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346 Journal of the Spanish Institute for Strategic Studies Núm. 11 / 2018 INTRODUCTION The book Minorities and Borders in the Greater Mediterranean: A Challenge to Security in the XXI Century deals with the subject of international insecurity in relation to the Greater Mediterranean from different points of view. Published in 2016, the book is the result of research previously undertaken by the MESIMA Group (In its Spanish acronym: Minorities, States, and International Security in the Greater Mediterranean), coordinated by Professor María Dolores Algora1. The aim of this publication is set forth by Professor Algora herself in her Introduction, «to study the impact on international security, geographically limiting it to the area that in geopolitical terms is known as the “Greater Mediterranean”, which includes the littoral areas of the Mediterranean basin and those adjacent which are affected by factors defining the former», all within a historical period extending from the breakdown of the Balkans at the beginning of the 90’s until the so-called Arab Springs in the second decade of the XXI century. The publication explores the transcendental effects of minority groups on State territories and borders. Both their territorial aspirations and their transnational movements are described in detail in the book, and they have been fully confirmed by the current cruel reality, which very few predicted when the articles were written in 2014-2015. In this sense, the present study in Spanish may be considered as seminal for future works. The nation-states chosen for this study, multicultural by nature, face the risk of territorial breakdowns and sectarian struggles, in a context of conflicts that dissolve the different elements of cohesion that had appeared after decolonization, and that had stayed in place until the last decades of the XX century. The recent and current wars in Iraq, Libya and Syria, the repeated conflicts in Lebanon, and the unending and apparently insoluble Israeli-Palestinian conflict, all still present at different levels, as well as the situation experienced during the «black decade» in Algiers, are proof of this. The first part of the book develops some general aspects that serve as a basis for subsequent studies. The coordinator of the work, María Dolores Algora, sets the reference framework for the work in her article «Minorities, Borders, and Multiculturality as International Security Elements», focusing on the Greater Mediterranean; this theoretical basis is enriched by Justo Lacunza’s article, entitled «Identity, Culture, Religion, and Security». Begoña Casas, for her part, analyzes the «Identity process» as a whole, and its effects on the conflicts in the Middle East. 1  M.ª Dolores Algora Weber is a Professor of Contemporary History on the Faculty of Humanities and Communications Science at the University CEU San Pablo. As principal researcher, she directs the MESIMA Group (Minorities, States, and International Security in the Greater Mediterranean), attached to the Department of Humanities at the Faculty of Humanities and Communication Science at the University CEU San Pablo, and made up of researchers from Spanish and foreign universities. http://revista.ieee.es

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