ABSTRACT
One would not have a clear picture of events in and around the Mediterranean in the Cold War period, however, by exclusively analyzing processes and outcomes through an East-West prism. Indeed, for NATO members Spain and Portugal, for example, the Soviet threat was a distant one. The states of NATO’s Southern Region-namely, France, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain, and Turkey-were watchful of developments in countries to their immediate south and east. There were tensions in northsouth relations that the Soviet Union was not always able to exploit. As already noted, these tensions would result in NATO eventually launching its Mediterranean Initiative. And, as in the post-Cold War period, there were also problems between non-NATO states south and east of the Mediterranean, of which the Arab-Israeli conflict received most attention. Chapters 4 and 5 will examine these south-south issues and provide an overview of the political, economic, and social problems of North Africa
and the Middle East. In the Cold War period there were also differences of opinion among NATO allies concerning how to respond to conflicts and crisis situations in and around the Mediterranean. These intra-alliance divisions arguably still exist today, as south-south and north-south issues have assumed more prominence in their own right after the ending of East-West tensions.
