From the Editor

Over the course of 2015, the security environment in and around the Mediterranean region became significantly more unstable. A number of new developments has only added to the region’s numerous ongoing challenges, to include the unfolding humanitarian crisis caused by the waves of migrants and refugees entering Europe from the war-torn regions of the Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia; the gains by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS); and the Russian intervention to prop up the Bashar al-Assad regime in the already complicated Syrian civil war. These new issues in 2015 have dramatically raised the likelihood of military error or political miscalculation, bringing two major extraregional powers, such as the United States and Russia, into an open confrontation.

It is perhaps fitting, then, that the current issue of the Mediterranean Quarterly leads with two essays focusing on Mediterranean security. Peter Engelke’s “The Mediterranean’s Future in an Age of Uncertainty” focuses on the various drivers and multitude of challenges that are plaguing the region. Perhaps most important, Engelke highlights that because of varying approaches to challenges by the region’s diverse players—the United States, Europe, Russia, and even China, as well as their regional proxies—no simple, straightforward solutions are readily apparent. On perhaps a hopeful if disturbing note, the bombing of a Russian jetliner over Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula on 31 October 2015, followed by the 13 November terrorist attacks in Paris, may just galvanize opinion against ISIS and Islamic fundamentalism and force countries on opposite sides of several other issues in the region to work together. Turkey’s shooting down of a Russian military aircraft along its border with Syria on 24 November, however, demonstrates just how difficult and contentious potential cooperation among the regional players can be.

Magnus Nordenman follows with “Europe and Its Seas in the Twenty-First Century.” His overall argument demonstrates that the Mediterranean Sea has been and remains one of the world’s major transportation arteries and will continue to be a European lifeline for the foreseeable future, in particular for access to oil. It is also one of the most unpredictable and unstable regions, as the migrant crisis has shown, and therefore the North Atlantic Treaty Organization ignores the maritime security dimension of the Mediterranean Sea at Europe’s peril.

The year 2015 was one that saw Greece hold two national elections—one in January and one in September, which reaffirmed the mandate of the Coalition of the Radical Left, also known as SYRIZA, under Alexis Tspiras. Greece also held a nationwide referendum in July in order to give the Greek government the domestic political wiggle room to restructure its financial obligations with its international creditors. Although the Greek people registered their firm opposition to the bailout terms being negotiated with Greece’s eurozone partners, the resulting package negotiated with those angry partners ensures that Greece’s economic future will remain in limbo for some time. George Bistis’s essay, “From Karamanlis to Tsipras: The Greek Debt Crisis through Historical and Political Perspectives,” places the traumatic events of the boom-and-bust Greek economy in its proper historical context while offering important policy prescriptions for the Tsipras government.

Looking at the Greek debt crisis from an insider’s perspective in “The Greek Economic Crisis: Myths, Misperceptions, Truths, and Realities,” Thanos Catsambas, former alternate executive director at the International Monetary Fund representing Albania, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Malta, and San Marino, provides a robust refutation of some of the most important misconceptions of Greece’s economic and financial situation over the past six years. These myths were manipulated by Greek governments of all stripes to avoid some of the harsh economic realities confronting them—to the severe detriment of Greece and the Greek economy. Indeed, as Catsambas highlights, the SYRIZA government in power since January 2015 lost valuable time in putting the country back on the path toward economic growth and instead tried to negotiate further debt relief but ended up settling for a third bailout with even more stringent terms than were previously offered. Despite a political resolution over the summer, with...