The Mediterranean: a Sea of Crises?

Issues from Politique Etrangère

01/12/2016

The Mediterranean is currently an intersection of upheavals and crises. Destabilization on its southern shores, uncontrolled migrations, simmering hostilities in the east surrounding exploitation of energy resources, military presence of all the great world powers (from Washington to Beijing, and Moscow of course), and increasing assertion of regional powers…

Mare Nostrum is rougher, and more divided, than ever. But was it ever the serene and united sea that thirty years of European policy has been dreaming of? Policy of goodwill, but the failure of which reveals much of its underlying complexity. How should we envisage this Mediterranean, which remains at the center of so many threats?

The crisis in Ukraine seems to have resurrected one of the North Atlantic Alliance’s somewhat forgotten earlier objectives, that of defending its Member States. The Warsaw Summit in July 2016 communicated a highly official expression of NATO’s remobilization. The West’s renewed defensive efforts on the Old Continent are more limited and reasonable than they have been made out to be—but will they include dialogue with Moscow? Whatever the case may be, this dialogue is opened up broadly in this issue of Politique étrangère.

Stuck between Brexit and the election of Donald Trump, Europeans could do well to start thinking, beyond decisions taken by NATO, about their own strategies and mechanisms for defense. Louis Gautier, Secretary General for Defense and National Security, addresses some possible and realistic options. Another article discusses what the future holds after Brexit; does it announce the end of Europe or the beginning of another?

FOCUS The Mediterranean: A Sea of Crises?

Europe’s Mediterranean Policy: Thirty Years of Missed Opportunities, by Jean-François Daguzan

Migration in the Mediterranean: An Asylum Crisis, by Thibaut Jaulin

The Euro-Mediterranean "Migration Business”, by Michel Peraldi

Naval Diplomacy in the Mediterranean, by Fernando del Pozo, Ferdinando Sanfelice di Monteforte and Patrick Hebrard

Troubled Waters of the Eastern Mediterranean?, by David Amsellem

New Chinese Activism in the Mediterranean, by Alice Ekman

COUNTER ANALYSIS NATO/Russia : After the Varsaw Summit

Russia/NATO: Controlling Confrontation, by Dmitri Trenin (read the article)

Adapting the Atlantic Alliance for the New Geostrategic Environment, by Jean-Paul Paloméros

CURRENT AFFAIRS

Salvation by Arms? European Defense and Revival of the Union, by Louis Gautier