If the “roots of victory and defeat often have to be sought far from the battlefield,” so, too, must the roots of stalemate.[1] To many, the area that occupies roughly 100,000 square miles on the northwest coast of Africa known as Western Sahara is the continent’s “last colony.”[2,3] To others, it is a rightful piece of Moroccan territory. The United Nations lists Western Sahara as a non-self-governing territory, but the debate over the status of this sparsely populated desert region south of Morocco (or, in Morocco’s south), has remained unresolved since Spain’s withdrawal in 1975.[4] Is Western Sahara part of what has always constituted Greater Morocco, or is it just an extension of “Moroccan manifest destiny?”[5,6] Should one treat the issue as a proxy conflict between Morocco and Algeria, who supports Western Sahara’s main resistance front, or would this diminish the tireless efforts of Sahrawi activists? Is the matter irrelevant to the international sphere because of its relatively few stakeholders, or, as George McGovern writes, is the entire “post-World War II international legal system” at stake?[7] Applying Sir Michael Howard’s width-depth-context framework to the ongoing conflict in Western Sahara reveals that the roots of the dispute’s unresolved nature include a lack of international political will toward mediation, by both institutions and individual actors such as the U.S., and the domestic utility of a nationalistic discourse for the Moroccan state.

Width: The Historical Roots of Conflict

Sir Michael Howard wrote that military historians should study conflicts in terms of their width, depth, and context in order to develop the fullest picture of the “chaotic truth” of the history of warfare.[8] Howard’s historical framework is useful not only for analyzing tactical events in military history, but also for shedding light on the broader political and social conditions of war. Howard conceptualized “width” as a method of taking a long, historical view of the events leading up to conflict.[9]

Spain possessed the region known as Western Sahara, which included the crucial sites of Rio de Oro and Saguia el-Hamra, from the 1880s, and proposed a referendum for the territory’s self-determination in 1974.[10] Anticipating the opportunity presented by the territory’s decolonization, King Hassan of Morocco initiated plans to take over the territory, building on a discourse originated by Moroccan opposition leader Allal al-Fassi that claimed Western Sahara as part of “Greater Morocco.”[11] Hassan had referred the issue of Western Sahara to the International Court of Justice in 1974, which found that although there existed “legal ties of allegiance between the Moroccan sultan and some tribes in the Western Sahara,” these did “not constitute territorial sovereignty.”[12] King Hassan, however, believed selective interpretation of these “ties of allegiance” would provide the international legitimacy to launch the so-called Green March in November 1975.[13]

In unprecedented fashion, King Hassan instigated 350,000 civilians to march into Western Sahara, waving Moroccan flags and swiftly forcing Spain’s hand in giving up its colony.[14] In the years following Spain’s withdrawal, Morocco and Mauritania jostled for control of parts of the territory, fighting against guerrilla elements of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Saguia el-Hamra and Rio de Oro (Polisario), a group supported by the Algerian government.[15] When Mauritania agreed to a cease-fire in 1979 after a coup deposed its leader, Morocco moved into Mauritania’s zone of control, and the fighting continued until the United Nations mediated a cease-fire in 1991.[16] In the thirty years since, attempts to establish a referendum for self-determination have been unsuccessful, and the conflict seems no closer to being resolved than it did in the 1970s.

Depth: Examining the Recent U.S.-Instigated Development

Howard also exhorted students of military history to pursue depth in their studies, encouraging them to look at case studies through a variety of perspectives and sources.[17] The intervention of the United States in the region this past year is a prime example of why such inquiry is critical. November 2020 saw the most serious escalation in aggression between Moroccan forces and Polisario guerrilla elements in nearly 30 years, breaching the U.N.-monitored cease-fire.[18] Yet, in December 2020, the Trump Administration took the unexpected step of recognizing Moroccan sovereignty over the territory—the first country in the world to explicitly do so.[19]

This move was widely viewed as a quid pro quo for Morocco’s U.S.-brokered normalization deal with Israel in the same month.[20] Several scholars have undertaken comparative studies of Israeli and Moroccan occupation, and Palestinian and Sahrawi “activists have long linked the two people’s struggles.”[21] But the actions of the U.S.—namely, recognizing Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara at the same time as mediating a normalization deal between Morocco and Israel—interlink these struggles not only symbolically, but practically. While the Biden Administration has made significant changes to other aspects of U.S. foreign policy, the policy toward the Western Sahara conflict is anchored by strong American domestic support for Israel.[22]

The U.S. policy constitutes a major victory for the Moroccan government, which is now able to promote the legitimacy afforded by U.S. recognition both domestically and on the international stage. The significance of American recognition of Moroccan sovereignty in the Western Sahara was largely lost on an American public ignorant of the territory’s history. Thus, the U.S. was able to reap some benefit from its involvement in the unprecedented normalization deal between Israel and an Arab nation. Yet, the U. S. was hardly the first or most prominent international actor to contribute to the unresolved conflict in Western Sahara.

