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Email this citationCIAO DATE: 03/03
Strengthening NATO-Mediterranean Relations: A Transition to Partnership
September 2002
Abstract
Today, the Southern approaches to Europe are perhaps the most important source of instability for that continent and the West in general. Instability has increased as a result of the West’s failed attempts to curb it in the 1990s and solve the conflicts that nurture it. As a result of this failure, frustration and interdependence - as opposed to integration- have increased regionally and globally so that Southern instability now generates larger and more diffuse spillovers than a decade ago.
The situation has changed with respect to the NATO strategic concepts of 1991 and 1999. In them, Western security was supposed to be essentially affected by external risks, that is the impact of external instabilities and the involvement of vital interests outside the Alliance area. By contrast, it was supposed to be unaffected by “calculated aggression”. Such an aggression, however, took place on 11 September 2001 against NATO’s leading nation, the United States, and was perceived by the United States and NATO allies as an act of war.
This development adds a distinctive threat in the shape of terrorism to traditional risks. In the Mediterranean region, besides national and religious terrorism, there is now a global terrorist trend. The latter is distinct from regional ones, but may easily merge with it thanks to their similar ideological background.
That background is important in understanding the new strategic setting. It means that relatively sparse trends, at national or local level, are now objectively coalescing in a single and enlarged perspective. The wars in Afghanistan, the western Balkans and Chechnya have contributed to unifying and strengthening Islamist trends from the Maghreb to Central Asia. As illegitimate as Al Qaeda’s call to the whole of Islam may be, it links up with an effective mass consensus across the regions concerned. The events of 11 September have added new substance to the Greater Middle East strategic perspective and unveiled a new transnational Islamist trend in addition to the traditional ones.
At the same time, within the Greater Middle East circle, the Near Eastern and North African areas, i.e. the Mediterranean, look particularly exposed to this sweeping trend of Islamist feelings and terrorist warfare. This is due to two main reasons: In the terrorists’ eyes, a significant shift towards Islamism in the regional balance of power would open the way to the shift in the global balance of power they are seemingly seeking. The Near East and North Africa are of great cultural and political significance for the Muslim world. A change there would be bound to have far more decisive repercussions throughout the whole of that world than any change in Central Asia.
At the same time, the Mediterranean is close to Europe. Since the 1970s, Europe has served as a logistical platform for expatriated political activities aimed at North Africa and the Middle East. Increases in migration have facilitated this role. Thus Europe has often suffered the spillovers of terrorism. Only very seldom, however, has it been the direct target. In contrast, post-11 September evidence suggests that Europe is now becoming a target in itself as well as a platform for actions directed not only across the Mediterranean but also at the United States.
Thus, because of its cultural and political relevance for the Muslim world and Europe’s proximity, the Mediterranean area is becoming particularly important for global terrorism. By the same token, it is becoming more sensitive for Southern Mediterranean and Western security.
