For much of the Cold War, the Mediterranean was viewed as a peripheral region: an area that was frequently crossed but not strategically held. It featured critical trade routes, and blossoming economies with broad opportunities for tourism, but was rarely a priority for the West given bloodier conflicts in the Middle East and Asia. Its name, mediterraneus, literally translates from Latin as the sea “in the middle of the earth” and reflects the region’s historic importance to ancient civilisations, but also demonstrates the region’s somewhat faded centrality to global power, writes Greek FDI and investment migration lawyer Christina Georgaki.
Today, it may be the most critical geostrategic region on the planet.
The self-evident first: Ukraine, with Russia’s only year-round port, has highlighted the essential status of the Red Sea corridor as a lifeline for both countries’ trade of natural resources and arms, both increasingly peppered by drone attacks. Russia’s recent pause on shipping via the Sea of Azov is expected to affect a quarter of the country’s grain exports, and the inability for the world’s largest grain exporter to move its product easily during harvest time has already sent grain futures spiralling.
If the naval blockades by Ukraine and Iran have offered a lesson to Europe, it is that conflict is rarely isolated within national borders. During the Syrian Civil War, Russia was perhaps the quickest to recognise the potential for the conflict to tip the balance of power in the Mediterranean, and established the Khmeimim airbase in the country in partnership with then-President Assad. Russia is not alone: external powers, including China and other Gulf states, increasingly seek power in the Mediterranean as its strategic importance grows. The Mediterranean has become a military staging point, and also a critical strategic priority.
Even China acknowledges this. Its investment in particular, via its Belt and Road initiative, represents a vast influx of economic investment across the region, across projects such as Greece’s Port of Piraeus, and shipping partnerships in Italy and the Suez. These investments are welcome in accelerating economies, but offer the risk of political dependency. The EU is somewhat lagging behind on flexible Mediterranean investments, and needs to address this underinvestment to fully focus its own soft power in the region.
It is against this backdrop of threats that NATO’s southern flank has regained strategic prominence not seen in decades. The Alliance is intent on increasing the resilience of the region to conflict and further trade disruption, and signed the Readiness Action Plan in 2014 in Wales, with France, Italy, and Spain and Greece playing key roles given the countries’ key partner status in the Eastern Mediterranean. Airbases and ports such as Crete’s Souda Bay are critical to countering Russian influence. The Alliance has also stepped up patrols in the region, monitoring submarines and cracking down on Russia’s shadow fleet. Militarily at least, Western powers lend the region the attention it deserves.
In this evolving strategic landscape, Greece and other Mediterranean countries occupy a uniquely valuable position. The Mediterranean has become an indispensable hub for allied logistics, naval operations and regional diplomacy. As the centre of geopolitical gravity shifts southwards, the West’s future posture in the Mediterranean will increasingly depend not simply on military capability, but on reliable regional partners capable of anchoring stability. Greece is well placed to be one of them, but it needs full support from Western strategic partners to actually do so.
