226 Journal of the Spanish Institute for Strategic Studies Núm. 13 / 2019 the policy of balance of power would be the only useful way of explaining security in the region by preventing one power from holding sway over the other. Figure 3. Source: Prepared with SIPRI Data, Trend Indicator Value The balance of power between Morocco and Algeria, the only two states with the potential to become leaders in the Maghreb, constitutes the normal state of the re-gional security system and is based on the following two propositions: firstly, both Morocco and Algeria are players acting within a security margin whose minimum is self-preservation and whose maximum is to achieve regional domination. Secondly, both states endeavour to achieve the objectives they pursue by all possible means. These objectives fall into two categories: internal efforts to increase their economic capacity and military power and develop sound security strategies, as well as external efforts to strengthen and extend their own alliances and territorial dominance, or to diminish and reduce those of its adversary. If the balance is broken and one of them appears as an eventual winner (as occurred, for example, during Morocco’s invasion of the Western Sahara in 1976), the imbal-ance is compensated by the damaged state intensifying its efforts to reestablish it (for example, on Algeria’s side by supporting the Polisario Front), all without the need for a superior agent that favours, or prevents any of them from using all the instruments of national power at their disposal to achieve their aims for or against re-establishing the equilibrium. Both powers, Morocco and Algeria, have a vested interest in winning against each other because this makes them dominant and neither has an interest in the other winning, which favours equilibrium. Having equivalent national powers, both un- Revista del Instituto Español de Estudios Estratégicos n.º 13 - Año: 2019 - Págs.: 213 a 242
Revista_IEEE_13
To see the actual publication please follow the link above