Energy: The West's Strategic Opportunity in the Eastern Mediterranean

A string of recent hydrocarbon discoveries in the eastern third of the Mediterranean Sea has demonstrated once again that world energy production could increasingly be shaped by democratic states that are friendly to the international order and to other liberal democracies in particular. In the near future, development of the strategic resources in the “East Med” will bring energy self-sufficiency to Israel as well as relief from painful economic constraints in EU-member Cyprus. It could also enhance current diplomatic efforts to improve regional stability and security, including the security of an increasingly vulnerable Turkey whose political and strategic future as a member of the Atlantic Alliance is now in doubt. Moreover, through the creation and expansion of a secure energy production sector that also includes Greece, East Med energy could come to directly supply Europe, and thereby help reduce the EU’s vulnerabilities to Russian coercion.