Textual Analysis

For this thesis, the bulk of data derived from document collection and analysed afterwards. Pouliot proposes that textual analysis is among the methods to gain indirect access to data, such as selecting particular textual genres that lead into the subject of studies (Pouliot 2013: 49). Accordingly, the principal data for the thesis was retrieved from official policies and legislative documents of the EU and NATO in relation to their policy on counter-terrorism and counter-migration in the Mediterranean Sea. These documents were analysed intended to understand the process of counter-measures in the Mediterranean Sea, and subsequently provide substantial information to evaluate the roles of NATO and EU in maritime operations. In addition, textual analysis also consisted of literature analysis from academic works and general texts on EU and NATO selected policy fields. The texts have been analysed and provide the bulk of narratives for

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discussion on the implementation process, guidelines and action plan related to the selected areas of research.

Primary sources from the EU have been retrieved mainly from the institutions’ web-based archive. This includes, European Maritime Strategy adopted by the Council of the EU, regulations adopted by the European Commission, conclusions adopted by the European Council, joint statement by European External Action Service, press release, as well as Regulations on Establishing Frontex and EUROSUR from the European Parliament. The selection of the EU official documents primarily draws on related policies to counter-terrorism and counter-migration, which indicates the process of maritime activities or maritime legislation in the Mediterranean Sea. For instance, in helping to determine which maritime threats pose greater concern for the EU, I analysed the EU policy, European Union Maritime Security Strategy (EUMSS) that covers both internal and external aspects of EU’s maritime security. The strategy identifies the risks and threats that the EU is currently dealing with in the maritime domain. To that end, the strategy provides essential data that is appropriate to explain the maritime security situation in the Mediterranean Sea. Furthermore, other EU policies were analysed to investigate the maritime activities in the Mediterranean Sea. For instance, European Council decisisons dated June 2015 on the proposal of adoption of Eunavfor Med operation in the Southern Mediterranean were analysed for this purpose. This document provides legal mandates and strategic directions of the operation which functions as a main legal framework for EU counter-migration initiatives in the Mediterranean Sea and serves as essential textual analysis in the thesis.

Likewise, the resources for NATO were also retrieved largely from their official web pages. This includes press releases from NATO Warsaw summit, conclusions adopted by NATO regarding Operation Sea Guardian, various committee reports by NATO Parliamentary Assembly of combatting terrorism and maritime security in the Mediterranean, as well as parliamentary speech on Operation Active Endeavour. For example, to analyse the current NATO

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operations in the Mediterranean Sea, the Warsaw Summit Communiqué serves as important document to identify NATO maritime activities. This document highlights distinct provision in regards to implementation of Operation Sea Guardian to deal with migration crisis in the Mediterranean Sea. The Wales Summit Declaration, on the other hand also serves as fundamental framework for NATO engagement in the maritime domain particularly with the provision on the counter-terrorism operation, Operation Active Endeavour. This declaration also highlights provision on NATO’s commitment to enhance its naval forces to support maritime situational awareness and to conduct maritime operations. Ultimately, these primary sources including official policies and declarations are substantial for collecting essential information of NATO maritime activities.

Another sources for empirical data also obtained from academic works and regional specialists on EU and NATO policies in counter-migration and counter- terrorism. For instance, Navigating Troubled Waters: NATO’s Maritime Strategy by Jason Alderwick (2010), NATO’s Role in the Struggle against Transnational Terrorism by Anton Bebler (2008), and NATO’s Role in the Mediterranean and Broader Middle East Region by Alberto Bin (2008), explored NATO’s maritime strategies to combat terrorism at sea, particularly through its Operation Active Endeavour in the Mediterranean Sea. There are a large number of academic journals, articles and books relevant to the study of EU and NATO policies in the Mediterranean Sea. This academic writing serves a major role in contributing to the empirical discussions particularly in relation to maritime security threats in the Mediterranean Sea. Secondary sources derived from media sources, including newspaper, articles, policy report and commentaries have also been analysed to provide additional useful information for a more detailed narratives of the empirical studies.

3.4.2 Interviews

Another important part of the empirical sources derived from semi-structured elite interviews. As Pouliot suggests, qualitative interviews are particularly suitable to provide different perspectives for the researcher (Pouliot 2013: 51). Moreover,

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interviews assist researchers to scrutinise the issues discussed in more detail considering the broad knowledge the interviewees have. In-depth interviews are useful in order to reconstruct the knowledge because the ideas and information gained from the interviews often reveals more than the documents material (Pouliot 2013: 51).Therefore, in order to collect more contemporary and reliable resources, I conducted several elite interviews with NATO military officials, EU military officials and enforcement officials of the EU agencies. I have conducted five interviews during a period from June to November 2016. The interviews were conducted in several places including in Warsaw, Rome and Cardiff. The interviewees include, spokesperson and Chief of Media Cell Eunavfor Med, the EU Coordinator for Counter-Terrorism, spokesperson of Frontex, former NATO’s Deputy Assistant Secretary General for Operations and Operational Manager of Joint Operation Triton (EU).

