Strategic panorama 2015

Notes: Alcance y contenido: Capítulos: Reforms at home, problems in the neighbourhood: the European Union's external action in 2014. The Middle East and North Africa: epicentre of uncertainty. The challenges of the thousand Africas, the silenced continent. The United States, in pursuit of a new security strategy. Trade at the service of geopolitics: present and future of the principal international agreements (from Bali to the TTIP).
Resumen: The effects of the process of Arab revolts initiated in Autumn 2010 are already present in the MENA region, fully transformed in security terms. Wars in Libya and Syria are direct results of that process, spreading instability in their neighboring countries and regions. Egypt is trying to regain stability and political normalization, but terrorism is increasing. The Palestinian&Israeli conflict suffered a new phase of open war, in Summer 2014 in the Gaza Strip, confronting Israeli forces and HAMAS and provoking huge human and material damages. The Jihadist threat based in Syria has expanded to Iraq through the Islamic State/Daesh as its mean instrument. This group is practicing massive killing and continues to recruit across the MENA region. The aggravated conflict in Syria and Iraq is dramatically affecting the region in broad, with Iran on one side and the Gulf Cooperation Council countries on the other deepening their grievances. Negotiation between Iran and the International Community on nuclear issues remains plenty of political and strategic obstacles. Multilateralism is blocked in the MENA region, from the Middle East Peace Process to the Euro-Mediterranean Cooperation framework, to be added to the obstacles affecting the implementation of an international coalition against the IS/Daesh, the resolution of the Libyan and Syrian conflicts, and the follow-up of the negotiations on the Iranian nuclear programme. The MENAs southern neighborhood, in the Sahel Strip, continues to be plenty of problems and tensions as well. The Malian conflict remains unresolved and Boko Haram as an additional Jihadist actor is also spreading through national boundaries becoming a regional threat.