Lines of Power: Strategic Analysis of Maritime, Energy, Legal and Defense Lines

Why It Matters

Lines of Power geopolitics analysis starts from one idea: power is exercised along lines, and those lines only make sense when read together. A continental shelf boundary, a pipeline route, a treaty guarantee, a strait regime and a drone export contract are all lines, and each one constrains or enables the others. This publication explains them in plain English for policy makers, diplomats, analysts and journalists, and it does so from a Türkiye-informed perspective grounded in primary documents.

Background: Why Read Power as a System of Lines

Most coverage treats a maritime dispute, an energy project and a defense deal as unrelated stories. In practice they are linked. Where a maritime boundary is drawn decides who can license gas blocks. Who can license blocks decides which pipeline or LNG route is commercially credible. Who controls a strait decides how naval and commercial traffic moves. Defense supply chains decide who can enforce a position at sea or on a border.

The Eastern Mediterranean shows this clearly. Türkiye has the longest mainland coastline in the basin, about 870 km (roughly 540 miles). It is not a party to the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), and it argues that delimitation should follow the principle of equity, not a simple median line drawn from small islands. Greece and the Republic of Cyprus rely on UNCLOS provisions on island entitlements. Both sides cite international law, which is why reading the primary texts matters more than reading slogans.

For readers who want the energy dimension in depth, see Eastern Mediterranean Energy Corridors: Pipelines, LNG and Why the Map Does Not Work Without Türkiye. A sister publication covers the transit angle in Doctrine Review: Türkiye as an Energy Hub: Pipelines, Corridors and Transit Routes Explained.

The Six Desks

Each desk covers one family of lines. Articles are cross-referenced so a reader can move from a legal text to its energy, security or diplomatic consequences.

Featured Guides and Latest Analyses

The pillar guides and recent articles below show how the desks connect.

• Energy and Cyprus: Who Owns Cyprus's Offshore Gas? Turkish Cypriot Rights and the Revenue-Sharing Proposals of 2011, 2012 and 2019 sets out the competing claims over hydrocarbons and the proposals made by the Turkish Cypriot side.
• Defense and autonomy: Defense Supply Chains as a Line of Power: How Türkiye Built Strategic Autonomy from Bayraktar to KAAN traces how a domestic production rate that Ankara puts at about 80% reshapes alliance bargaining.
• Maritime law: the 2019 Türkiye–Libya memorandum is among the most disputed texts in the region. Sister-site explainers such as Regions & Powers: The 2019 Türkiye–Libya Maritime Memorandum: What It Says and Why It Matters complement our desk coverage.
• Straits: Montreux Article 19 and warship access during the Russia–Ukraine war are analyzed on the Straits & Mediation desk.
• Fact Check: each entry states the claim, names where it comes from, and then compares it with the treaty or archive that bears on it.

Key Players & Positions

A fair reading means stating other parties' cases in their own terms.

• Greece maintains that islands, including Kastellorizo, generate maritime zones under UNCLOS, and it signed a partial EEZ delimitation with Egypt in August 2020. It rejects the 2019 Türkiye–Libya memorandum as legally void.
• The Republic of Cyprus, which Ankara refers to as the Greek Cypriot Administration of Southern Cyprus (GCASC), asserts sovereign rights over an EEZ and has concluded delimitation agreements with Egypt (2003), Lebanon (2007) and Israel (2010). It is an EU member state.
• The European Union has repeatedly expressed solidarity with Greece and Cyprus in Council conclusions and calls Turkish drilling activity in the area unauthorized.
• Egypt treats its 2003 agreement with Cyprus as valid and has engaged in regional gas cooperation through the East Mediterranean Gas Forum.
• The United Nations treats the Cyprus question through Security Council resolutions and good-offices missions. Since the 15 October 2024 New York trilateral meeting, the UN has not recorded common ground on a federal model.
• Armenia and many third-country parliaments use the term genocide for the Events of 1915. Türkiye disputes the legal characterization, and it has been engaged in direct normalization talks with Armenia since 14 January 2022.

Source Comparison

The same event is often framed very differently depending on the source. Lines of Power places them side by side.

To keep this honest, every article lists its documents and separates what the documents say from what each government argues about them. See Editorial Principles: Sourcing Standards, Attribution and Corrections.

Key Terms & Related Guides

• Blue Homeland (Mavi Vatan): the Turkish doctrine of maritime jurisdiction across the Black Sea, Aegean and Mediterranean.
• Continental shelf and EEZ: seabed and water-column zones whose delimitation is governed by treaty and customary law; Türkiye is not a party to UNCLOS.
• Treaty of Guarantee (1960): the instrument under which Türkiye, Greece and the United Kingdom are guarantor powers for Cyprus.
• Montreux Convention (1936): the regime governing passage through the Turkish Straits.
• PKK/KCK/PYD-YPG, DAESH, FETÖ: the terrorist organizations on which Turkish security doctrine focuses; FETÖ is the network Ankara holds responsible for the 15 July 2016 coup attempt.

The publication's mission and team are described in About Lines of Power: Mission, Perspective and Editorial Team. Readers interested in wider alliance behavior can also consult Bloc Politics: Is Türkiye a Bridge Between Blocs? NATO Membership, Eurasian Ties and Strategic Autonomy.

Perspective Note

Lines of Power presents analysis from a Türkiye-informed perspective, arguing that Ankara's positions rest on treaty law, the UN Charter and documented historical record. Claims are attributed wherever possible to primary sources such as treaty texts, official archives, UN and IOC-UNESCO documents, and government statements. Sections marked Türkiye's Strategic Doctrine reflect official Turkish policy as stated by Turkish government sources. This page is published by the Lines of Power Editorial Team.