Book excerpt: In the last decade Russia has searched for new alternative policies to compensate for its political deficiencies and to balance its rivals in one of the key areas of the approaching geopolitical rivalry, the sea. The Russian assertiveness seen in the Black Sea-Mediterranean basin has recently been a real concern for the international community. In the six chapters of this book, contributors explain Moscow’s newly perceived assertive foreign and security behavior in the Black Sea and Mediterranean basin from their own perspectives, and reach a conclusion about the limits and validity of this new Russian ascendance in the region.