The papers included in this volume represent an effort to lay a firmer foundation for this continuing dialogue and to bring together different points of view. In October 1998, the Strategic Studies Institute, assisted by Pepperdine University, assembled a distinguished group of analysts from the United States, Europe, and the Middle East, in Florence, Italy. At a conference titled "Mediterranean Security into the Coming Millennium," the task of the participants was to address current regional security issues in the Balkans, Middle East, and the Aegean, as well as the perceptions of the individual states, the relevant security organizations, NATO and the European Union, and the players and major external actors like the United States and Russia. These papers cover the many areas discussed at the conference and should advance the debate on Mediterranean security both in the United States and abroad.

Introduction / Stephen J. Blank -- Transnational security challenges in the Mediterranean / Alessandro Politi -- Regional security challenges in the Mediterranean / Stephen Calleya -- NATO in the Mediterranean / Mario Zucconi -- European Union security perceptions and policies towards the Mediterranean / Roberto Aliboni -- Arab perceptions of the European Union's Euro-Mediterranean projects / Mohammad El-Sayed Selim -- Security challenge in Kosovo: toward a region-stabilizing solution / Steven L. Burg -- Cultural scope of Balkan security / Stefano Bianchini -- South-Eastern Europe at the brink of the new century: the security aspect / Valeri Ratchev -- Turkish challenge and European opportunity: Greek foreign policy priorities in a post-cold war setting / Theodore A. Couloumbis -- Turkish security challenges in the 1990s / Duygu Bazoglu Sezer -- Greek-Turkish rivalry and the Mediterranean security dilemma / R. Craig Nation -- Stalled peace process: Israeli-Syrian track / Sami G. Hajjar -- Israeli security in a changing environment: challenges and responses / Gerald M. Steinberg -- American policy toward the Middle East in Clinton's second term / Robert O. Freedman -- Europe, the Mediterranean and the Middle East / Rodolfo Ragionieri -- Spirit of eternal negation: Russia's hour in the Middle East / Stephen J. Blank.