ABSTRACT
Algeria’s Maghrebi policy has been to develop a pattern of friendly bilateral relations with its neighbours as an alternative preferable to predetermined hostilities and more realistic than regional unification. It should be recognised that Maghrebi states stand in different relation to the Mediterranean. The Sea can also be a battlefield among Maghrebi states. Algeria, Tunisi and Libya are Mediterranean states: All their ports are on the Sea, and all their commerce in the broadest sense must be Mediterranean before it becomes anything else. The most obvious potential source of conflict between any states is found in their boundaries. If boundary disputes refer to the shell of the state, national consolidation as a source of conflict refers to the internal composition within that shell. A source of regional conflict, again related to the previous factors, is the checkerboard pattern of relations characteristic of North Africa.
