ΚΕΝΤΡΟ ΜΕΣΟΓΕΙΑΚΩΝ, ΜΕΣΑΝΑΤΟΛΙΚΩΝ & ΙΣΛΑΜΙΚΩΝ ΣΠΟΥΔΩΝ

As the battle for Bani Walid continues unabated, major questions remain about what the next day of the L ibyan war will look like, not only in the Maghreb but also in a wider regional and international level. As the rebels are still sweeping the country for the last supporters of the regime and the Qadh?fi family, the Sahel is boiling, the Syrian regime staunchly refuses any concession to the protesters and in Yemen a new wave of manifestations has been met with more repression. At the other side of the Mediterranean, the E U has got the hands full into the debt crisis of its poorest members, while China and the US are coping with their own controversies and internal issues respectively.

The “Arab Spring” and the uprisings ac ross the region led to two “paradoxes” that few antic ipated at the outset. F irst, the ascent of the Saudi Kingdom as the Sunni regional hegemon and the second, the newrole of the USA as the mainstay of democ ratic change not against radical regimes, as it was the neo-conservative case, but at the expense of regional friendships and allegiances in E gypt, Tunisia and Yemen. In other words, the democ ratic wave has strengthened the regional position of the most undemoc ratic and pre-modern political and soc ial system in the Middle E ast and has enhanced the American soft power in a region where antiAmericanism was skyrocketing.

Through its long history, NATO’s strategic concept has been offic ially changed five times, 1 always trying to keep up with consecutive changes in the international environment. But, except from the offic ial changes of NAT O’s strategy, there have also been changes in its regional strategy, which reflec ts its overall one. Right after USSR’s collapse, USA’s emergence as the only superpower and the rise of global terrorism, the alliance has tried to change its traditional “unilateral” way of ac ting. Since 1 9 9 1 , NAT O has tried to establish “cooperative security arrangements in its neighbourhood”. 2 As Karl-Heinz Kamp puts it, “in the aftermath of the Cold War, the partnership concept served NAT O primarily as a political tool for maintaining order”

With the Arab Spring still unfolding in its backyard, the EU has proven incapable at playing a substantive role in the international politics. The uncoordinated policies of the EU have been widely criticized as the succession of revolts in the Middle East fertilize fears of collapse of the Schengen Agreement and “paralysis” in the implementation of European Common Foreign and Security Policy