The United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) continues to fail in its fundamental mission thirty years on from its creation, and it is the only U.N. peacekeeping operation established since 1978 “without a mandate to monitor human rights.”[23] On Algerian support for the Polisario, John Damis argues that if Algeria had “remained passive and neutral in the dispute…there is little question that the Sahara issue would have soon receded from international attention.”[24] Yet to properly apply Sir Michael Howard’s framework of historical analysis, one must inquire further, looking inward to the social, political, and cultural contexts of the conflict itself.

Context: A Closer Look at Domestic Strategic Calculations

Howard wrote that “[w]ars are not tactical exercises writ large.” Rather, he believed that wars are “conflicts of societies, and they can be fully understood only if one understands the nature of the society fighting them.”[25] To understand the conflict in Western Sahara, we must examine domestic conditions on both sides of the dispute. Howard may as well have been writing about the Moroccan state’s attitudes toward Western Sahara when he wrote about the prevalence of “myth-making” among nationalist historians who “[write] with a definite didactic purpose, to awaken emotions of patriotism and loyalty.”[26]

One of the main reasons for the conflict’s endurance has been the utility of its rally-around-the-flag effect. Indeed, it appears that the late King Hassan’s investment in the Western Sahara issue, “far and away the most important concern of the Kingdom’s foreign policy since 1974,” has paid off.[27] Opposition parties are united in their treatment of the territory as part of Morocco, citizens across the nation commemorate the Green March every year, and the state promotes tourism and development in the region.[28] The nationalist value of Western Sahara seems high enough to the monarchy to solidify its centrality in the Moroccan political discourse.

Nearly fifty years on from the so-called Green March, however, Moroccans are removed from the immediate nationalistic fervour of the conflict’s early years. Economic factors may weigh even more heavily on the monarchy than nationalism. While actual figures are difficult to obtain, the Moroccan state has spent heavily on the conflict, including the cost of the active war in the 1970s and 1980s, of constructing a massive sand berm across the whole of the territory, and of investing in the part of the territory it occupies.[29]

Yet, the financial costs of the Green March pale in comparison to the human toll. Among the affected populations, approximately 10,000 people were killed before the ceasefire. Another 200,000 have been displaced.[30] It is easy to see why a referendum for self-determination, in which Morocco risks losing the territory, poses such a threat to the monarchy. As Damis observed, the “loss of the Sahara...would unleash pressures from various sectors of Moroccan society, including the military, that the monarchy would be hard-pressed to contain.”[31]

Conclusion

There are myriad reasons for the protracted nature of the dispute for Western Sahara. The Western Sahara’s utility as a nationalist tool since 1975 gives the Moroccan monarchy virtually no choice but to maintain its historical discourse. Other parties in the international community have not contributed to any prospect of resolution. The U.N. has failed to complete its mission to hold a referendum, Algeria continues to support the Polisario to maintain the regional balance of power, and major powers like the U. S. have put the expediency of their own priorities over neutrality or balanced mediation. One of the most frustrating aspects of the conflict’s international dimension to Sahrawis is its continued low profile. Sahrawis refer to the defensive sand berm across the territory as the “Wall of Shame.” How, might they ask, can they express the humiliation they have suffered when the rest of the world questions the value of their land as “just a bunch of sand?”

Juliet O’Brien is an officer in the U.S. Navy and a graduate student at the University of Oxford. The views expressed are the author’s alone and do not reflect those of the U.S. Navy, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.

The Strategy Bridge is read, respected, and referenced across the worldwide national security community—in conversation, education, and professional and academic discourse.

Thank you for being a part of the The Strategy Bridge community. Together, we can #BuildTheBridge.

Header Image: Morocco-Western Sahara Border Map, Date Unknown (US Department of State).

