Aspirationally at least, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is transitioning from reassurance measures to a more serious deterrence posture on the Alliance’s “Eastern flank” vis-a-vis Russia. Decisions in this regard will be finalized down to the wire of NATO’s summit in Warsaw (July 8–9).
The pre-summit debates, however, focus narrowly on that flank’s northern part. Implicitly or inadvertently, Allied officials and analysts tend to equate NATO’s Eastern flank with Poland and the three Baltic States in the context of establishing a deterrence and defense posture. The evolving plans to station allied troops on the Eastern flank, exercise them, build infrastructure for their use, reinforce them in a crisis, defend against possible Russian aggression, and enhance local defense capacities, focus heavily on the Baltic region and Poland. And it is on this sector that political attention concentrates in the run-up to the Warsaw summit. The measures proposed for this sector, limited though they are in scope and capability, are referenced in short-hand as reinforcing NATO’s Eastern flank.
NATO’s Eastern flank, however, runs from the Baltic to the Black Sea region. And it is the Black Sea region that actually forms the arena of Russia’s forceful re-expansion. NATO members Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey face an increasingly dangerous Russia building up its power-projection and area-interdiction capabilities, in and around the Black Sea. But NATO has no clear plans at the moment for the flank’s southern portion in terms of reinforcement and deterrence—certainly no plans comparable with those for the northern sector. While security along the whole Eastern flank is properly deemed indivisible, strengthening only one part of it would increase the risks to the other part directly, and to the whole Baltic–Black Sea flank indirectly.
Writ large, the Alliance’s Eastern flank extends from the Barents Sea to the Eastern Mediterranean. But the space between the Baltic and the Black (Pontic) Sea, traditionally known as the Baltic-Pontic Isthmus, constitutes the fault line along which Western powers have faced Russia for the last 350 years. Over that time, the line shifted repeatedly across the isthmus, westward or eastward. 1945 and 1991 brought sweeping shifts, in one direction and then in the other. With the Baltic-Pontic Isthmus in Russian hands, Eastern Europe is subjugated and the West threatened, necessitating offshore balancing (NATO’s genesis 1949). With Russian power rolled back, eastward of the isthmus, a “Europe whole and free” is at hand (NATO’s enlargement summit 2004).
That issue largely hinges on whether Ukraine would fall to the east or to the west of that shifting line. Ukraine’s fate is an all-Europe, all-NATO issue; but it affects the North Atlantic Alliance’s member countries around the Black Sea directly and immediately. There, the power balance hinges on Crimea. Entrenched and offensively postured on Crimea since 2014, Russia is accumulating capabilities to threaten NATO allies on the Black Sea and even to de-couple the region from the Alliance in crisis situations (Cepa.org, February 2016).
The Baltic-Pontic Isthmus forms the central part of NATO’s overall Eastern flank. What used to be the “Central Front” in Europe before 1991 has shifted eastward as the former Soviet-ruled countries joined NATO. The Baltic-Pontic Isthmus can presently be viewed as the Alliance’s new Central Front, facing a resurgent Russia. The latter has developed a broader and more sophisticated panoply of military instruments and threats. However, the new central front is almost denuded of deterrence and defense forces in the Baltic States vis-à-vis Russia, and completely denuded in Romania and Bulgaria facing the same power. This situation is risky in itself, all the more so if NATO’s handling of deterrence in the East reveals a strategic disjunction between the Baltic and Black Sea areas.
It is generally agreed that NATO interests in the Black Sea region are linked strategically and operationally to challenges in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant, defined as parts of NATO’s southern flank. The Alliance’s eastern and southern flanks intersect in the Black Sea. There, Turkey faces both ways; and it now finds itself circumvented by Russia militarily from the south. Moreover, Russia’s access route to the Middle East runs from Crimea and other Russian bases on the Black Sea. In this light, addressing the challenges on NATO’s southern flank more effectively requires addressing at the same time the concerns of NATO’s allies in the Black Sea.
To properly respond to the aforementioned challenges, NATO’s upcoming summit will need to heed the calls for “balanced” reinforcement both in the Baltic and in the Black Sea region. Romania is leading these calls from the latter region. Bucharest has fully supported reinforcement and deterrence measures for the Baltic States and Poland all along. Romania expects reciprocity from these countries in NATO’s internal debates on security and deterrence in the Black Sea region. This is where Russian power has been pushing back, persistently and forcefully.
It is in the Black Sea region that most of Russia’s acts of aggression, conventional or hybrid, have taken place: “frozen” conflicts and outright military interventions in Moldova, Georgia and Ukraine, with border changes and territorial annexations imposed through military force. NATO has long neglected the task to project stability and security in this part of its direct neighborhood. Russia continues to exploit the security vacuum there and establish faits accomplis.
Newly entrenched on the Crimean peninsula, Russia has appropriated the title to large parts of Ukraine’s continental shelf and exclusive economic zone (EEZ). According to the treaty on Crimea’s accession to Russia (a constitutional act in Russia), “the demarcation of maritime spaces in the Black Sea is determined on the basis of the Russian Federation’s international treaties” (Kremlin.ru, March 18, 2014; see EDM, March 19, 21, 2014). This implies, first, that Russia may deem Ukraine’s agreements on demarcation with other Black Sea countries as no longer valid; and second, that Russia reserves the option to question or renegotiate the existing demarcation agreements.
