Where is the RSMed 2026 conference taking place?

The RSMed 2026 conference will be held in the city of Toulon, FRA.

What is the format of the RSMed 2026 conference?

The conference is a strategic meeting, bringing together various stakeholders for dialogue on Mediterranean issues.

When does the RSMed 2026 conference begin?

The conference is scheduled to begin in the fall.

Rencontres Stratégiques de la Méditerranée 2026 (RSMed 2026)

Name: Rencontres Stratégiques de la Méditerranée 2026 (RSMed 2026)
Start: 2026-10-07T00:00:00Z
End: 2026-10-08T00:00:00Z
Location: Toulon

Oct 7–8, 2026Toulon, FranceIn-person

Registration open

The Rencontres Stratégiques de la Méditerranée (RSMed) is an annual strategic conference held in Toulon, France. It serves as a crucial platform for dialogue on the geopolitical, security, and economic challenges facing the Mediterranean region. The conference brings together a diverse group of stakeholders, including policymakers, academics, military officials, and civil society representatives, to foster cooperation and develop shared solutions for regional stability and prosperity.

Committees & topics

Topics
Geopolitical Recompositions: The Emerging Multipolar Order · The Baltic Under Pressure · Investment and Influence Rivalries in Africa · Power Rivalries: France Facing the Great Game · Spheres of Influence in the Indo-Pacific · Wars and Strategic Recompositions in the Middle East · The United States as the Midterms Approach · Transversal Security Challenges

Why it matters

The Mediterranean basin is a crossroads of civilizations and a region of immense strategic importance, characterized by complex geopolitical dynamics, evolving security threats, and significant economic potential. Events like RSMed are vital for addressing these multifaceted challenges through collaborative discussion and the exchange of diverse perspectives. By convening key actors in Toulon, FRA, the conference facilitates a deeper understanding of regional issues and promotes the development of coordinated responses.

The discussions at RSMed contribute to shaping policies that impact maritime security, energy transit routes, migration flows, and environmental sustainability across the Mediterranean. The conference's focus on strategic dialogue helps to identify common interests and potential areas for cooperation among countries that often face divergent national priorities. This collaborative approach is essential for navigating the intricate web of relationships and challenges that define the region, ultimately working towards a more stable and prosperous Mediterranean.

How to prepare

To effectively engage with the discussions at RSMed, participants should undertake thorough preparation, focusing on the current geopolitical landscape of the Mediterranean. This includes understanding the various national interests at play, particularly those of FRA as the host nation, and the broader regional power dynamics. Familiarity with key security concerns, such as maritime safety and counter-terrorism efforts, as well as economic development initiatives and environmental challenges, will be crucial.

Delegates can enhance their contributions by conducting a comprehensive stakeholder analysis. This involves identifying the primary actors in the Mediterranean region and understanding their respective positions and influence. Utilizing frameworks such as the Power-Interest Grid, as described in the lesson on the topic, can help in mapping these stakeholders. Additionally, exploring concepts like 'Hidden Stakeholders' can offer insights into less obvious but potentially impactful actors. Understanding these dynamics will enable participants to engage in more nuanced and productive discussions, fostering effective engagement strategies.

Country perspectives

Where the most-relevant 1 countries stand on the core issues in play. Click through for the full country profile.

France

France views the Mediterranean as a vital strategic interest, focusing on regional stability, maritime security, and economic cooperation, while also addressing environmental concerns and migration challenges.

Role in topic

As the host country, FRA plays a central role in organizing and shaping the agenda of RSMed. Its strategic location and historical ties to the Mediterranean basin position it as a key player in regional security, economic development, and diplomatic initiatives. FRA actively promotes dialogue and cooperation among Mediterranean states to address common challenges.

Topics & background

The background behind each topic and the actors that shape it.

Geopolitical Recompositions: The Emerging Multipolar Order

The post-Cold War unipolar moment, dominated by U.S. primacy and Western-led liberal institutions, has visibly eroded since the late 2010s. Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, China's accelerating military and economic rise, the expansion of BRICS+ in 2024 to include Iran, the UAE, Egypt and Ethiopia, and the assertive non-alignment of states such as India, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Brazil have produced what many analysts describe as a fragmented, transactional multipolarity. Sanctions regimes, parallel financial architectures, and the weaponization of trade and technology have accelerated the partial decoupling of the global economy. The core dispute concerns the rules of the international order itself: whether the UN Charter system, Bretton Woods institutions and Western technological standards remain the default framework, or whether competing poles will entrench rival norms in finance (yuan internationalization, alternative payment rails), governance (sovereignty-first models), and security (regional coalitions outside NATO). Middle powers increasingly hedge, refusing binary alignment between Washington and Beijing-Moscow. Today, the recomposition is most visible in the Global South's diplomatic assertiveness, in the paralysis of the UN Security Council, and in the return of spheres-of-influence logic from the Sahel to the South China Sea. The debate centers on whether this is a durable new order or a turbulent transition.

