ANKARA — NATO adopted no new measures concerning its southern neighborhood at the 2025 Hague summit. This followed the adoption of the Southern Neighborhood Action Plan (SNAP) at the 2024 Washington summit.

A NATO expert group report concluded in 2024 that threats and challenges in NATO's southern neighborhoods matter to Allied security and to NATO partners. The communiqué following NATO's 2023 Vilnius summit defined the southern neighborhood as the Middle East, North Africa, and the Sahel region. At that summit, NATO allies agreed that security, demographic, economic, and political challenges in the southern neighborhood provided a fertile environment for terrorism, human trafficking, and irregular migration.

Cooperative security is one of NATO's three core tasks as described in the 2022 Strategic Concept. The 2026 National Defense Strategy states that U.S. efforts and resources are best focused on Europe regarding European allies. It argues that European allies can make the greatest difference for transatlantic security in Europe given increasing U.S. focus on the Indo-Pacific and Western Hemisphere.

Javier Colomina was appointed as the NATO special representative for the southern neighborhood. In May 2025, Colomina brought together 90 participants from NATO allies and North African and Middle Eastern partners for the first Southern Neighborhood Security Dialogue in Naples. Operation Sea Guardian has contributed to maritime situational awareness in the Mediterranean since 2016, supported maritime counterterrorism activities, and helped NATO partners build their maritime security capacity. NATO also maintains a training mission in Iraq.

Southern allies have committed to spend 3.5 percent of their gross domestic product on defense. The 2022 Strategic Concept labels terrorism the most direct asymmetric threat to the security of citizens. Turkey hosted a NATO summit in 2004, which resulted in the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative with four new Gulf partners for NATO.