New players in the Mediterranean

Some have historical ties with the Mediterranean region and the Maghreb and are trying to build or rebuild economic and security ties. Others probably see the Mediterranean region through both short- and longer-term filters that reveal more immediate economic interests but that eventually converge with a larger strategic plan. Still others see purely economic benefits, and a few see purely security benefits.

The emerging strategic landscape in the Mediterranean is being constantly shaped by the entry of new players—China, India, Brazil—with strategies that reflect their special economic and security concerns and the re-entry of some old ones—e.g., Russia—with strategies that remind us of pre-Cold War objectives. The landscape is changing rapidly, the dynamics of the individual actors and of their possible combinations are fluid, and the trajectories of their strategies are far from clear. It is of course impossible to know everyone’s motivation, but it is possible to identify a number of emerging issues and patterns of behavior with some confidence.

Russia is reasserting its global role, and its activities in the Mediterranean are part of a larger strategy shaped by a fluid interplay of internal and external influences. In this it draws on a deep historical involvement in the region, impaired at least temporarily by the breakdown of Soviet power. Russia has many cards to play, and it is playing some of them expertly.

China once enjoyed ties with the countries of the Mediterranean and the Maghreb mainly as an extension of the Silk Road. It has returned to the Mediterranean theater through aggressive investment in strategic infrastructure and energy, although its investment in Europe proper has been minimal. It also is possible to see China’s interest in the region as part of a grand strategy that extends Beijing’s footprint globally.

India’s historical ties to the Mediterranean date back more than 1,000 years. Its interests in the Maghreb are linked to its interests in the broader Arab world; its economic ties to both Italy and Cyprus are particularly deep. Like China, India is pursuing a multifaceted energy strategy in which the Mediterranean figures with increasing prominence, Libya being a particular target. India’s Mediterranean strategy is also notable for the close India-Israel security condominium, which is important.

A range of other actors, Japan and Brazil for example, add increasing fluidity to the Mediterranean’s strategic dynamics and make for the possibility of political-economic alignments and realignments that may be unprecedented.

Six conclusions emerge from this analysis: First, all of the key new players in the Mediterranean view the acquisition of additional supplies of energy from Mediterranean states as both necessary and possible, and they are designing strategies to this end. While supplies are abundant, transport is unimpaired, and comity reigns amongst them, the Mediterranean’s energy market will likely work efficiently enough as part of a global market that determines who gets how much and at what price. But any hiccup in the larger global energy supply system—or worse, if one can imagine destabilizing political turmoil in Saudi Arabia or the collapse of the Iranian theocracy—will bring a heightened level of competition, probably including military competition, among non-Mediterranean states and actors in the Mediterranean region itself to adjudicate how energy is produced, sold, and transported. In this sense, the Mediterranean basin has become an important section of the energy security umbilical cord linking Asia’s dynamic economies to the global energy marketplace.

Second, energy competition will certainly lead the Mediterranean’s new players to pursue competitive and cost-imposing strategies directed at their rivals. In this sense, the Mediterranean’s seeming isolation from larger competitions taking place in the Middle East, the Indian Ocean, East Asia, Eurasia, and even Latin America will diminish.

Third, while Russia benefits from close proximity to the Mediterranean competition because of its physical connections to both Europe and the Black Sea, the new actor with the greatest potential to alter the strategic landscape may well be India. Its potent and growing strategic alliance with Israel and its longer-term security cooperation with Turkey—both buttressed more or less by the United States—are likely to cast India as an increasingly powerful Mediterranean actor to be reckoned with. Add to this India’s strong economic, commercial, and energy interests in the Maghreb and in Europe’s Mediterranean states, as well as the well-lubricated movement of Indian workers and professionals into labor-short markets like Europe, suggest that India’s presence on the new Mediterranean landscape is better rooted and more organic than either China’s or Russia’s.

Fourth, Turkey’s shifting strategic priorities—toward Russia and the Middle East, and away from Israel, Europe, and the United States—could foretell the beginnings of a period of more general strategic recalibration around the Mediterranean in which the movement of new actors alters or upsets existing political and security balances while coincidentally opening opportunities for new coalitions and relationships. Turkey is in many respects the fulcrum around which other actors’ strategies are likely to pivot.

Fifth, China’s growing presence in the Mediterranean appears to be driven by a combination of converging influences, including access to energy and protecting vulnerable sea lanes. Grand strategy, in which energy security figures prominently, may be another. Its emerging positions in places like Myanmar, Kazakhstan, Sudan, and Algeria—usually accompanied by large numbers of Chinese workers and agents, including security personnel—suggests that China views its overseas activities as more than economic opportunities to be explored, exploited, and abandoned. Where China goes, it appears poised to stay: a feature of Chinese engagement not lost on long-term competitors like India and Russia.

Sixth, it appears increasingly unlikely that the United States will remain the strategic constant in the Mediterranean that informs and shapes the strategies of nearly everyone else, including new Mediterranean actors whose relationships with the United States are mostly formed by issues far from the Mediterranean theater. The United States by itself will not determine the future dynamics of the increasingly complex Mediterranean region. But it will be a powerful influence on the strategies of everyone else. The reasons go deeper than “strategic fatigue.” America’s navy is in decline, at least in numerical terms, and the trend cannot be reversed quickly. Failing to have a clear strategy of its own will likely lead other actors, especially the new actors, to take risks that an articulated American position might forestall, and to miscalculate in ways that could challenge the Mediterranean’s impressive stability.

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