Key players

The Baltic Under Pressure

The Baltic Sea region has become one of Europe's most militarized theatres since Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Finland's accession to NATO in April 2023 and Sweden's in March 2024 transformed the Baltic into what officials describe as a 'NATO lake,' encircling the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad and the approaches to Saint Petersburg. Moscow has responded by reinforcing its Western and Leningrad Military Districts and conducting frequent airspace incursions, GPS jamming, and naval provocations. The core disputes are layered: conventional deterrence around the Suwałki Gap and Kaliningrad; hybrid threats including sabotage of undersea cables (Balticconnector 2023, multiple cable incidents in 2024-2025) and pipelines; instrumentalized migration on the Finnish, Polish and Baltic borders; and disinformation targeting Russian-speaking minorities in Estonia and Latvia. Energy security has been largely reoriented away from Russian supply, but critical maritime infrastructure remains exposed. Today, NATO's Baltic Sentry mission, enhanced forward presence, and German brigade deployment to Lithuania reflect a sustained Western posture. The committee will assess deterrence credibility, hybrid response frameworks, and the risk of inadvertent escalation in a confined, high-traffic theatre.

Key players

Investment and Influence Rivalries in Africa

Africa has become a central arena of great-power competition, driven by its demographic weight, critical mineral reserves (cobalt, lithium, rare earths, uranium), and rapidly growing markets. China, through the Belt and Road Initiative and the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, remains the continent's largest bilateral trading partner and infrastructure financier. The European Union's Global Gateway and the U.S. Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment were launched to offer alternatives, while Russia has expanded military and political influence via the successor structures to Wagner, now the Africa Corps, particularly in the Sahel. The core contest is over influence as much as investment: the wave of coups in Mali (2021), Burkina Faso (2022), Niger (2023) and Gabon (2023) reconfigured Francophone Africa, with the Alliance of Sahel States expelling French and, in most cases, U.S. forces and turning to Moscow. Gulf states (UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey) have become major investors and security actors, notably in the Horn of Africa and Sudan. Debt sustainability, resource nationalism, and African Union demands for reformed global governance (G20 seat, UNSC representation) frame the agenda. Today, the rivalry plays out in ports, mines, digital infrastructure, security partnerships and diplomatic votes at the UN. African states increasingly leverage competition to extract better terms, while fragility in the Sahel, Sudan and the eastern DRC underscores the security stakes.

Key players

Power Rivalries: France Facing the Great Game

France's strategic posture has been under acute pressure since the mid-2010s. The end of Operation Barkhane in 2022, the withdrawal from Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and ultimately Chad and Senegal, and the closure of its bases in Côte d'Ivoire and Gabon have marked the contraction of the post-colonial French security architecture in Africa. Simultaneously, France has reasserted itself as a leading European military power through support to Ukraine, the 2024-2030 Military Programming Law, and a deeper Indo-Pacific footprint anchored on its overseas territories (Réunion, Mayotte, New Caledonia, French Polynesia). The core dispute is how a middle power with global ambitions navigates a great-power competition it does not lead. Paris faces Russian information operations across Francophone Africa, Chinese economic and diplomatic encroachment in the Pacific and Indian Ocean, and tensions with the United States over European strategic autonomy, defense industrial policy and AUKUS fallout. Domestically, political fragmentation since the 2024 legislative elections complicates long-term commitments. Today, France seeks to recompose its influence through partnerships (India, UAE, Greece, Indonesia), EU defense leadership, and a renewed African doctrine emphasizing equal partnership. The committee will assess whether this recomposition is sustainable amid budgetary, political and reputational constraints.

