The Arc of Instability:
An Eastern Mediterranean Focus of an American Responsibility
By Captain Mikel Santiago
LtGen Victor H. Krulak Scholar
Image: Shutterstock royalty-free stock photo ID: 1403094758
Since the conclusion of the Cold War, the global climate has been characterized by a myriad of emerging threats, challenges, and widespread disorder. The preponderance of these crises is globally located in or around littorals and outlines what is widely coined as the arc of instability. This concept is defined by the USMC as volatile regions undergoing rapid change and growth which as a result, lack established economies, infrastructures, and functional governments, thus driving up competition for scarce resources, overpopulation, and socioeconomic disparities. The nature of these crises affects global stability and security and are the most likely areas of concern requiring the United States’ involvement. U.S. foreign policy varies by presidential administration, but naturally will revolve around the protection of the United States and its citizens, the maintenance of access to key resources and markets, the preservation of a balance of power in the world, and the protection of human rights and democracy. As an extension of foreign policy, the U.S. military has an inherent responsibility to recognize these concerns in order to comprehend, navigate, and negotiate the contested areas in which it will likely operate in the future. With that, the arc of instability would be more appropriately understood as the U.S.’ arc of responsibility. When it comes to global power competition, the Eastern Mediterranean (EMED) specifically presents rising security and maritime challenges for the United States and NATO due to the expanding Russian and Chinese presence in the region.
Eastern Mediterranean Instability
Historically, the EMED has been home to countries with diverging geostrategic initiatives. These discordant interests have created unnecessary tension in the region and given rise to a rapidly deteriorating situation that could escalate into a larger regional conflict with broader geographical repercussions. The preponderance of these concerns revolves around having both access and exploitation rights to natural resources within Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ). In 1982, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) defined an EEZ as an area that extends 200 nautical miles past a country’s baseline or 12 nautical miles from one of its territories. Under this law, a country has the sovereign right to explore and exploit natural resources under the sea. This has more recently become a problem because the U.S. Geological Survey estimates that there are enough natural resources in the EMED basin to support the gas consumption of the entire European Union for the next 76 years. Currently, the European Union is the largest importer of natural gas in the world, with the largest share (41%) coming from Russia. Recent global sanctions on Russia in response to the Ukraine crisis have shown just how hard it is for the European Union to eliminate their dependency on Russian gas and oil. The removal of this dependency will have negative second and third-order effects on the Russian economy since Russia would no longer be receiving $850 million a day from oil and gas exports to the European Union.
Conflicts, such as the one between Turkey and Greece over Cyprus’ EEZ, increasingly become more important as they threaten global security efforts if the U.S.’ competitors and adversaries are afforded the opportunity to influence their outcomes by taking advantage of regional discord within the EMED. For example, as the United States and NATO have failed to reach a consensus on whether to intervene in the ongoing territorial and exploration dispute between Turkey and Greece, Russia coincidentally steps in to reduce the tensions. With Turkey and Greece both being NATO members, the two nations’ rocky relations produce a particularly challenging dynamic with respect to their territorial disputes, as there has never been a clash between two NATO members since the formation of the alliance in 1949.
The United States and NATO must remain engaged in these ongoing disputes and international relations in order to maintain security and stability in the region. The United States should be counterbalancing Chinese and Russian expansion by offering more enticing bilateral cooperation agreements with the same countries to improve their economies, infrastructures, and technological demands. The transatlantic alliance must ensure swift and cohesive responses to resolving ongoing disputes between their members in order to prevent escalating tension and further separation. Additionally, NATO must restore its creditability in the region by establishing additional stand-in forces that are aimed specifically at protecting Sea Lines of Communication (SLOC), securing critical infrastructure, and countering anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) threats within the EMED. The current NATO and U.S. allied countries that have already afforded ports to China need to restrict the occupation of military vessels and ensure the appropriate level of counter-surveillance tools are in place to prevent covert Chinese operations.
Russian Expansion and Influence
Despite being a NATO member, Turkey’s continuing strikes in Syria against the U.S. allied Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), paramilitary operations on the Greek border, and their hostile behavior towards the French navy has led NATO to accuse Turkey of being a “disruptive player”. This activity has opened the door for increasing Russian influence. In 2019, Russia entered into a defense deal with Turkey and sold them mobile S-400 air defense systems. If utilized, these assets would challenge the NATO missile defense network. This purchase is ultimately what prompted the United States to remove Turkey from the F-35 program. Even though ongoing differences persist, the United States and NATO still rely heavily on Turkey’s defense cooperation, to include ballistic missile defense cooperation. For instance, Turkey houses multiple U.S. bases that are strategically positioned to provide greater stability and security in support U.S. European, African, and Central commands. Additionally, because of the 1936 Montreux Convention, Turkey maintains the sole authority when it comes to accessing the Black Sea from the EMED. We’ve seen this come into play during the Ukraine crisis when Turkey denied warships access to the Black Sea to prevent greater escalation within the region.
With respect to Syria, when America significantly decreased its focus on the Middle East, it allowed Russia to strategically expand. By propping up Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, Russia was rewarded with sovereign rights to the Tartus naval facility and the Khmeimim airbase for the next 50 years. Both of these military facilities are located on the eastern coast of Syria and provide direct access to the EMED, a newly expanded capability that Russia did not previously possess. These forward-positioned military bases give Russia extended reach when it comes to A2/AD operations against the United States and its NATO allies. From this position, Russia could also potentially disrupt or delay the previously mentioned efforts to use the EMED’s natural resources to dramatically decrease the European Union’s dependency on Russian gas and oil exports.
