41. Waves of ambition: Russia’s military build-up in Crimea and the Black Sea
- Author:
- Gustav Gressel
- Publication Date:
- 09-2021
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR)
- Abstract:
- Russia’s capacity to carry out large-scale military operations against Black Sea states allows it to coerce and extort them. Reducing the predictability of such operations is the first step towards deterring them, because Moscow carefully weighs their risks. Western countries should increase their militaries’ interoperability with Black Sea states’ armed forces and improve the infrastructure they use to deploy reinforcements in the region. This would allow them to react to Russian military escalation in kind and thereby increase the risks for Moscow. With Ukraine and Georgia engaged in land wars against Russia, the vulnerabilities of Ukrainian and Georgian airspace and territorial waters have received relatively little attention. Western states could begin to address these vulnerabilities by establishing an international naval presence in the Black Sea. This would counter Russia’s attempts to deny other nations free use of the sea, and could help mitigate long-standing rivalries between allied states in the region. These efforts to enhance Black Sea states’ security will depend on improvements in other areas, particularly the security of government communications, counter-intelligence, the rule of law, and the fight against corruption.
- Topic:
- Security, Defense Policy, NATO, Military Affairs, European Union, and Conflict
- Political Geography:
- Russia, Eurasia, Turkey, Crimea, and Black Sea