English abstract
The Red Sea and its environs, are receiving increased global attention due to their economic and
military importance. There is an obvious competition between regional and international players
in this strategic geopolitical pathway which puts the region at a crossroad. The potentials are open
to rewards or disasters where the possibilities of intense economic growth are accompanied by an
increasing regional and international rivalry. This research tries to get a comprehensive
understanding of the importance of the Red Sea geopolitically and how the competition between
powers in the region will affect the future of the region epically security threats that range from
maritime piracy to human, drugs and weapons trafficking. This research aims to reveal the
geopolitical significance of the Red Sea and the regional and international rivalry in the region. It
also aims to identify the main security challenges, and to address the responses of the regional and
international powers to these challenges. This qualitative research used a qualitative methodology
and techniques to collect data. It also used statistics, graphs, tables and maps to enhance the
qualitative analysis of data. The research involves collecting and analysing data through observing
the regional dynamics to get an in-depth insight to its geopolitics, rivalry and security threats. The
researcher makes interviews with personals and officers of the regional and international powers
to get information thorough one–on-one conversations. The study come to conclude that gaps in
regional management and governance lead to an increased rivalry in the region. This lead to create
insecure environments and emergence of non-state actors and fortunately yet major disruption to
maritime traffic have not occurred. Many initiatives to increase the Red Sea mandate but most of
them were geographically limited or lack all powers consensus. Challenges on building
governance initiatives dealing with the Red Sea are many and complex ranging from mistrust and
competition to definition of corporation areas and priorities setting. This study gets to a conclusion
that to ensure the success of any security initiative in the Red Sea, it must include all related nation.
Also, it is important to resolve any inherent tensions between nations interested in the Red Sea
region to facilitate corporation, and concentrate in solve these tensions rather than embedding them
in new Governance mechanisms.
