by Dr. Spyridon N. Litsas
The geostrategic, diplomatic, and economic influence of the Eastern Mediterranean is more significant today than ever before.
Suomi VIIRS Captures Eastern Mediterranean Region Dust Storm,
photo by NOAA Satellites via Flickr CC
BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 862, June 11, 2018
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: The geostrategic,
diplomatic, and economic influence of the Eastern Mediterranean is more
significant today than ever before. This creates opportunities for
Greece, Cyprus, and Israel, but also increases the challenges and perils
ahead.
For the first time since the collapse of the Byzantine Empire, the Eastern Mediterranean is in the midst of a tectonic shift.
The region presents all the required attributes to function as a distinct sub-regional system in the 21st
century’s international environment. The Eastern Mediterranean holds
the interest of the great powers (the US, Russia, and China); it
contains resolute regional actors that influence the sociopolitical
orbit of the region (Israel, Egypt, and Turkey); and international
diplomacy may create firm ties between states that go far beyond
normative alliance arrangements and thus function as power maximizers
for the parties concerned (Greece and Cyprus). There are also two
ongoing civil wars in the region that offer a venue in which the great
powers can sharpen their claws, often by proxy (Syria and Libya). There
are two major basins with potential natural gas resources that can play a
decisive role in the difficult transition period from oil energy
monopoly to alternative energy resources (the Nile Delta Basin and the
Levant Basin).
Today, the Eastern Mediterranean has taken on the grim role the Balkans played in the early 20th
century. Political and economic volatility affects more or less every
state in the region. The cycle of violence, either in the form of open
civil war or in terms of domestic troubles, seems almost impossible to
stop solely through external institutional intervention or pleas
deriving from international law.
Regarding the latter: events in the region prove
that in Hobbesian geostrategic conditions, the implementation of
international law as the ultimate tool for effective crisis resolution
is utterly futile. The region has never before witnessed such a profound
period of high competition among major players – and such a prolonged
period of uncertainty and gloom regarding the sociopolitical prospects
of the states. This can be seen in qualitative and quantitative data
regarding local economies, social cohesion, happiness, and so on.
However, not everything in the Eastern
Mediterranean deserves to be approached through so Stygian black a shade
of analysis. Israel, for example, is gradually becoming an IT
superpower. The so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution has been hastened
on an international level by Israeli companies and academic
institutions that are actively researching and manufacturing. This might
lead the whole region into a “Hi-Tech Spring” that could generate
wealth, open up new jobs, tackle unemployment and radicalization among
underprivileged youth, and counter the negative aura of the “Arab
Spring” that continues to torment the region.
Cyprus, too, has left the economic crisis behind
and now has the potential to be a reliable partner with the western
world in transforming the Eastern Mediterranean into a lake of
technological advancement.
Last but not least, the US has shown that it has
returned to the region for good after a short but critical period that
will be labeled in the historical analysis as one of cognitive denial – a
period during which Russia took the opportunity to reestablish itself
in the region. Washington’s recent decision to move the US
Embassy to Jerusalem, the capital of the state of Israel since King
David’s reign, is a pivotal political move that may result in a
strengthening of the Realist side within the Palestinian Authority and,
as a result, enable positive steps towards resolving the conundrum of
the Palestinian Question.
Quite often in international politics, a bold
decision is the only useful step with which to achieve advancement. The
Balfour Declaration and the embassy move are excellent examples. Also,
Washington’s decision to reactivate the Second Fleet in order to bolster
the US and NATO presence in the Atlantic means the role of the Sixth
Fleet becomes even more salient, a development that strengthens the
strategic triangle of Greece-Cyprus-Israel through the multidimensional
operational advancement of NATO’s infrastructure in Greece and through
close cooperation of the three states at the military level.
The US is also now showing a clear interest in
challenging Russian Sharp Power and its consequences in the Eastern
Mediterranean and in the Balkan states as well. This may result not only
in a strengthening of social awareness in general but also in a more
stable and effective domestic political apparatus.
After a period of vigorous rejection, the US seems
to be coming to terms with an international reality in which the
systemic balance of power is under the influence of a firmly established
multipolar reality. The recognition of this political fact is making
the US much more willing and prepared to make the kinds of decisions
that reinforce a western “smart” presence in the Eastern Mediterranean
and underpin the status of the regional western elements (Greece,
Cyprus, and Israel) as well.
Nevertheless, this must not be seen as a panacea
for the domestic problems that affect the everyday functioning of those
aforementioned states, particularly Greece. The establishment of a
multipolar international modus operandi means interstate competition,
and in some cases antagonism, will grow considerably, and soon.
Therefore, Greece, Cyprus, and Israel must be prepared not only to face
the music but to change the tune.
This means their role in the politics of the
Eastern Mediterranean must be more active and constructive. This can be
done only if the three states stop thinking regionally in political
terms and begin to formulate a more extroverted strategy that will take
into consideration the full international picture.
The future of the western world depends on the
reinforcement of transatlantic prospects. Effective cooperation between
the two coasts of the Atlantic on every level, and a deepening of the
institutional modus vivendi between them, is vitally important and will
drastically affect the way the global economy, technology, and diplomacy
evolve in the decades to come.
The elevation of the Eastern Mediterranean to the
status of a distinct sub-system requires that the region play a
constructive role in the deepening of transatlantic functioning. This
offers Greece, Cyprus, and Israel the opportunity to serve as regional
pioneers of the transatlantic era and thereby shape the future. Athens,
Nicosia, and Jerusalem must internalize the ancient Greek proverb that
God helps those who help themselves. Whoever is not prepared to exit his
comfort zone will be left behind.
BESA Center Perspectives Papers are published through the generosity of the Greg Rosshandler Family
Source: https://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/eastern-mediterranean-strategy/
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Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
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