Chinese Expansion and Influence
Like Russia, China is also engaged in strategic competition with the United States and its allies. China’s Belt and Road initiative (BRI) aims to increase Beijing’s political and economic power by expanding its international trade routes westward. In furtherance of its national strategic goals, China has already secured direct access to the EMED through various seaports in France, Italy, Spain, Greece, Germany, and Israel. China also owns shares of ports in both the Netherlands and Belgium. With the bulk of Chinese international trade passing through the South China Sea, mostly near key U.S. allies, Beijing recognizes the need to extend its trade routes to emerging markets for greater security. Although China’s motives still aren’t clear, its ability to systematically gain access to seaports of key NATO members and U.S. allies has allowed the Chinese to expand their operational reach into NATO’s backyard. It would be naïve to think that China doesn’t understand that the mission of the U.S.’ Indo-Pacific Command (USINDOPACOM) is to deter any Chinese hostile actions. By positioning itself across two geographically separated combatant commanders, Beijing has created an ultimatum for both Washington and NATO response forces.
Furthermore, over the past decade China has made significant financial contributions to Portugal in an effort to bolster their economy and ultimately gain a foothold in the Azores. Specifically, China has expressed an interest in obtaining access to both the Lajes airfield and a seaport on the island of Terceira. If successful, China could strategically use Terceira as a stepping stone to launch an attack, restrict access to the EMED, or even interdict forces as they cross the Atlantic Ocean.
Unnecessary Risk by the United States and NATO
The United States and its NATO allies assume unnecessary risks by allowing Chinese and Russian expansion unchecked in the EMED. It’s one thing to allow trade between yourself and a foreign nation, but to provide them sea basing capabilities within critical striking distances of U.S. assets and military bases is a risk not worth accepting, especially since both Russia and China now possess shipping container missile systems like the Club-K. The Club-K alters the dynamics of world power balance because it turns every ship, freight, or railway platform into a capable ballistic missile launcher. They are also completely undetectable until a missile is actually launched, making the reaction time that much more important. This new capability allows both Russia and China to move strategic ballistic missile assets around the world unnoticed and park them in NATO’s backyard. With the amount of maritime trade that takes place within the EMED are the United States and NATO certain they can track every shipping container’s whereabouts? As both Russia and China acquire more and more real estate in the EMED, the likelihood increases that these weapon systems will be strategically positioned to support future conflict. The sheer threat of these assets creates additional security concerns for assured access to the EMED for the United States and other NATO vessels.
China understands the best way to negate a response from NATO is to have interconnected economic dependencies like Russia does with respect to its gas and oil exports. China’s ability to create new dependencies of international trade, technological advancements, infrastructural improvements, and cooperation agreements on NATO members and their own economies is going to have long-term strategic effects on any future conflict repercussions. NATO members are going to be more hesitant to impose sanctions and trade restrictions on China at the expense of their economies. We’ve seen this in full effect with Germany’s dependency on Russian oil and gas imports during the Ukraine conflict. The United States and NATO definitely need to keep a close eye on China’s current activity and their long-term goals.
Additionally, the U.S. Navy’s Sixth Fleet is known to dock at the port in Haifa. However, now that the Chinese own and operate an adjacent port, there are security concerns associated with potential Chinese bugging and surveillance efforts to gather intelligence on U.S. naval activity. Even though the Israeli government has assured the United States that they would be able to detect such efforts, attempts to still conduct covert intelligence gathering operations would not be uncharacteristic of China. The Chinese telecommunications firm, Huawei has caused global concern with respect to national security, economic integrity, and supply chain security through its operations in multiple countries. Prior to being accused of cyber-espionage on behalf of the Chinese government, the company had contracts with multiple EMED countries, to include NATO members, for 5G networks and technological infrastructure advancements. Although it has not deterred all countries from being involved, those that have pulled back have faced threats to future investments, high tariffs, and customs delays by the Chinese. Most notably, in June 2020, when the British government deliberated on removing Huawei from its 5G network, China threatened to terminate major infrastructure builds like new nuclear plants and high-speed rail links in the United Kingdom. As one can see, the leverage that NATO members have afforded Beijing is already causing them political and economic dilemmas in a peacetime environment. The more interlocked that China becomes within the EMED, the more difficult it will be to deny them an advantage if and when conflict arises.
Tomorrow’s Global Power Shift Begins Today
The global climate is ever-changing in and around the arc of instability. U.S. adversaries have recognized these changes and have strategically inserted themselves to maintain relevancy in the global power competition race. Similar to how both China and Russia don’t want the United States or NATO on their doorstep in Ukraine or Taiwan, the United States and NATO don’t want either country hindering the ability of the alliance to defend its members, allies, or interests. Regardless of whether it’s China’s economical approach or Russia’s brute force tactics, the United States and NATO still have a requirement to preserve the overall balance of world power. If the United States and NATO continue to allow the expansion and dependencies of Russia and China within the EMED today, the former’s ability to negate future conflicts started by the latter will become increasingly challenging. During future disputes, some NATO countries and U.S. allies will have to weigh the costs and benefits of aligning itself with U.S. interests because of their increasing ties to Russia and China. Depending on the severity of the cost associated with aligning closely with the United States, these NATO member states may opt to not fully back the United States due to their own national interests, threatening the cohesiveness of the alliance. The EMED appears to be the latest hotspot where strategic competition and tensions show signs of escalating. Because of this, the EMED presents rising security and maritime challenges for the United States and NATO due to the expanding Russian and Chinese presence in the region. As previously mentioned, the United States and NATO must remain engaged in the EMED through new bilateral cooperation agreements, dedicated response forces, and unified approaches to transatlantic disputes in order to maintain security and stability in the region.
Disclaimer: The views contained within this publication are a direct reflection of the author as an individual and not that of the United States Marine Corps or the LtGen Victor H. Krulak Scholar program.