The crisis presents Cairo with a strategic dilemma: Egypt cannot accept that a hostile force should wield lasting coercive power at the southern entrance to the Red Sea, but it must avoid being drawn into a new ground war in Yemen. Egypt’s most likely course of action will therefore combine political and intelligence solidarity with Riyadh, a naval and air force build-up in the Red Sea, and the protection of the Suez Canal and the SUMED oil pipeline, whilst showing extreme reluctance towards a ground campaign aimed at recapturing the Yemeni interior.

This analysis examines the nexus between democratic backsliding, socio-economic vulnerabilities, and migration dynamics across the Central Mediterranean. Grounded in the Tunisian case, it advances the hypothesis that the erosion of institutional corrective mechanisms can transform social frustration into political disengagement and, subsequently, into an aspiration to migrate. Through Hirschman’s distinction between Voice and Exit, migration is viewed not only as an economic response, but as a possible form of exit when avenues for political transformation appear limited. The analysis subsequently examines European border externalisation and its inherent strategic paradox: containment may reduce migratory flows without necessarily addressing the roots that sustain them. In this context, a future migration shock could crystallise into a European political event, offering further political capital to far-right parties. The objective is not to forecast a new Ceuta, but rather to isolate the causal mechanism capable of precipitating it.