Over the last decade we have witnessed a significant tectonic shift marked by new security challenges, the emergence of radical ideologies, and the decline of the liberal international order represented by institutionalized multilateralism. Against this background, the Black Sea region is becoming enmeshed in a web of overlapping political, military, trade and energy interests among global and regional powers. A strategically important crossroads of the east–west and south-north corridors, the region has changed radically since the breakup of the Soviet Union, with new external Western and Eastern influences to an extent not seen before, and a major reconfiguration of power.