| Popis: |
The essay deals with the transformation of the vision of the Mediterranean Sea in the West with the end of the Cold War period and its geopolitical consequences. If during the Cold War, regional scenarios were always subordinated to the general bipolar competition and that basin was essentially perceived as “the Southern flack of NATO”, during the Nineties, the two traditionally opposed strategic paradigms—that is, the Mediterranean as a ‘defensive barrier’ or as a ‘bridge’ for the West—were challenged. The differences between the American and European perceptions of the Mediterranean became there clear. The most important reason for this diversity over the definition of Mediterranean security in the post-Cold War period was the disappearance of the unidimensional Soviet threat, which leads to the promotion of a plurality of EU and NATO poorly coordinated outreach programs, to increase the level of mutual confidence between the two shores of the Basin. Furthermore, the current globalization process of the Euro-Mediterranean space involves not only a greater geopolitical entropy, but also a marked acceleration of the deconstructing processes of balances, perhaps precarious, which existed in the various Mediterranean sub-regions. From a geopolitical perspective, the most important consequence has been that the region is gaining a new centrality, because of wars, riots, internal clashes within the Islamic world, migrations and the Chinese attempt to connect this Sea to its Belt and Road Initiative. Therefore, an instable centrality linked to a plurality of negative trends which is affecting its traditional role. Indeed, the Mediterranean has always performed the function of political and anthropological mediation between different lands and cultures and it plays an important balancing role in the global space, interconnecting different geostrategic regions, too. This role of pivotal hub is, however, threatened by crises and conflicts of interest and it reveals a need that becomes increasingly urgent: to protect and guarantee the security of the area, developing a strategy not based on the zero-sum game theory among the competing interests of the Actors involved; on the contrary, it is vital to adapt our vision to the changing paradigm to envisage a policy which engages them, offering a common perspective based on shared values. |
