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SUMMARY
At a crucial crossroads between Africa and Europe, the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, and the "Arab World" and the West, Morocco has long had a special place in U.S. diplomacy and strategic planning. Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Morocco's importance to the United States has only risen, and the more recent uncertainties of the Arab Spring and Islamist extremism in Africa have further increased the strategic value and operational relevance of the Moroccan-American alliance. Yet, one of the pillars of the legitimacy of the Moroccan monarchy, its claim to Western Sahara, remains a point of violent contention. Since the Spanish withdrawal and subsequent occupation of the territory by Morocco in 1975, the United States has poured many millions of dollars in materiel, training, and intelligence into the Moroccan armed forces. But the latter has failed to inflict a decisive defeat on the Polisario Front, the Western Saharan organization whose goal is full independence for Western Sahara.
This Chapter provides an historical analysis of the conflict in Western Sahara, stressing developments of relevance to the U.S. Army and to American and regional strategic interests since Morocco's independence in 1956. Points of emphasis include evolving human and physical geography; the role of the United States, Algeria, and other outside powers in the conflict; and military tactics, operations, and strategies. The Chapter also analyzes the current situation in the region and makes recommendations for U.S. policy and military planning.
Host to valuable natural resources and the largest functioning military barrier in the world, the Western Sahara has seen intifada-style resistance to Moroccan occupation since the mid-1990s. Communications and coordination between the pro-independence Polisario sympathizers in the "liberated" and "occupied" territories and in refugee camps in Algeria-facilitated in no small part by the Internet-have also increased, especially among the increasingly radicalized Sahrawi youth, who appear to have lost faith in the Polisario leadership even as they continue to embrace its basic anti-Moroccan outlook. In the meantime, terrorist and criminal elements threaten to infiltrate the territory and the camps in Algeria.
One cannot understand the Polisario insurgency's socio-cultural roots, military achievements, or the reason why both sides eventually settled on a ceasefire without a good grasp of Western Saharan physical and human geography, neither...