Key players

Spheres of Influence in the Indo-Pacific

The Indo-Pacific has emerged as the principal theatre of 21st-century strategic competition, accounting for more than 60% of global GDP and the bulk of maritime trade. China's military modernization, expansive maritime claims in the South and East China Seas, and pressure on Taiwan have catalyzed a dense web of U.S.-led responses: the Quad (USA, Japan, India, Australia), AUKUS (2021), the U.S.-Japan-ROK Camp David framework (2023), and upgraded Philippine basing under EDCA. Regional states pursue varied strategies, from ASEAN centrality and hedging to overt alignment. The core disputes include the Taiwan Strait, where Beijing has intensified gray-zone operations; the South China Sea, where Chinese coast guard confrontations with the Philippines have escalated since 2023; the North Korean nuclear program and its deepening alignment with Russia; and competition over Pacific Island states' diplomatic recognition and security agreements. Economic statecraft—semiconductor export controls, supply chain reshoring, and IPEF—runs parallel to military posturing. Today, the region balances on dense deterrence architecture and equally dense economic interdependence. The committee will examine whether overlapping minilaterals constitute a coherent regional order or a brittle patchwork vulnerable to a single crisis—most acutely over Taiwan.

Key players

Wars and Strategic Recompositions in the Middle East

The October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel and the ensuing war in Gaza shattered the trajectory of Abraham Accords-era normalization and reignited region-wide conflict. The war expanded into Lebanon with Israeli operations against Hezbollah in 2024, into the Red Sea via Houthi attacks on shipping, and into direct Israeli-Iranian exchanges in April and October 2024 and again in June 2025. The fall of the Assad regime in Syria in December 2024 reshaped the Levant, weakened Iran's 'Axis of Resistance,' and opened a new Turkish-Israeli-Gulf competition over Syrian reconstruction and influence. The core disputes remain the unresolved Palestinian question, Iran's nuclear program and regional proxy network, the security architecture of the Gulf, and competition for post-conflict reconstruction in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen. Saudi-Israeli normalization remains conditioned on a credible Palestinian political horizon. Energy markets, migration flows and maritime security in the Red Sea and Strait of Hormuz give the region global systemic weight. Today, the Middle East is undergoing one of its deepest strategic recompositions since 1979: Iran weakened but nuclear-threshold, Israel militarily dominant but diplomatically isolated, Gulf states ascendant as economic and diplomatic hubs, and external powers (U.S., China, Russia, Turkey) jockeying for position.

Key players

The United States as the Midterms Approach

The second Trump administration, inaugurated in January 2025, has driven a sharp reorientation of U.S. foreign and economic policy: sweeping tariffs under expanded executive authority, renegotiation of alliance burden-sharing, conditional support to Ukraine, pressure on NATO European members to raise defense spending toward 5% of GDP, and a transactional approach to Indo-Pacific and Middle Eastern partners. Domestically, deep polarization, contested executive actions, and judicial pushback have shaped governance, while the economy has navigated tariff-driven inflation pressures and shifting investment patterns. The core dispute, as the November 2026 midterms approach, is whether the administration's agenda will be ratified, constrained, or reversed by Congress. Control of the House and Senate will determine the fate of fiscal policy, Ukraine aid, immigration enforcement, and the institutional architecture of executive power. Allies and adversaries alike are calibrating their strategies to the possibility of either entrenched 'America First' policy or a divided-government recalibration. Today, U.S. partners face deep uncertainty about the durability of commitments, while competitors test the limits of American attention and resolve. The committee will assess how the midterm cycle reshapes alliance management, trade architecture, and U.S. positioning in Ukraine, Taiwan, and the Middle East.

Key players

Transversal Security Challenges

Beyond classical interstate conflict, a set of transversal challenges increasingly define security: cyber operations against critical infrastructure, weaponization of artificial intelligence and disinformation, sabotage of undersea cables and pipelines, climate-driven instability, transnational organized crime, and pandemic risk. These threats are characterized by attribution difficulties, dual-use technologies, and the blurring of civilian and military domains. The UN OEWG on ICTs, the AI Safety Summits (Bletchley 2023, Seoul 2024, Paris 2025), and ongoing CCW discussions on lethal autonomous weapons reflect halting multilateral efforts to develop norms. The core disputes concern responsibility and governance: how to attribute and respond to hybrid attacks below the threshold of armed conflict; how to regulate dual-use AI without stifling innovation; how to protect critical maritime and space infrastructure that lies largely in commercial hands; and how to address climate security in fragile states without securitizing development. Trafficking flows—narcotics, arms, humans—exploit governance gaps from the Sahel to Latin America to the Mediterranean. Today, the gap between the pace of technological and environmental change and the speed of multilateral response is widening. The committee will examine cross-cutting frameworks, the role of the private sector, and the resilience of societies as much as states.

Key players