Before the interview was conducted, there are several factors taken into account in the selection process and type of interviews to be conducted. For my research, I have selected a semi-structured interview rather than structured interview because it provided more flexibility for both interviewer and interviewee during the interview session to vary the sequence of the questions and pursue more information with the follow-up questions. After all: ‘semi-structured interview[s] can be useful if the interviewer needs to adapt to respondents with varying levels of comprehension or ability to articulate their responses’ (Blakeley 2013: 160). As for the selection process of interviewees, they were selected according to their background, rank, and experience, which appropriate for the research. The interviewees are the operational and military officials who have been directly involved with the implementation of counter-terrorism and counter- migration activities in the Mediterranean Sea. The data gleaned out from the interviews serves as important information to support the materials derived from the other texts and documents. The interviews also fill the gap of missing data unable to be retrieved from the textual analysis.

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As a standard procedure for the interview, a set of questions were prepared prior. However, as the interviewees represent different agencies from one another, all interviewees have been asked a different set of questions according to their expertise. In general, only during the beginning of the interview they were asked the same question about the roles of their agencies in counter-terrorism and counter-migration in the Mediterranean Sea. The interview then pursued with follow up question of various themes or topics that were required for the research. The representatives from the EU agencies were asked to elaborate about the details of the EU current maritime operations in the Mediterranean in the respective policy fields related to terrorism and irregular migration. They were also asked about the future cooperation with NATO to deal with maritime threats in the Mediterranean Sea. Similarly, representative from NATO was asked the similar theme of questions. However, the questions also include how they perceive their future role in the Mediterranean Sea in order to engage more actively as they have limited enforcement operations in the area in comparison to the EU. All the interviewees agreed to be recorded during the interviews and transcripts were made available for the thesis. Direct quotes are used throughout the thesis with only very few adjustments where necessary for clearer comprehension.

3.5 Chapter Summary

In this chapter I have explained the rationale behind adopting a qualitative research approach. The justification of the selection for case studies in this research has been clarified, explaining why the other potential alternative cases were not included in this thesis. This chapter also explained the methods conducted for data collection, including textual analysis and interviews. Having explored the methodological foundations and research design for the thesis, in the next Chapter 4 it explores the important historical background of the Mediterranean Sea security environment after the end of the Cold War. The next chapter also provides a broad overview of the relevant actors in the Mediterranean Sea and their initiatives, maritime operations and security strategies to deal with the security threats in the basin. It provides a detailed narrative and essential

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background of the type of maritime activities which are already in force in the Mediterranean region, before the subsequent discussion on specific case studies in Chapter 5 and Chapter 6 respectively.

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CHAPTER 4

Mediterranean After the Cold War: Actors and Initiatives

4.1 Introduction

The previous chapters have explored security community framework and the methodology involved throughout the study. This chapter links the security community practices with the maritime activities and maritime security actors in the Mediterranean. The chapter provides an initial overview about the security actors in the Mediterranean after the end of the Cold War and further to analyse initiatives, approaches and strategies in order to cope with varied challenges in the region. The chapter explores the broader discourse on cooperative tools as a reactive measures for the maritime security threats, beginning in the post 9/11 terrorist attacks.

The Mediterranean Sea is defined in strict geographic terms as consisting of the territories of only those states that have a Mediterranean coastline (Winrow 2000: 3).22 The Mediterranean Sea is bordered by states with different political ideologies, southern shores mostly dominated by authoritarian and semi- authoritarian states with large Muslim populations. Meanwhile, its northern shore consists of several liberal democracies, and its eastern shore shared by liberal democracies, namely Israel and Lebanon, as well as Syria as an authoritarian state (Boyer 2007: 75). Historically, The Mediterranean Sea is the ‘oldest’ sea, where the rise of naval and economic history began. It has also been a theatre of conflict between the Christian and the Muslim world (Begarie 2006: 30). The Mediterranean Sea, because of its geographic position between three continents has been called the ‘keyboard of Europe’ and has become the world’s trading routes and offered numerous resources (Till 2006: 242). The Mediterranean Sea

22 _{The Mediterranean states include Algeria, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cyprus, Croatia,}

Egypt, France, Greece, Israel, Italy, Lebanon, Libya, Malta, Monaco, Montenegro, Morocco, Slovenia, Spain, Syria, Tunisia and Turkey. This would exclude Jordan and Mauritania, two of the Mediterranean dialogue countries in NATO’s Mediterranean Dialogue (Winrow 2000: 3).

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remains an important shipping route, where approximately 20 to 30 percent of the world’s ships pass through the Mediterranean Sea every day (Till 2006: 244).

