The Renaissance of Mediterranean Security?
The Mediterranean is center stage for the gray area of security environments that are neither strictly European nor Middle Eastern.
By Ian O. Lesser
For
much of "modern" history, the Mediterranean has been at the center not
only of European affairs, but of international affairs generally: It
was, after all, where the political, economic and military fate of European
and Middle Eastern societies was shaped. Over the last decades, many
observers have been critical of the Cold War tendency to relegate Mediterranean
affairs to the periphery in security terms. This Cold War marginalization
was real enough, but it also obscured the fact that the Mediterranean
has, with a few exceptional periods, been declining steadily in geopolitical
importance since the 15th century. Against this historical background,
the Cold War contributed a further measure of political and strategic
marginalization. Despite the role of events in the eastern Mediterranean
in setting in train the Cold War policy of containment, from 1945 through
the end of the 1980s the strategic center of gravity for East and West
lay elsewhere.
Yet
over the last few years, debate about Mediterranean security concerns
has intensified, and the European Union's Barcelona Process and NATO's
Mediterranean Dialogue have given these discussions a more substantive
character. Renewed Israeli-Palestinian conflict, an economic crisis
in Turkey, continued instability in Algeria and a changing transatlantic
relationship are affecting the strategic environment in important ways.
Are
we witnessing a belated post-Cold War renaissance in the strategic importance
of the Mediterranean -- a movement from the center to the periphery
and back again? In grand historic terms, there is little to suggest
that this is the case. The leading centers of international power and
potential are elsewhere; there are no real candidates for "superpower"
status around the Mediterranean, with the possible exception of the
European Union itself.
But
power and potential are not the only measures of importance, and a good
case can be made that the renaissance of the Mediterranean in security
terms will be based on its growing importance in the strategic calculus
of Europe, the United States and Middle East. The growing interdependence
of traditionally separate security environments -- a result of political
spillovers, economic interaction and the expanded reach of modern military
and information systems -- is producing a significant gray area of problems
that are neither strictly European nor Middle Eastern. The Mediterranean
is at the center of this phenomenon.
Many
developments could derail the trend toward greater interest in the Mediterranean
over the next decade, including the rise of new tensions with Russia
and insecurity in Eurasia, not to mention adverse developments farther
afield. For the moment, however, Mediterranean issues are taking a more
prominent place in security debates -- and are imposing new intellectual
and policy challenges on both sides of the Atlantic and on both shores
of the Mediterranean.
The
Internal Dimension
For
many societies around the Mediterranean, security continues to be, above
all, a matter of internal security, and many foreign and security policy
questions derive importance from their ability to affect the stability
of existing regimes. Along the Mediterranean's southern and eastern
shores, political futures remain unresolved and many regimes are facing
significant challenges to their legitimacy. The ongoing turmoil in Algeria
provides the most dramatic example of internal insecurity and violent
opposition to the political order. Whether the Algerian regime succeeds
or fails in containing the Islamist and Berber challenges, the Algerian
experience is likely to have a profound effect on the security of North
Africa as a whole, as well as on the overall perception of risk from
the south in Mediterranean Europe. It has also spurred attention to
the Mediterranean within both the E.U. and NATO.
The
problem of political legitimacy and internal stability is closely tied
to demographic and economic trends across the region. The dilemmas posed
by expanding and younger populations coupled with slow economic growth
have been widely discussed. From Morocco to Turkey, attempts at economic
reform and the emergence of a more dynamic private sector have widened
the gap between haves and have-nots, with potentially destabilizing
consequences. Reforms aimed at promoting longer-term prosperity and
encouraging foreign investment may well reinforce stability over that
longer term, but the shorter-term political risks are substantial, especially
where dissatisfaction with the existing political order is already widespread.
Rising expectations will be difficult to meet and can prove a powerful
source of political change where the established political class proves
incapable of promoting a more equitable distribution of wealth and opportunity.
In the eastern Mediterranean, Turkey's Islamists and, more recently,
nationalists have benefited from popular dissatisfaction with the political
and economic order -- a reality underscored by the country's current
economic travails.
