A New Reality for the
Eastern Mediterranean
by Dr. Spyridon N.
Litsas
BESA Center
Perspectives Paper No. 1,691, August 13, 2020
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: The
great geostrategic and economic problems the Eastern Mediterranean is currently facing require
drastic measures and original
thinking. There are success stories in the region that provide positive examples of how a new collective
reality can be created through
the initiative of the main actors. Deeper cooperation and synergies can prove
highly constructive for the region.
The COVID-19 pandemic
is only the tip of an iceberg of sociopolitical and economic challenges the
Eastern Mediterranean is currently facing: Turkish revisionism; continued Greek
economic fragility despite the good performance of Kyriakos Mitsotakis’s government;
the turbulent coexistence of secular and ultra-religious elements in Israel;
the spread of radicalism and jihadism within the Palestinian community; the
continued occupation of Northern Cyprus by the Turkish army; constitutional
weaknesses and economic failures in Lebanon along with strengthening of Shiite
fundamentalism there due to the long political vacuum; the stagnation of Syria
as a failed state and the long Libyan Civil War are but a few of the region’s
troubles.
In political theory
there are two roads to follow when dealing with problems like these: an
idealistic road, which is influenced by Platonic and neo-Platonic philosophy;
and a realistic road, which is influenced by Aristotelian thinking.
The first approach
argues that if a state or region seeks a pathway toward stability and progress,
it must first deal with the many challenges at hand. It disregards the fact
that the 21st century is not the 20th, and that there are neither sufficient
means nor enough time to achieve so herculean a task. The second approach urges
the political entity to push forward and simultaneously find solutions to its
current predicaments while ensuring its future prospects.
The Platonic approach
tends to be favored by inefficient governments that hide their failures behind
structural drawbacks, avoiding any step outside their safety zones of
conventional thinking or practice.
Examples of states in
the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East that have efficiently put into
practice the Aristotelian form of governance are the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and
Israel. While they are fully dynamic in terms of foreign policy, these states
also follow constructive policies on the domestic front. Even as Israel has to
find solutions to daily threats that challenge its very survival, it has made
itself into a “start-up nation” with one of the most technologically advanced
militaries in the world. The military’s edge is a tremendous boost to both the
Israeli economy and national prestige. The UAE, while being targeted by Shiite
and Sunni radicals, continues to grow as a cosmopolitan hub that is a top
tourist destination, a global champion of culture and sports, and a smart
nation with top achievements in AI and in the energy sector. Saudi Arabia has
entered a phase of profound advances in both economy and society, though
modernization will be a long and bumpy process. The kingdom is still a
conservative political entity with a firm religious structure and sui generis
political functioning. Nevertheless, Riyadh has opposed religious radicalism
(both Sunni and Shiite) and is a pillar of stability and rationality for the
global crude oil market.
These three smart
states are all pioneers in various aspects of international politics,
technology, civic structure, and inter-religious dialogue. Their successes
underline that it is irrational for the Eastern Mediterranean region to ignore
its economic reconstruction or technological advancement while it deals with
its geostrategic challenges. It is not sensible for the region to concentrate
on those challenges at the expense of modernizing its economies and
institutions, and vice versa.
The Eastern
Mediterranean is facing major existential dilemmas to which the primordial
question “Guns or butter?” provides no answers. There are neither sufficient
funds nor sufficient hard power capacities to pacify the region. That collective
incapacity to resolve regional issues works to the benefit of Turkish strategy.
Ankara’s own central
problem is that its maximalist political aspirations do not remotely correlate
to the state’s economic capacity. For years, Turkey has been behaving like a
sort of Blanche Dubois, surviving economically due to the kindness of Qatari
strangers. Meanwhile, Russia controls Turkey’s nuclear energy prospects even as
President Erdoğan has made successful steps in the LNG market that minimize
Turkey’s dependency on Russian LNG exports. Erdoğan pursues military and
political crises to justify his own grandiloquence, but Ankara knows it cannot
maintain a front of antiquated rhetoric with jingoist rallying round the flag
if the rest of the region becomes more politically and economically stable.
The key to resolving
the Eastern Mediterranean’s problems is for the actors to work collectively and
not individually. The region needs to take a big step and start to cooperate as
a group in the areas of defense, technology, academia, and economy. A stable
future for the region rests on an improvement in the collective prospects of
states like Greece, Israel, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, and Jordan, as well
as perhaps Syria, Libya, and Lebanon under certain circumstances that mainly
have to do with their domestic political status. A “Partnership for Progress
and Peace in the Eastern Mediterranean” could enhance peace and security while
showing that inter-religious dialogue can inoculate the region from a “clash of
civilizations” crisis.
Some may argue that the
establishment of a multinational body in the Eastern Mediterranean may create a
security dilemma for Turkey, leading the region into a Thucydides Trap. I argue
against this, as the best deterrence against Turkey’s revisionist path is
organized action combined with economic and trade cooperation among its
regional neighbors. As Stephen Walt aptly observed, one of the main triggers
for the formation of an alliance is the need to counter a threat coming from a
difficult state or group of states. Turkish moves in the Eastern Mediterranean
are a clear and consistent threat. A traditional type of deterrence; i.e., a
hard-power alliance, is a necessary prescription, but it will not take the
region to its fullest potential.
The immediate creation
of economic, technological, and educational synergies is essential if the
Eastern Mediterranean is to be a peaceful, stable, and prosperous part of the
globe. This is a political initiative that the leaders of the region must put
forward, with the inclusion of Turkey when and if it decides that being a good
neighbor is preferable to being a neo-Ottoman perpetual aggressor.
Dr. Spyridon N. Litsas
is Professor of International Relations at the University of Macedonia and
Visiting Professor of Strategic Theory in the Supreme Joint College of War of
the Hellenic Armed Forces.