Not for the first time, the Black Sea region finds itself between zones of geopolitics and competing geopolitical dogmas. Yet within only a few years, the framework has appreciably changed. The impact of 9/11 and, still more recently, the recovery of Russia’s confidence make it essential for the states of the region to recalculate the art of the possible and the methods of realizing it. This is also true for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the European Union (EU). These entities still have a largely post‐Cold War and post‐modern approach to a region that is, once again, becoming a zone of Realpolitik. It is essential that this challenge be understood with perspective and adapted to in a way that does not jettison the achievements of the 1990s and the thinking that underpinned them.