Volume 70, Issue 3

Conflicts in the Eastern Mediterranean have a long history, and recently supposed energy reserves have fuelled confrontations. Many studies are available that mainly analyse the strategies of the littoral states of the Mediterranean. This special issue enlarges the perspective by also including the global powers the EU, the United States, Russia, and China in the analysis. The role of the regional power Turkey is also in focus here. Importantly, Russia’s war against Ukraine must be taken into account. Since the Russian president has been using gas as a weapon and trying to put pressure on Europe in particular, the relevance of the energy reserves in the Eastern Mediterranean must be reassessed. After the end of the Cold War, the actors on the global political level promised a rule-based world order. This promise has been severely challenged, however, after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine which makes it necessary to reassess the relations between the global powers and the Mediterranean countries.

This article examines current energy-related disputes in the Eastern Mediterranean. It does so by situating them in the context of the Middle East’s broader geopolitical landscape and by showing how global powers’ interests and involvement have become contingent on the international and regional political environments. The latter augmented the intensity of the contestation and helped move identifiable and tangible factors, such as Exclusive Economic Zones, into the imaginative realms of geopolitics. They also provided the concerned actors with opportunities to balance out their adversaries and, by implication, diminished their willingness to compromise. Although the global powers’ interest in Eastern Mediterranean energy resources is limited, the European Union does have interests in these reserves and related aspects. The fact that the monetisation of these resources is highly dependent on the EU market provides the EU with an immense amount of “buyer power” to stabilise the region and potentially balance the fears of both Greece and Turkey.

This article examines the United States’ approach to the Eastern Mediterranean. Despite reducing its military commitment and deciding to pursue a policy less inclined to use military force, the US has neither withdrawn its military presence completely nor abandoned its allies in the region. Instead, it has recalibrated its involvement, limiting its engagement and related costs to reallocate resources to the Asia Pacific. However, the US still seeks to prevent Russia and China from co-opting its partners in the Eastern Mediterranean, just as it strives to combat terrorism there. So, Washington seeks to maintain the status quo provided by the current balance of its regional allies and to prevent Russia and China from establishing strategic relations with one or more of those regional actors. However, the US track record in achieving those objectives is mixed, especially when comparing the performances of different administrations.

Russia has become an important player in the Eastern Mediterranean during the presidency of Vladimir Putin, setting up a military presence in the Crimea, South Caucasus, Syria as well as naval facilities in the Mediterranean. Moscow deepened its bilateral relations with NATO members Greece, France and particularly Turkey and has been able to profit from the new dynamics that have emerged in the Middle East North Africa (MENA) region. Russian policy towards the Eastern Mediterranean has been based on large-scale flexibility and its ability to combine elements of soft and hard power. Dependent on Russian grain and tourists and eager to cooperate with Moscow militarily, most non-EU countries of the Eastern Mediterranean have refused to institute anti-Russian sanctions of the sort imposed by the EU after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

The Eastern Mediterranean region has been the subject of global power competition for many decades. Europe, Russia, and the United States have at different stages and in changing configurations sought to exercise influence in and power over various countries in the Eastern Mediterranean. But over the course of the past decade, the aforementioned triangle has been reshaped into a quadrangle. A new external actor has emerged and firmly planted its flag in the Eastern Mediterranean. The fourth country in question is the People’s Republic of China. This article focuses on Greece, Turkey, and Israel as empirical examples of China’s expanding footprint in the region.

This study investigates the recent Mediterranean disputes involving Turkey with respect to the major powers of the European Union (EU), United States (US), Russia and China. The author maintains that Turkey’s position has been determined by its own interests in the region as informed by its relations with the major powers, their vested interests in the disputes, Turkey’s maritime foreign policy ideology ( Mavi Vatan ), its economic and military capabilities and the shifting international system. Turkey is found to regard the EU and the US as supportive of the Greek and Greek Cypriot policies, although the EU countries are somewhat divided on how to show that support. In such a context, Turkey has desired to have Russia and China on its side in the disputes concerning the Eastern Mediterranean, to counterbalance the influence of the US and the EU. This, however, did not come to fruition since Russia and China opted to remain neutral.

This paper presents a review of Big Data sources that could be helpful in determining, estimating, and forecasting the forced emigration flows of refugees from Ukraine. The text shows how a Big Data approach can help assess refugees’ intentions. Using insights from social-media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube is useful, because data here are available faster than any official data in the refugee crisis triggered by the Russian attack on Ukraine on 24 February 2022.