11. Security Factors and Responses in the Emerging Mediterranean Strategic Setting
- Author:
- Roberto Aliboni
- Publication Date:
- 07-2002
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Istituto Affari Internazionali
- Abstract:
- During the Cold War, threats coming from across the Mediterranean Sea to Europe and the Western world in general were strictly related to the East-West confrontation. National security was not endangered by possible attacks from the Mediterranean or Middle Eastern countries as such but by the East-West escalation South-South conflict could be able to give way to. In this sense, the Arab-Israeli conflict was a central threat to Western security. What was frightening was not the military power of the regional countries but their alliance with the Soviet Union and the possibility of what at that time was called horizontal escalation (as opposed to East-West direct vertical escalation).
- Topic:
- Security and Defense Policy
- Political Geography:
- Europe, Israel, Soviet Union, and North Africa