New dimensions in Mediterranean security

Abstract

Between the fall of the Berlin Wall and the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the long confrontation between NATO and the Warsaw Pact, the dominant factor in post-war global security, evaporated. In many parts of the world, particularly Central Europe, the effects were cataclysmic. In the Mediterranean, a prominent theatre of East-West confrontation, changes were not immediately obvious. For a number of reasons, among them the peripheral status of the Mediterranean in relation to Europe, the great diversity of the component parts of the region, and the deep historical roots of the region's many problems, the end of the Cold War could not possibly herald peace in the Mediterranean.Therefore there are new dimensions in the Mediterranean security which are dealt with in this chapter.