These
political and economic stresses are compounded by the relentless urbanization
affecting virtually all Mediterranean societies. The southern and eastern
shores of the Mediterranean are among the most highly urbanized areas
in the world, and cities such as Istanbul and Cairo have experienced
extraordinary rates of growth over the last few decades. Urbanization
has shaken traditional patterns of behavior and placed enormous new
demands on already hard-pressed governments. The inability of governments
to meet the needs of urban populations has led to an increasing tendency
of urban citizens to organize their lives without reference to the state,
and has provided an opening to political movements with effective municipal
organizations. In security terms, continued urbanization suggests an
environment in which cities will be the focal point for instability,
opposition and political rivalries, both violent and non-violent. If
"security" across much of the Mediterranean is about internal security,
then cities will be the focus of insecurity within societies where insecurity
is pervasive.
Societies
on both sides of the Mediterranean share a growing perception of declining
personal security. In places as diverse as Algeria, the Balkans and
southeastern Anatolia, the threats to personal security are direct and
obvious. In Israel, the election of Ariel Sharon can be regarded less
as a referendum on the peace process than on the question of personal
security. In southern Europe -- and, indeed, in Europe as a whole --
the concern about spillovers of political violence from crises across
the Mediterranean compels the attention of political leadership and
public opinion because terrorist risks can (and do) strike at personal
security as well as at the security of the state. In France and Italy,
right-wing movements have used the personal security issue (crime, terrorism,
drug trafficking), in addition to economic and "identity" arguments,
in support of their views on immigration policy.
The
information revolution is also a factor in the Mediterranean security
environment. First, the growing ease of telecommunications is likely
to bolster the power and flexibility of opposition movements, both violent
and non-violent, within Mediterranean states and in "exile," with implications
for the stability of many regimes in North Africa and the Levant. Second,
it will facilitate the growth of networks, including terrorist and criminal
networks. As a consequence, the potential for spillovers of political
violence (e.g., Algerian Armed Islamic Group terrorism in France, Kurdistan
Workers' Party fundraising and violence in Germany) will increase, and
the decentralized and freelance behavior of "networked" groups will
be difficult to both monitor and counter. Even the more benign aspects
of globalization may pose serious challenges to southern Mediterranean
states, such as Turkey and Egypt, with traditions of strong state control
and rigid ideas about sovereignty.
The
pressures for political and economic change in Mediterranean societies
will be accommodated in different ways and with different degrees of
success. Given the experience of Algeria and the lower-level crises
ongoing elsewhere from the Western Sahara to the Caucasus, however,
it is reasonable to expect that the future Mediterranean security environment
will be characterized by multiple instances of turmoil within societies,
with the attendant risk of spillovers. Whether demographic pressures
and internal instability lead to the pattern of chaotic violence and
failed states characterized by Robert Kaplan as "the coming anarchy,"
the Mediterranean basin certainly includes a number of societies where
outcomes along these lines are possible.
The
Regional Dimension
The
combination of internal political change and the continuing effects
of the loss of Cold War moorings will have significant consequences
for the strategic environment around the Mediterranean and within key
sub-regions. Over the last decade, it has become fashionable to see
political Islam as a key driver of internal and external security challenges.
Islam is indeed likely to be a continuing force in the political evolution
of many states in the region, as well as a factor in foreign and security
policy behavior. But it would be unwise to dismiss the power of nationalism
as a critical factor in the Mediterranean environment. As an example,
the Turkish approach to regional policy, as well as to relations with
the United States and Europe, will be strongly influenced by such impulses.
If the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla emerge as a flash point
in Spanish-Moroccan relations in the future, the driving force is likely
to be Moroccan nationalism. Egyptian nationalism will inevitably be
a significant force behind Cairo's attitude toward issues affecting
the Mediterranean and the Middle East as a whole. Similarly, successive
crises in the Balkans underline the destructive power of frustrated
or unchecked nationalism on the Mediterranean's northern side.
Much
discussion about the emerging strategic environment in the Mediterranean
and the Middle East focuses on "soft" and unconventional risks. This
should not obscure the continuing problem of the conventional defense
of borders and the preservation of the territorial status quo. The Mediterranean
provides some important cases where conventional clashes over territory
and resources are possible. Prominent examples include the Western Sahara,
Spain-Morocco (over the enclaves), Morocco-Algeria, Libya-Tunisia, Egypt-Sudan,
Israel-Syria/the West Bank/Gaza, Greece-Turkey and Turkey-Syria. Quite
apart from the important potential for cooperation on counter-terrorism
and non-proliferation, the Mediterranean is a place where future demands
for conventional peacekeeping, confidence-building measures and security
guarantees are likely to be high.
