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Article
Affiliation(s)

University of Thessaly, Volos, Greece

ABSTRACT

The article seeks to illuminate Moscow’s strategy in the Eastern Mediterranean in the energy and defense sector. For several years, an EU-NATO-Russian (NATO, North Antlantic Treaty Organisation) antagonism surrounding mainly energy and security has been raging in the Eastern Mediterranean, a region characterized by a remarkable, ongoing reconfiguration in the balance of power. Like the Soviet Union, post-Communist Russia followed, for geopolitical but also for purely economic reasons, a policy of “fishing in muddy waters”, i.e. of a slow but steady penetration into Eastern Mediterranean countries. However, this penetration was achieved mainly through indirect tactics. Rather than making territorial demands and sending in their armed forces to annex, the Soviets, as their allies too, supported various political groups and governments with a view to weaken ties with the West and extend Soviet influence southward. They also sought to exploit social discontent emanating from EU-policies, as was the case with the EU bail-out policy towards Greece and Cyprus. In the wake of the Syrian Civil War, however, a new phase in Kremlin’s policy in the region seems to have occurred. Indeed, the Syria War compelled Moscow, for the first time after the end of the WWII, to actively get involved in the domestic affairs of a country by using its military arsenal, though it was known that such a move would provoke Western counter-action. Kremlin’s policy did precipitate some undesired fall-out for the Russians, such as deterioration in Tuskish-Russian relations and exacerbation of the existing Russia-EU/NATO antagonism. Russia seems to have multiple incentives to get involved in the war. Perhaps, the most important one is to strategically divert the West from Russia’s primary interests in Europe, that is, Russian predominance in East-Central Europe. Furthermore, the Syrian campaign has been Moscow’s attempt to retain the domestic prestige it won with the annexation of Crimea and to break out of the external siege that was laid by the West immediately afterwards by trying to fit into the new global order as a great power. In the second place, however, Moscow’s activities in the region have also been addressing China’s objectives to achieve as maximum as possible security of energy supply. This article tries for first time in the recent literature to illustrate Russia’s strategy and policy towards Eastern Mediterranean from two different but intertwined aspects, defence, and energy. It is argued that for Moscow the region serves as an additional field with competition with the European Western countries and the USA. 

KEYWORDS

energy, geopolitics, security, EU, China, gas

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