Notes:

[1] Michael Howard, "The Use and Abuse of History," Parameters 11, no. 1 (1981), 14, https://press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters/vol11/iss1/16

[2] Encyclopaedia Britannica Online, "Western Sahara," https://www.britannica.com/place/Western-Sahara (accessed January 21, 2021).

[3] Graham H. Cornwell, “Africa’s Last Colony,” Foreign Affairs, June 12, 2016, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/algeria/2016-06-12/africas-last-colony.

[4] “Non-Self-Governing Territories,” United Nations, accessed September 23, 2021, https://www.un.org/dppa/decolonization/en/nsgt.

[5] Osama Abi-Mershed and Adam Farrar, “Chapter 1: A History of the Conflict in Western Sahara,” in Perspectives on Western Sahara: Myths, Nationalisms, and Geopolitics, edited by Anouar Boukhars and Jacque Roussellier, (Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2013).

[6] I. William Zartman, “Chapter 3: Moroccan Saharan Policy,” in Perspectives on Western Sahara: Myths, Nationalisms, and Geopolitics, edited by Anouar Boukhars and Jacque Roussellier, (Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2013).

[7] George McGovern in “Introduction,” in Western Sahara: War, Nationalism and Conflict Resolution, edited by Stephen Zunes and Jacob Mundy, (Syracuse University Press, 2010), xiv.

[8] Howard, 12-13.

[9] Howard, 13.

[10] Abi-Mershed and Farrar; John Damis, “The Impact of the Saharan Dispute on Moroccan Foreign and Domestic Policy,” in The Political Economy of Morocco, ed. I. William Zartman (New York: Praeger, 1987), 190.

[11] Ibid.; Abi-Mershed and Farrar.

[12] John Damis, “King Hassan and the Western Sahara,” The Maghreb Review 25, no. 1-2 (2000): 17.

[13] Ibid.

[14] Stephen O. Hughes, “Chapter 26: The Green March,” Morocco under King Hassan, (Ithaca Press: Reading, 2001), 231.

[15] Damis, “The Impact of the Saharan Dispute on Moroccan Foreign and Domestic Policy,” 190.

[16] Damis, “King Hassan and the Western Sahara,” 19, 27.

[17] Howard, 13.

[18] Abdi Latif Dahir, “Western Sahara Independence Group Ends Truce With Morocco,” New York Times, November 14, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/14/world/middleeast/western-sahara-morocco-polisario.html.

[19] Jillian Kestler-D’Amours, “US recognized Morocco’s claim to Western Sahara. Now what?” Al Jazeera, December 11, 2020, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/12/11/us-recognised-moroccos-claim-to-western-sahara-now-what.

[20] Ibid.

[21] Alex MacDonald, “Israel-Morocco deal: Palestinians and Sahrawis hope for renewed solidarity,” Middle East Eye, December 13, 2020, https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-morocco-deal-palestine-western-sahara-solidarity.

[22] Joseph Stepansky, “Why Biden’s Western Sahara policy remains under review,” Al Jazeera, June 13, 2021, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/6/13/why-biden-administration-and-western-sahara.

[23] “Written evidence submitted by Western Sahara Campaign UK,” UK Parliament Publications, March 22, 2010, https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmselect/cmfaff/memo/human/m22002.htm.

[24] Damis, “The Impact of the Saharan Dispute on Moroccan Foreign and Domestic Policy,” 193.

[25] Ibid.

[26] Howard, 9-10.

[27] Ibid, 199.

[28] Yasmina Abouzzohour, “Morocco’s partial normalization with Israel comes with risks and gains,” Brookings, December 14, 2020, https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2020/12/14/moroccos-partial-normalization-with-israel-comes-with-risks-and-gains/.

[29] International Crisis Group, “Western Sahara: The Cost of the Conflict,” International Crisis Group, June 11, 2007, https://www.crisisgroup.org/middle-east-north-africa/north-africa/western-sahara/western-sahara-cost-conflict.

[30] “Morocco/Western Sahara (1976-present),” University of Central Arkansas, accessed June 20, 2021, https://uca.edu/politicalscience/dadm-project/middle-eastnorth-africapersian-gulf-region/moroccopolisario-front-1976-present/.

[31] Damis, “The Impact of the Saharan Dispute on Moroccan Foreign and Domestic Policy,” 210.