The
end of Cold War alignments and the changing character of the Arab-Israeli
dispute have opened the way for new security relationships. Examples
of this new fluidity in regional geopolitics include the emergence of
substantial Turkish-Israeli strategic cooperation and the inclination
of smaller Arab states, especially those in the Maghreb, to adopt a
more independent line on security issues when the political climate
permits.
Emerging
links between NATO and Mediterranean non-member states suggest the possibility
of a future in which European or Mediterranean institutions provide
an alternative to security arrangements centered on the Middle East.
The recent experience of multilateral frameworks to address Middle Eastern
security problems has been mixed, at best: Whereas Europe has an elaborate
security architecture, with multiple institutions (NATO, the E.U., the
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe), North Africa and
the Middle East lack effective security institutions. Attempts at regional
security cooperation have been made through the Gulf Cooperation Council,
the Arab Maghreb Union, the Arab League and the Organization of African
Unity; while all have some bearing on the Mediterranean scene, none
offers the participants collective security and reassurance on the European
model.
In
the Mediterranean setting, at least, some states may prefer to develop
ties with existing European or Atlantic institutions based on a sense
of affinity or the need for tangible security guarantees. For the moment,
however, the state of the Middle East peace process has complicated
all of the existing Mediterranean security initiatives, including those
organized by NATO (the Mediterranean Dialogue, which includes non-members
Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia) and
the E.U. (the Barcelona Process, which includes non-members Algeria,
Cyprus, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Malta, Morocco, the Palestinian
Authority, Syria, Tunisia and Turkey).
The
Trans-Regional Dimension
Some
of the most striking developments affecting the strategic outlook in
the Mediterranean concern the steadily increasing interdependence of
the European, Eurasian and Middle Eastern environments. In political,
economic and military terms, developments on both sides of the Mediterranean
will be interwoven to a substantial degree.
On
the political front, public and official opinion in North Africa and
the Levant will be influenced by events in the Balkans and the Caucasus,
as well as within Western European societies, that affect the position
of Muslim communities. The Bosnian experience was a watershed in this
respect, and has served -- rightly or wrongly -- to confirm widespread
suspicions in North Africa and elsewhere about European policy toward
its Muslim periphery. In the eastern Mediterranean, economic and political
problems in Turkey may confirm in the minds of many Europeans longstanding
perceptions of Turkey as a Middle Eastern rather than a European state,
complicating Turkey's already troubled E.U. candidacy. Turkey remains
a key member of the Atlantic alliance, and the presence of security
risks on Turkey's borders will directly affect Turkey's European allies.
But difficulties in Turkish-European relations contribute to a climate
of mistrust that can affect transatlantic security questions, as seen
in the unresolved debate over Turkish participation in the E.U.'s emerging
European Security and Defense Policy.
European
allies have long pressed for a greater role in Arab-Israeli negotiations
and in Middle East diplomacy more generally. A deepening of the Israeli-Palestinian
crisis will tend to encourage even more active European efforts in this
direction, not least because Europe has a great deal at stake, both
economically and in terms of stability on the periphery of the continent.
Similarly, much of the energy behind E.U., NATO and other initiatives
toward North Africa and the Mediterranean has come from southern European
states such as Portugal, Spain and Italy, which have a special interest
in North Africa and a history of involvement in north-south diplomacy.
This is likely to be an important and continuing factor in shaping a
European agenda that might otherwise be devoted almost entirely to challenges
in eastern and central Europe.
In
economic terms, there are many critical trans-regional linkages. Southern
Mediterranean states recognize the extraordinarily important role of
economic relations with the E.U. for their future prosperity, even if
they are often uncomfortable with the reality of economic dependence.
The Euro-Mediterranean Partnership launched in Barcelona in November
1995 flows from this recognition, coupled with Europe's understanding
of the need to foster development and stability across the Mediterranean.
