Experts from across the European strategy and security community have gathered for an international conference focused on issues in the Mediterranean.
High-ranking NATO officials, ambassadors and military attaches gathered for ‘The Case of Eastern Mediterranean Region’, held in Piraeus, Greece. Organised by the Dartmouth Centre for Sea Power and Strategy within Plymouth University, and its partner the Hellenic National Defence College, the event covered a range of issues including Russia’s role in the Syrian conflict.
The four keynote speakers of the conference also examined the contemporary security threats and the geopolitical equilibrium in the Mediterranean, and the challenges and opportunities in the fields of energy economics and security.
Dr Fotios Moustakis, Director of the DCSS, and co-organiser of the event, said:
“The conference was a major success and drew a very high-profile audience from the security and strategy fields. With increased instability in the Mediterranean, due to the Syrian crisis, Russia’s engagement in the conflict and its increasingly aggressive stance towards Turkey, it provided a very timely opportunity to assess the many factors at play in the region.”Speaking at the event was Professor James Bergeron, Chief Political Advisor, Allied Maritime Command, NATO; Dr Graeme Herd, Professor of Transnational Security Studies, George C. Marshall European Centre for Security Studies and Associate Director at the Dartmouth Centre for Sea Power and Strategy; Mr Mathios Rigas, CEO of Energean Oil and Gas; and Major General Yaakov Amidror, Anne and Greg Rosshandler Senior Fellow, Former National Security Advisor to the Prime Minister of Israel and the Head of the National Security Council.
Among the 160 attendees were a number of ambassadors, and the military attachés of the UK, US, Israel, France, Germany and Spain, as well as representatives from the Hellenic Joint Chief of Staff, the HQ of the three branches of the Hellenic Armed Forces, and the military academies of the Hellenic Armed Forces. It also drew representatives from a number of defence industries and the space research cluster.