While the legal usurpation is obvious, it creates uncertainty and complications about the actual division of the Black Sea continental shelf and EEZs among riparian countries. As a result, de facto, Romania and probably also Bulgaria now face Russia as a maritime neighbor; while Turkey faces Russia along a much longer maritime border than it had until 2014, when Crimea was Ukrainian. All Black Sea countries refuse to recognize Russian sovereignty over Crimea; hence, they would not officially recognize any extension of Russia’s maritime jurisdictions. Tacitly, however, they might have to accept Russian-imposed demarcation lines at sea, so as to avoid disputes with Moscow.
Moscow is turning Crimea into a missile-launching platform for interdicting access into the Black Sea area (anti-access, area-denial—A2/AD) with a mix of S-400 air defense systems, coastal-based Bastion anti-ship missiles, and sea-launched Kalibr land-attack guided cruise missiles (Russia has demonstrated this new type of missile by hitting Syria with it from a vessel in the Caspian Sea) (see EDM, March 27, October 26, 27, 2015). The Crimean peninsula’s jutting and sprawling configuration, with promontories enabling forward positioning in all directions, increases the effectiveness of those missile systems. With their long ranges, they cover large portions of the mainland territories and air spaces of all Black Sea countries. Russia is building up these systems in the Black Sea for power projection and political intimidation. When fully developed, these systems could credibly threaten to isolate the Black Sea basin and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies therein from the rest of the Alliance (see below).
Russia is modernizing and augmenting its Black Sea Fleet, aiming to change the ratio vis-à-vis the Turkish fleet, from parity to Russian superiority within the Black Sea. Based on current naval construction plans (Usni.org, June 9), Russia’s fleet could grow stronger than the fleets of all other Black Sea countries combined after 2020, if economic factors do not constrain the pace of Russian naval construction. The modernized frigates, corvettes and submarines, earmarked for the Black Sea Fleet and starting to enter service, are all armed with the long-range land-attack Kalibr missiles (see above). Russia is adding tactical aviation and landing troops to its offensive forces. In contingency-based scenarios, Russian amphibious or helicopter-borne troops could quickly reach Odesa, Tiraspol or the Romanian coast, without encountering significant opposition at sea on the short route from Crimea.
Traditionally, Russia’s military access route into the Balkans passed through the Russian- or Soviet-held Ukraine (see EDM, June 10, 2015). After 1991, independent Ukraine shielded Romania and implicitly other Balkan countries vis-à-vis Russia. With Crimea in Russian hands, however, Ukraine can be circumvented or outflanked. A hypothetical Russian operation could simply cut across the Black Sea to reach the western coast. In such a case, Russia will have turned most of the Black Sea maritime and air spaces into Russian interior communication lines. A harbinger of this could be seen in 2008, as the Russian fleet reached Georgia without opposition and landed troops on the Georgian coast. This was possible then in a narrow sector of the Black Sea; but Russia’s seizure of Crimea, military buildup there, and the emerging A2/AD factor open possibilities for wider operations of that sort, unless NATO (non-riparians and riparians) increases its naval presence in the Black Sea. This is, apparently, what Turkish President Recep Tayyp Erdoğan meant when complaining to NATO: “Your invisibility in the Black Sea may turn it into a Russian lake” (Hurriyet Daily News, June 17).
At present, the divide between Russia and the West writ large runs through the Black Sea. It is an informal, undeclared, blurred, but nevertheless real fault line, in effect a prolongation of the Baltic-Pontic Isthmus fault line (see Part One). Russia’s seizure of Crimea has shifted the line westward and southward, and the peninsula’s over-militarization is turning NATO’s allies and partners around the Black Sea into frontline states in peacetime. On land, meanwhile, NATO partners Georgia and Ukraine are frontline states under attack, but have little to show for that partnership thus far. NATO’s upcoming summit in Warsaw (July 8–9) will address the question of partnerships, but this is not among the priorities on the summit’s agenda.
With its seizure of Crimea and military buildup there, Russia seems on course to achieve a capacity for political intimidation. Ahead of NATO’s summit, Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borissov has nervously rejected a Romanian proposal for naval cooperation tenuously linked to NATO. This reaction in almost panicked tones may be seen as a harbinger of future Russian dominance through intimidation in the Black Sea (Novinite, June 16–18; see EDM, March 14, 2014).
That also seemed to be Erdoğan’s message in his own style (see above). Russia’s capacity for intimidation in the Black Sea is a manageable problem at this stage, provided that NATO and the United States address this problem before it grows out of control. The window of opportunity will narrow, however, if Russia continues its military buildup in and around the Black Sea without offsetting measures by NATO and the United States. This makes it urgent for NATO’s upcoming summit to adopt decisions that strengthen deterrence and defense capacities in allied countries on the Black Sea, as well as maritime security through Romania’s naval initiative.