New
lines of communication, including important new energy routes, are another
key point of interdependence. From the western Mediterranean to the
Caspian, the expansion of oil and gas pipelines is creating new opportunities
for cooperation and conflict, with implications for the security and
prosperity of north and south. With new pipelines across the Maghreb
and across the Mediterranean, and the potential for some part of future
Caspian oil production to reach world markets via the eastern Mediterranean,
the Mediterranean region is becoming a focal point for energy trade
and energy security concerns. Balkan reconstruction and the revival
of ports such as Thessaloniki and Trieste would further reinforce the
importance of the Mediterranean as a conduit for oil shipments from
the Middle East to eastern and central Europe. Farther afield, the opening
of new trade and energy routes from Turkey, Iran and Central Asia will
offer the possibility of economic links to Europe via the Black Sea
and the Mediterranean, rather than through Russia.
In
"hard" security terms, the era of European sanctuary with regard to
instability and conflict across the Mediterranean and beyond is rapidly
drawing to a close. European societies have long been exposed to the
spillover effects of turmoil in North Africa and the Middle East. In
addition, Europe's greater Mediterranean periphery -- from Algeria to
Iran, Iraq and as far afield as the sub-continent -- displays a striking
concentration of proliferation risks. The spread of weapons of mass
destruction (WMD) -- nuclear, biological and chemical -- coupled with
the proliferation of ballistic missile systems of steadily increasing
range is transforming the strategic environment around the Mediterranean.
Southern Europe and Turkey will be the first within NATO to feel the
effects of this exposure (major Turkish population centers are already
within range of ballistic missiles deployed in Iraq, Iran and Syria),
but over the next decade it is likely that every European capital will
be within range of such systems.
For
the most part, the quest for regional prestige and "weight" -- rather
than the desire to target Europe -- is driving the acquisition of longer-range
weapons. Given the diversity of frictions among neighboring countries
in the southern Mediterranean, it is likely that the Middle Eastern
and North African neighbors of proliferators will face the first, most
direct threat from weapons of mass destruction. (The Iran-Iraq war,
the civil war in Yemen and the Gulf War offer examples along these lines.
To date, the only concrete instance of ballistic missile attack against
Western territory has been the ineffective Libyan Scud attack against
Lampedusa in April 1986.)
From
a European perspective, the risk of attack by WMD or ballistic missiles
will acquire more serious dimensions where it is coupled with a revolutionary
orientation on the part of the proliferator, or when Western intervention
creates a rationale for strikes against bases or population centers.
As
a result of proliferation trends, Europe will be increasingly exposed
to the retaliatory consequences of U.S. and European actions around
the Middle East and the Mediterranean basin. Conventionally armed ballistic
missiles deployed on Europe's periphery are unlikely to possess the
weight or accuracy to constitute a militarily significant threat. But
as a political threat and a weapon of terror capable of influencing
the European calculus in crises, their significance could be considerable.
Would southern European allies have offered the United States the same
sort of access to facilities and military cooperation during the Gulf
War if their population centers had been exposed to a credible threat
of retaliation? Perhaps, but the deliberations would have been far more
difficult and the demands for defensive arrangements far more serious.
In this context, regional defenses against ballistic missiles are likely
to form an important part of the wider transatlantic debate on missile
defense, with particular implications for the Mediterranean.
The
Extra-Regional Dimension
The
consequences of trends in the Mediterranean security environment will
reach well beyond Mediterranean shores. Under Cold War conditions, the
Mediterranean derived its primary strategic significance as an arena
for competition between extra-Mediterranean superpowers. The current
environment has gone a considerable distance toward the visions of French
(and many nonaligned) observers who have called for a "Mediterranean
for the Mediterraneans." Russia has withdrawn from the Mediterranean
in security terms, although it retains a stake in maritime access and
Mediterranean political developments and, under certain circumstances,
could play a more active role in the Balkans and on Turkey's border.
