Algeria Boosts Military Spending Amid Tensions with Morocco

"Despite a double-digit unemployment rate, Algeria has allocated a military budget of $25 billion for 2025. This choice reflects the regime’s determination to display its strategic stature, especially since the rise in hydrocarbon revenues, fueled by the effects of the war in Ukraine, has given it an unprecedented budgetary leeway," comments Pierre Boussel, journalist and associate researcher at the Fondation pour la recherche stratégique, in an article published by GIS Reports. Its main suppliers are Russia and China.

This rise in power is largely motivated by its rivalry with Morocco. "Algeria is adopting a martial tone with Morocco, but it remains aware of the limits of a confrontation with a power allied to NATO," Boussel estimates. The weight of the generations at the head of the state forces it to do so. "At 79, the Chief of Staff, General Chengriha, and President Tebboune, whose health remains fragile, do not seem inclined to trigger an open conflict. Especially since public opinion would not support such an engagement, the outcome of which would be uncertain."

The Sahara issue remains one of the points of friction between Morocco and Algeria, which unilaterally broke off diplomatic relations with its neighbor on August 24, 2021. "While an open war between the two neighbors remains unlikely, the sporadic clashes between Moroccan forces and Polisario fighters justify, in the eyes of Algiers, the maintenance of an offensive military posture," concludes the French journalist.