Can you whip a god?

(To Gino Lanzara)
25/11/19

The sea has always been important for human evolution, so much so as to make its image inseparable from that of a mighty but fickle god. In the Hellespont a king who considered himself immortal1 he whipped the waters of that sea so little complacent, confused about who was the most divine among them. In Greek sea translates as Πόντος, the bridge Latin, a water that does not divide but connects.

The Mediterranean is still one of the most important basins for global security and stability, and plays a role that has always seen civilizations and religions in conflict, as well as the influence of numerous actors who, despite having limited proximity to its shores , have favored a useful fragmentation of particular interests. The Mediterranean is a dynamic sea; its waters are crossed by both regional and global powers capable of affecting the general political balance. The complexity of the context leads to evaluate the salience of multiple aspects: religion, combined effects of economic liberalism, neo-colonialist policies, economic political decline of the southern shore, impossibility to contain the Mediterraneity within narrow physical boundaries, Anglo-French will to recover political caliber after the Suez crisis of the '56.

The Italian Navy has long made the Mediterranean the object of study as an enlarged area, extending the examination to a single whole that unites the Mediterranean basin proper with the Black Sea, the Caucasus and Central Asia to the east; the Red Sea, the Suez Canal and the Persian Gulf, to the south-east; a geopolitical theater characterized by contiguous non-homogeneous areas2 but of vital importance at international level. An extended MO can therefore be considered as a specific part of the enlarged Mediterranean, as it is an (ideal) expansion towards Central Asia and the Indian Ocean; both complexes fall into both fluid power concepts and changing boundaries that contain spaces that are evolving but limited by national interests in geographically distant but interdependent areas.

To better understand the enlarged Mediterranean towards the east and south-east, it is essential to bring the analysis to a relational and mobile level that transcends simple geographical vision, which takes into account the broad spectrum of political, economic, military and cultural dimensions that it leads to to a more extended concept of the globalized Mediterranean in relation to the interconnection between the various dimensions, especially the military one, a true power factor of international relations.

Each country is driven by long-term interests, animated by a more than evident dynamism given the Ukrainian, Libyan, Syrian and Iraqi events overlapping with the Arab Israeli conflict. If the Cold War had phlegmized tensions by freezing the onset of regional powers, the end of bipolar power allowed global actors, such as China, to exert an effective influence that confirmed the centrality and importance of the Mediterranean, despite the limited nature of the its passages in Suez and Gibraltar, with a re-edition of the power relations.

In order to become aware of the North-South, East-West tensions, it was necessary to wait for the Arab Springs and the appearance of the (non) Islamic State, given that the phenomena related to the instability due to Balkan immigration, to the wars in the former Yugoslavia and to the reduction of the international maritime spaces they had scarcely taught: the conflict has never abandoned the Mediterranean shores.

The mighty god of 2.000 years ago, if he could wait for the fall of a snooty flogger, he could wait for a belated realization that revealed the unreal security based on the alleged end of a History3 that on the contrary, evolving, it has shown that the Roman one is still the only one ratio useful to preserve peace: violent but effective, in contrast with the current assumptions of international law.

World orders and economy

The asymmetries due to strong territorial and political changes in the competitions between nomadic and permanent populations, inspired by three monotheistic religions forced into forced cohabitation, still animate clashes of civilizations4 totally incompatible with the world order hypothesized by Kissinger; Therefore, the Mediterranean has been enlarged as a geographical expression, not a political one, where Europe has renounced to multilateral relations, leaning for asymmetric and bilateral cooperative forms, adopting the procedure that the US, long determinants of the security of the area, have always followed in the region wrongly considered as peripheral to the Gulf. The Mediterranean, for many shipping companies, remains a fundamental flow line that cuts across the entire basin from east to west, becoming the only route capable of ensuring long-range intermodal transport. The incompatibilities are also measured in economic terms, where the foundations of many systems rest only on the revenues deriving from the sale of energy resources, not on investment in human capital.

An element of novelty is the discovery of gas fields in Israeli, Cypriot and Egyptian waters; considering the US interest in conditioning the transport of resources, as well as the American ability to extract it at home shale oil, it is possible to envisage contrasting actions by the Russian side and those of the Persian Gulf countries, which otherwise would see the macro economic picture modified and their usual proceeds reduced. Persistent social unrest and poverty will still be asymmetrically coupled with the strengthening of the military sphere, linked to the distribution of armaments supplied by the West to a technology-importing south coast and which will still maintain operational limits, with a more proactive north-eastern coast5.

Nuclear power will also play its part, if it is true that Israel, isolated but strong with cutting-edge technology such as life insurance, is in possession of the means and know-how that allow him to arm even his underwater vehicles, so as to put a stop to both Iranian power projections and the atomic ambitions of less stable countries; to avoid loopholes on the southern and eastern, western and eastern Europe slopes, meanwhile, they assessed the usefulness of defense against ballistic missiles.