The United States remains an overwhelmingly important military and diplomatic
presence, especially in the eastern Mediterranean. Challenges in the
Aegean, the Balkans, Turkey and the Levant, not to mention the logistical
tie to the Gulf, suggest that Washington's engagement in the Mediterranean
will be durable. To the extent that NATO devotes more energy to the
region, this too will tend to encourage a significant U.S. role. But
the European involvement in Mediterranean security is substantial, and
the critical economic and political relationships between north and
south are, first and foremost, an E.U. responsibility. In this respect,
the situation in the Mediterranean is quite different from that in the
Persian Gulf, where the United States plays a dominant and often unilateral
role as security guarantor.
In
broad terms, the concerns of Mediterranean states, both north and south,
will be difficult to address without the engagement of key non-Mediterranean
states and wider European and Atlantic institutions. The range of hard
and soft security issues characteristic of the region, from proliferation
to migration, favors multilateral approaches, and many would be politically
uncomfortable or too costly to address unilaterally. To the extent that
the E.U. develops a more active common foreign and security policy,
and a more effective defense capability, these efforts will find a natural
focus in the Mediterranean. At the same time, NATO's focus on new tasks
and the potential for further enlargement in the Balkans, will encourage
the alliance to look southward. All of these trends will place a premium
on closer U.S.-E.U. cooperation in managing Mediterranean problems.
Mediterranean
security will also be influenced by actors beyond the European, Atlantic
and Eurasian spheres. The arms and technology transfer practices of
China, North Korea, India and Pakistan will have a bearing on the character
and pace of WMD proliferation around the region. Anarchy and conflict
in sub-Saharan Africa, Sudan and the Horn of Africa could produce refugee
crises affecting North Africa and Egypt, along with potentially destabilizing
spillovers of political violence. If Europe is increasingly concerned
about the risks emanating from the southern Mediterranean, it should
not be forgotten that states across the Mediterranean also face risks
flowing from the even poorer and less stable regions to their south.
Looking
Ahead
The
security environment in the Mediterranean is being shaped by substantial
change and uncertainty at several levels -- internal, regional, trans-regional
and extra-regional. It has become fashionable to see the Mediterranean
as part of an "arc of crisis" stretching from the Maghreb to Central
Asia, but it might more accurately be described as an "arc of change."
Societies around the southern Mediterranean face daunting challenges
of adjustment and reform. These challenges are made more acute by the
imperative of strengthening relations with Europe, the leading economic
partner for all southern Mediterranean states, and an increasingly important
political and security actor in the region. In many respects, the security
future of the Mediterranean will be determined, above all, by developments
within key states such as Algeria, Egypt and Turkey.
The
fate of existing regional initiatives, including NATO's Mediterranean
Dialogue and the political and security aspects of the E.U.'s Barcelona
Process, will be strongly affected by developments in the Arab-Israeli
conflict. The current crisis exacerbates longstanding Arab suspicions
regarding Western security institutions and makes an effective multilateral
dialogue on north-south lines difficult or impossible. Under these conditions,
it is not surprising that there has been a revival of interest in sub-regional
forums such as the "Five plus Five" dialogue in the western Mediterranean,
which brings together five southern European countries (Italy, Spain,
France, Portugal and Malta) with five partners in the Arab Maghreb Union
(Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Libya and Mauritania. In the eastern Mediterranean,
the emergence of a more relaxed relationship between Greece and Turkey
has reduced the risk associated with one of the region's most dangerous
flash points. But the core issues of Cyprus and the Aegean have yet
to be addressed, and the outlook for Greek-Turkish dŽtente is likely
to depend critically on the uncertain relationship between Turkey and
the E.U.
The
United States has been a Mediterranean power in some fashion for 200
years, and has been the leading security actor in the region since 1945.
Mediterranean crises and assumptions about the need to project military
power to regions such as the Gulf and the Caspian will continue to compel
American interest, even if Washington is disinclined to develop a specific
Mediterranean policy. A critical open question is how United States
and European roles in the Mediterranean will evolve as the E.U. becomes
a more prominent actor and as the U.S. re-examines its foreign and defense
policy priorities. Cooperation in the Mediterranean, Europe's "near
abroad" but close to areas of vital American interest, is a promising
area for a more concerted transatlantic approach.
Ian
O. Lesser is a senior political scientist at RAND in Washington, D.C.,
and a former member of the State Department's Policy Planning Staff.
The views expressed here are the author's and do not represent those
of RAND or its research sponsors.
