The Black Sea region is becoming increasingly front page news in the press and a subject of analysis in the foreign policy think tank community and in international relations reviews as there is growing interest and engagement as to what is actually taking place on the ground there. The power play between and among regional and extraregional stakeholders; the region’s impact as a key zone of production, transit and consumption of energy; and the possible deployment of the sea-based Aegis missile defense system in the Black Sea are all subjects of discussion.

The 2008 August war between Georgia and Russia and the Ukrainian-Russian gas dispute of late 2008/early 2009 have contributed to raising the interest on the Black Sea region. The same applies to the emerging changes in the position of the United States with the emphasis by the Obama administration on improving relations with Russia and Turkey and the downgrading of democracy promotion and greater NATO involvement in the region. The European Union is all the more engaged with a bevy of policies and rising expectations from the region’s states yet grave doubts about its potential to effectively influence developments due to divisions among its member states. Turkey is also actively involved in an attempt to show that it is a power that has to be accounted with. The other states of the region seek a role for themselves yet they are continuing to struggle with various post-Soviet era leftovers such as protracted conflicts, entrenched nationalism, weak institutions and competing identities. Nevertheless, for all stakeholders many concerns such as energy and energy security, good governance, and security and stability are of a horizontal nature.

The region is also replete with a number of paradoxes as a result of the many prevailing vestiges and ideological divides in part due to the presence of a number of relatively weak states which seek protectors/anchors in either regional or extra-regional powers which in their own right aim to enhance their role vis-à-vis each other. As a result, the region is both a new a new strategic frontier for Europe, Russia and the United States in terms of energy security, frozen and festering conflicts, trade links, migration, and other key policy areas as well as with incentives for regional cooperation. The power/ability of certain issues to both divide and unite – one such issue is energy and energy security which potentially should act as a factor enhancing regional security and cooperation given that both oil and natural gas are commodities/natural resources necessary for the modern globalised economy. Nevertheless, the correlation between energy, pipeline wars, the restrictions imposed by the Montreux Convention regarding the tonnage of military ships allowed access to the Black Sea and a perceived Russian-Turkey condominium (bigemony) regarding influence in the Black Sea, contribute to enhancing fault lines in the region as energy security seems hostage to great power competition. The same applies to the role and interest of the European Union whose power of attraction leads many of the region’s stakeholders with membership to prefer privileged bilateral ties with the Union and downgrade the regional cooperation approach. In fact, the current debate regarding the confusion between the Black Sea Synergy and the Eastern Partnership policies is a case in point. The notion of neighbourhood and how it is perceived by key stakeholders is another major conundrum. Does it enhance further cooperation or further division/competition? While regional cooperation is sought after by the region’s stakeholders, its institutionalisation has proved to be a difficult endeavour. Finally, the most challenging paradox has to do with the coexistence between globalisation and entrenched nationalism in the wider Black Sea region.

Many of the aforementioned issue are discussed at length in the current special issue of the Journal of Southeast European and Black Sea Studies on The Security Context in the Black Sea Region. With contributions by Oksana Antonenko, Mustafa Aydin, Nadia Arbatova, Stephen Larrabee, Andrew Wilson and Nicu Popescu, Sabine Fischer, Sergey Glebov, Jeffery Simon, Yannis Tsantoulis, and yours truly, the special issue attempts to present the realities of where the region stands today and what it could conceivably need to do to survive the precarious nature of its security environment.