ABSTRACT

The eastern Mediterranean and its adjoining regions – especially the Persian Gulf – contain a sizable number of flashpoints and the security environment remains ‘Hobbesian’. Although the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the future of Iraq and the Iranian nuclear programme, as well as the Syrian crisis and continued instability in Yemen remain the most important regional security concerns, the wider Mediterranean security environment is predominantly characterized by multiple sources of insecurity, fluidity and instability, and by continuing change and evolution.1 The Arab revolts have already caused an exponential increase in the region’s volatility and unpredictability. In this context, several of the key characteristics of the regional security environment have either changed in terms of importance or are no longer relevant and new ones have emerged, including:

(a) the emergence of new or the qualitative transformation of existing functional challenges (substantial imbalances in the distribution of income at the national level, demographic changes and population movements, the emergence and growing influence – at least in some countries – of Islamic parties and political movements, Islamic terrorism and climate change);

(b) the appearance of new (China and India) or the return of old (Russia) extraregional actors in the Mediterranean, and the emergence of regional powers with increasing influence (Turkey and Iran);

(c) the declining influence and impact of the EU’s soft power and the gradual withdrawal of the USA from the Mediterranean;

(d) the increasingly – although unequally – felt impact of globalization to a region that, with few exceptions, has not benefited greatly by this trend. At the same time, however, more ‘old’ regional conflicts remain unresolved (the Israeli-Palestinian/Arab conflict, the Kurdish issue and the Cyprus problem), while new ones have appeared, such as Iran’s nuclear programme, Iraq’s future after the gradual withdrawal of US forces and the rather unstable domestic situation in several Arab countries.