria wants to play the role of a second-tier power in the Western Mediterranean and the Maghreb, and extend its protective umbrella to the Sahel, Mali, Mauritania and Niger in particular. Moscow does not help, France does. 

Internally, however, this historic shift in orientation and alliances will have consequences. The opening of socialist or socialising countries to neo-liberal capitalism began in the 90s of the 20th century, on the basis of political movements vassal to Washington, in Georgia and the Balkans, in the Baltic countries and in some of the former Soviet republics of Europe and Central Asia. Only one country, Egypt, was able to return to neoliberalism with the help of the army, which staged a coup against the Muslim Brotherhood, the legitimate winners of the elections after the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak in 2011, who were moving towards a communitarian and socialising economy. Algeria is doing the same today: the army intends to show its neoliberal cards, and to ally itself with the armies of Europe and the US, mainly France, in a word with NATO. 

To quell possible internal revolts in the country, the military-political regime does not hesitate to resort to curtailing freedoms, arresting the director of Radio M, Ihsane el Kadi, and dissolving the Algerian League for the Defence of Human Rights (LAADH), one of the oldest and most prestigious organisations defending freedoms, to the extent that political parties such as the Front of Socialist Forces and Bouteflika's Former Minister Abdelaziz Rahabi, among others, denounce "a worrying regression in freedoms". The military caste wants to prevent a revival of the Hirak movement, which kept citizens protesting for more than two years by mobilising millions of Algerians on the streets.

Entering fully into neoliberal capitalism and allying with the army of the former colonising power requires firmness, thinks the Algerian military establishment, which no longer has anything to do with the Liberation Army that won independence in 1962, nor with the armed forces of proactive non-alignment, which gained their prestige in the 60s and 70s of the last century. Support for Palestine and Western Sahara are just two decoys to divert attention from what is really going on in Algeria.