Mediterranean Sea was a theatre of power struggle between the great powers during the Cold War era, that includes the Soviet Union, United States, and Europeans that are Great Britain, France, Italy, and to a lesser extent, Spain (Germond 2010: 65). European countries and the United States were most concerned with the presence of Soviet Union in the Mediterranean during the Cold War, therefore their primary objective was to contain the Soviet Union from expanding its power in the Mediterranean at that time. As for the Europeans, they had different interests towards expanding their power in the Mediterranean Sea. UK had an interest to expand its power outside their territory, Italy and Spain were more concern with the security issues emerge from the Mediterranean Sea due to close proximity with the basin23, meanwhile France has the interest to expand its power overseas and maintain their presence in the basin which is a very strategic and pivotal route for trade and economic (Germond 2010: 65). Meanwhile, the Mediterranean Sea is also surrounded by a number of ongoing conflicts, especially the tensions between Greece and Turkey, the Israel-Arab wars, the Suez crisis, the Algerian war, Lebanon war and increasingly domestic instability throughout the region. The Arab Spring had a serious negative impact in the region and has changed the dynamic of security environment in the Mediterranean by which not only it affected the stability of the region, but also resulted in an exodus of refugees to the Europe.24 The crises and instability across

23 _{The Mediterranean Sea is surrounded by areas of great instability and linked to adjacent}

maritime theatres which have their own personal dynamics, therefore security issues are strongly interrelated. This includes the piracy problems in the Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean which may directly affected the security of the coastal states, including Spain and Italy (Germond and Grove 2010: 11).

24 _{The consequences of Arab Spring have exposed the region with security risks and instability,}

including the failure of Morocco to regain stable government since the Arab uprisings; chaos and civil wars in Syria, Yemen and Libya; and the emergence of new radical groups in Syria, Yemen, Libya and Iraq (See Alsoudi 2015: 41-57). With many Arab countries facing serious challenges to their security and stability because of the political turmoil and social unrest, it has resulted to massive migration movements to Europe. The instability has forced thousands of people to flee their conflicted countries in search for better life and economic opportunity. The Arab Spring also has had a disastrous impact on the economy of the EU. Economic crisis led to low economic growth and high unemployment in the conflicted countries. The unrest led to fluctuations in the price of oil which has affected the economy of the EU, by which the Eurozone crisis hit the North

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the Middle East and North Africa region, as well as the threats of terrorism across the region and beyond, indicate that the unrest of the region has direct implications to the EU.

Then, the end of the Cold War manifested the emergence of a broader concept of security. Rather than one solely based on territorial defence, new terms of security encompassing terrorism, proliferation of WMD, transnational organised crime, irregular migrations and environmental concerns were developed (Winrow 2000: 140). In the post-Cold War era, the Mediterranean is at the centre of changing security dynamics with the growing division of two interdependent shores, one to the North, and one to the South. According to Germond (2010), there was a feeling of distrust between the Northern and the Southern states of the Mediterranean region (Germond 2010: 67). On the one hand, Northern states are concerned with the crisis and instability surrounding the Southern states, such as civil war and political turmoil, while the Southern states on the other perceive Europe and US involvement signal a power enlargement in the region (Germond 2010: 67; Winrow 2000: 114). The presence of security actors in the region was initially to address the traditional military threats, however the nature of conflict in the post-Cold War era is contrasted with the Cold War era with the emergence of new non-military security threats. Terrorism, proliferation of WMDs, massive flows of irregular migrants and drug trafficking are feared to threaten the safety of the basin, therefore it has urged the security actors to retain their presence in the Mediterranean. NATO and the EU have increased their presence and security efforts in the Mediterranean demonstrating their readiness to preserve the stability and security in the basin after the end of the Cold War. The two organisations have also explicitly stated the importance of the Mediterranean Sea in terms of security.

This chapter explores the presence of security actors in the Mediterranean Sea and delves into their maritime strategy, cooperative tools and mechanism of states, meanwhile most South states of the Mediterranean facing severe financial crisis (See Knoops 2011: 17-18).

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collaboration in the Mediterranean Sea. The chapter starts with the background of security actors which made their presence dominant in the Mediterranean after the end of Cold War, namely NATO and the EU. In addition, this chapter examines various strategies, initiatives and approaches including multilateral dialogues and maritime operations by the security actors to enhance the stability and security of the Mediterranean. The chapter provides a broad overview of maritime activities by NATO and EU in order to address varied threats in the region and serves as a bridge to link the security community framework with the maritime security practices in the Mediterranean. The chapter is essential to address the power enlargement of NATO in the Mediterranean after the end of Cold War, particularly to actively engage in promoting stability and security in the region. The chapter provides the history of NATO’s presence in the region and the list of cooperative security tools that developed in the Mediterranean, including, NATO maritime strategy and Mediterranean security dialogue. The chapter is also important as it provides a broad idea about the implementation of the EU security strategy in the Mediterranean, including the European Security Strategy and Barcelona Process, for example. With this broader idea in mind, the chapter focuses on the discussion to explore the security strategy and operational operations by NATO and EU to address security threats in the Mediterranean region, particularly looking at the maritime domain.