The Mediterranean therefore, despite the pivot to Asia American, remains a strategic basin that should not be underestimated, especially after show the flag accomplished by Russians and Chinese with their naval training campaigns. A disengagement from the traditional hegemonic powers is therefore not desirable, given that the Mediterranean has never experienced long periods of peace. Economically the current trade routes, together with the terrestrial routes crossed by the pipelines, connecting rentier state hydrocarbons and gas carriers with industrialized countries, confirm a Mediterranean relevance that could however be questioned both by problems related to free navigation through the obligatory steps6, both from north east passage7, potential expression of Russian maritime power.

Theories and Outbreaks

Speaking of the enlarged Mediterranean leads us to consider a geopolitical design that observes the MENA area in an extended version, and which needs a critical re-reading of the socio-economic instances inspiring the Arab Spring of the 2011. Large MO and Enlarged Mediterranean thus become two complementary hypotheses to be interpreted both subjectively, according to the actors who make them their own, and objectively without ideological-religious superstructures. The endemic instability that goes from Morocco to Iran feeds many critical points and presents shared aspects.

The policy does not give guarantees of reality estate institutional or long-term planning, given also the strong contrasts within the coalitions presented at the elections (Iraq); the socio-economic aspects continue to be often neglected, and it is not infrequent to note deep faults in the various countries between more affluent and more educated regions, and other poorer ones and objects of attention by the jihadist fringes that find fertile ground where the inequalities are strongest. (Tunisia), and who hope for the creation of a single Arab entity, the Umma, the only one capable of giving a common supranational identity. The hoped-for political transitions or have met with determined resistance which then led to the establishment of more stable military regimes (Egypt), or have led to new street motions decided to avoid the reiteration of candidacies that are now non-historical and without valid alternatives (Algeria) .

The presence of regional actors in full projection of power (Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Iran) further destabilizes the general picture, contributing to making the balance even more fragile in areas that see the presence of internationally recognized governments without effective power and hostages of militias and regular formations in open antagonism, capable of conditioning the foreign policy of other subjects (Libya). The war reveals the problematic nature of theaters subject to the influences exerted both by the political and security dynamics of the neighboring countries, and by the macro-regional balances (Syria, Russia, Turkey and Iran), deconstructed by ethnic groups that are difficult to place in the state (Kurdistan). Even the Arabian peninsula is not immune to constant tensions, given the GCC crisis8 and given the contrast between Saudi Arabia (still in the Yemenite impasse), UAE and Egypt towards Qatar, Turkey and Iran, a country animated by a dichotomous policy, which on the one hand suffers from the sanctions resulting from the US exit from the JCPOA, and on the other hand, despite being riddled with recurrent popular protests, it remains intent on a projection of power towards Lebanon thanks to Hezbollah. Geography rewards and condemns at the same time Mesopotamia, which is precious for its position, but precisely because of this extremely sought after by many.

Finally, Ottoman imperial nostalgia could not be lacking; although subject to considerable economic difficulties, the new presidentialism has given substance to an integralism that drives Ankara away from Western forums and that renders her an interpreter of aggressive policies aimed at jeopardizing decades-long alliances.

Conclusions?

In this area multipolarism meets its extreme, a apolarismo generator of a decentralization of paralyzing power, with new political and social dynamics between States and a variegated constellation of strategic centers that substantiate unpredictable political and religious contradictions.

Globalization and financial crises have led to a profound imbalance, often aggravated by Western interventions, due to instances that have allowed the affirmation of non-state actors such as ISIS, and the formation of migratory flows that have highlighted the poor European political stability. The new American institutional course, in the light of the tightening of Arab-Israeli relations and the consequent Russian stance in favor of countries not aligned with NATO, has led to the evaluation of the advisability of new forms of area defense which, allowing for reduced dependence on the US, assume a plausible regional coalition, MESA9, also supported by Israel and Saudi Arabia.

The strategic centrality of the Mediterranean could bring together many global equilibria where it is possible to achieve a balance between Russian and Iranian variables; what is not certain is whether the Americans would facilitate solutions which, in fact, would diminish the strategic value of Asia.

The great absentee remains Europe, unable to express a policy that allows it to interpret an active role in a difficult but ambitious context.

1Xerxes I

2the Euro-Mediterranean, the Middle Eastern and the Caucasian-Caspian

3Francis Fukuyama

4Samuel Huntington

5Turkey, Greece, Ukraine, Slovenia, Croatia

6In particular Suez, Dardanelli, Bab el Mandeb

7North Sea, Arctic Ocean along Siberia, Bering Strait, Bering Sea, Pacific Ocean

8Gulf Cooperation Council

9Middle East Strategic Alliance

Photo: US Navy / Russian MoD Fed / IDF